Project 2025 on Immigration

While the Trump campaign frequently calls for mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, most analysts are skeptical that such a program could be carried out due to the enormous cost and drain on federal resources that would be required.  Detaining, processing and deporting as many as 11 million people would cost in the billions and represent a major disruption to families and economic activity in the US.

What is not being discussed is the set of proposals in Project 2025 that spell out major changes in immigration policy and the human impact these changes would have.  These proposals include:

  • Stepped up detention of undocumented immigrants, including the use of tents as holding facilities, and increase bed space from the FY2024 appropriation of 41,500 beds to 100,000
  • Elimination of T and U visas for victims of human trafficking (T) and qualifying criminal activity (U).
  • Rescind agency guidance advising that certain “sensitive” locations should be avoided for enforcement efforts, such as schools, hospitals and health care settings, places of worship, places where children gather, social services establishments, and places where emergency or disaster relief is provided.
  • Repeal Temporary Protective Status designations, which have been used for immigrants from designated countries such as Afghanistan, Venezuela, Haiti, Sudan and Syria

 

The plans and recommendations in Project 2025 are detailed and comprehensive.  The chapter dealing with immigration was led by Ken Cuccinelli who served as Acting Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2019 and then, from November 2019 through the end of the Trump Administration, as Acting Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

 

Read more here.

 

Project 2025 Statements on Immigration Policy

 

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY – OVERVIEW

“Unfortunately for our nation, the federal government’s newest department became like every other federal agency: bloated, bureaucratic, and expensive. It also lost sight of its mission priorities. DHS has also suffered from the Left’s wokeness and weaponization against Americans whom the Left perceives as its political opponents.

 

To truly secure the homeland, a conservative Administration needs to return the department to the right mission, the right size, and the right budget. This would include reorganizing the department and shifting significant resources away from several supporting components to the essential operational components. Prioritizing border security and immigration enforcement, including detention and deportation, is critical if we are to regain control of the border, repair the historic damage done by the Biden Administration, return to a lawful and orderly immigration system, and protect the homeland from terrorism and public safety threats. This also includes consolidating the pieces of the fragmented immigration system into one agency to fulfill the mission more efficiently.”  (Ref. 1, page 135)

 

“Non-Use of Discretionary Guest Worker Visa Authorities. To stop facilitating the availability of cheap foreign labor in order to support American workers (particularly poor and middle-class American workers) and follow congressional intent, the Secretary should explicitly cease using at least two discretionary authorities as part of his or her broader effort to support American workers.

  • The Secretary should make it clear that he or she will not use the Secretary’s existing discretionary authority to increase the number of H-2B (seasonal non-agricultural) visas above the statutorily set cap.
  • The Secretary should not issue any regulations in support of the “H-2 eligible” country list, the effect of which would prevent favoring certain foreign nationals seeking an H-2 guest worker visa based simply on their nationality.” (Ref. 1, page 138)

 

U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION (CBP)

“CBP, ICE, and USCIS all have authority to issue Notices to Appear (NTA) to removable aliens in their presence, which begins removal proceedings. In most instances, CBP should turn illegal aliens over to ICE for detention, and ICE can then issue any needed NTA. CBP should issue NTAs only in limited situations for humanitarian reasons, such as medical emergencies. In addition, CBP should eliminate use of Notices to Report (NTR) altogether.

 

CBP’s established national standards of Transport, Escort, Detention, and Search (TEDS) have been widely interpreted and expanded by lower courts. This has resulted in unrealistic and differing detention standards for CBP facilities based on the jurisdiction within which they fall, negatively impacting operations. ICE has suffered similarly. A single nationwide detention standard should be codified that prevents individual states from mandating that federal government agencies adhere to widely expansive and ever-changing sets of standards. Such standards should allow the flexibility to use large numbers of temporary facilities such as tents.”  (Ref. 1, page 140)

 

Notes:

  1. ICE is Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
  2. USCIS is United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

 

 

U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE)

“To return ICE to its primary mission, any new Administration that wishes to restore the rule of law to our immigration enforcement efforts should:

  • Order ICE to stop closing out pending immigration cases and apply the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) as written by Congress. The Biden Administration closed out tens of thousands of immigration cases that had already been prepared and were slated for expedited removal processing or hearings before the U.S. Immigration Court. This misguided action constituted an egregious example of lawlessness that allowed thousands of illegal aliens and other immigration violators to go free in the United States.
  • Direct ICE to stop ignoring criminal aliens identified through the 287(g) program. Ultimately, Congress should prevent ICE from ignoring criminal aliens identified by local law enforcement agencies that are partners in the 287(g) program. However, before congressional action, ICE should be directed to take custody of all aliens with records for felonies, crimes of violence, DUIs, previous removals, and any other crime that is considered a national security or public safety threat as defined under current laws.
  • Eliminate T and U visas. Victimization should not be a basis for an immigration benefit. If an alien who was a trafficking or crime victim is actively and significantly cooperating with law enforcement as a witness, the S visa is already available and should be used. Pending elimination of the T and U visas, the Secretary should significantly restrict eligibility for each visa to prevent fraud.
  • Issue clear guidance regarding detention and bond for aliens. Thousands of illegal aliens are allowed to bond out of immigration detention only to disappear into the interior of the United States where many commit crimes and many others disappear, never to be heard from again. This occurs primarily because of poorly worded bond regulations, contradictory bond policy memoranda, and poor practices for managing released aliens and the Alternatives to Detention (ATD) Program, which requires significant reform.
  • Prioritize national security in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). ICE should end its current cozy deference to educational institutions and remove security risks from the program. This requires working with the Department of State to eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations.” 1, page 141)

 

“…ICE should clarify who is responsible for enforcing its criminal and civil authorities. It should also remove self-imposed limitations on its nationwide jurisdiction.

  • Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agents in the 1811 series should enforce Title 8 and 18 crimes as the biggest part of their portfolio. Alien smuggling, trafficking, and cross-border crime as defined under Title 85 and Title 186 should be the focus of ICE operations.
  • The role of ICE Deportation Officers should be clarified. ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) should be identified as being primarily responsible for enforcing civil immigration regulations, including the civil arrest, detention, and removal of immigration violators anywhere in the United States, without warrant where appropriate, subject only to the civil warrant requirements of the INA where appropriate.
  • All ICE memoranda identifying “sensitive zones” where ICE personnel are prohibited from operating should be rescinded. Rely on the good judgment of officers in the field to avoid inappropriate situations.
  • To maximize the efficient use of its resources, ICE should make full use of existing Expedited Removal (ER) authorities. The agency has limited the use of ER to eligible aliens apprehended within 100 miles of the border. This is not a statutory requirement.” (Ref. 1, page 142)

 

Note: INA is the Immigration and Nationality Act.

 

“The use of Blackies Warrants should be operationalized within ICE. These civil search warrants are commonly used for worksite enforcement when agents have probable cause that illegal aliens are employed at a business. This would streamline investigations.

 

Safeguarding Americans will require not just securing the border, but continuous vetting and investigations of many aliens who exploited President Biden’s open border for potentially nefarious purposes, including some Afghan evacuees sent directly to the U.S. during America’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.”  (ref. 1, page 142)

 

“Congress should mandate and fund additional bed space for alien detainees. ICE should be funded for a significant increase in detention space, raising the daily available number of beds to 100,000.”  (Ref. 1, page 143)

 

U.S. CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES (USCIS)

“Needed Reforms

Since January 2021, USCIS’s priorities have been misaligned, and this has transformed it into an open-borders agency, ignoring the critical role that it plays in national security, public safety, and safeguarding the integrity of our immigration system. USCIS should be returned to operating as a screening and vetting agency. Regulatory efforts have focused on easing asylum eligibility in a manner that is guaranteed to exacerbate asylum fraud as people surge at the border. Emphasis also has been placed on removing legal barriers to immigration, such as the use of public benefits. These actions violate statutes, erode congressional intent, and provide a significant magnet for continued illegal immigration.

 

Additionally, USCIS resources have been misappropriated to focus more on creating and expanding large-scale parole and temporary status programs that violate the law and are otherwise contrary to congressional intent instead of focusing on a more secure and efficient process for those who are seeking benefits. The ever-increasing number of applications filed has made it difficult to vet applications adequately for eligibility, fraud, and specific national security and public safety problems.”  (Ref. 1, page 143)

 

“While the Biden regulatory agenda has focused on at least two major rules—the credible fear rule and the public charge rule—USCIS has utilized other policy and internal procedural mechanisms to extend employment authorization to large groups of people who are in the country without legal status. The agency has taken quiet steps to cut corners and lessen adjudicatory standards. During a transition period, a complete audit of agency policies, memoranda, and management directives issued during the Biden Administration should be completed, and rescission documents should be prepared for issuance within the first few days of the incoming Administration. Additionally, regulatory documents should be drafted to review or reverse all regulations promulgated during the Biden Administration.” (Ref. 1, page 144)

 

“Management Directives and policies should realign to ensure that the workforce, while adaptable and able to handle the bulk of the USCIS mission, is not allowed to be pulled off mission work to focus on unlawful programs (DACA, mass parole for Afghans, Ukrainians, Venezuelans, etc.), which divert resources away from nuclear family and employment programs.” (Ref. 1, page 145)

 

“At a minimum, an enhanced regulatory agenda should include rules strengthening the integrity of the asylum system, parole reform, and U visa reform that prioritizes relief for victims of heinous crimes and ensures that we protect the truest and most deserving victims of crime.” (Ref. 1, page 145)

 

“The incoming Administration should spearhead an immigration legislative agenda focused on creating a merit-based immigration system that rewards high skilled aliens instead of the current system that favors extended family–based and luck-of-the-draw immigration. To that end, the diversity visa lottery should be repealed, chain migration should be ended while focusing on the nuclear family, and the existing employment visa program should be replaced with a system to award visas only to the “best and brightest.”

 

Internal efforts to limit employment authorization should be matched by congressional action to narrow statutory eligibility to work in the United States and mitigate unfair employment competition for U.S. citizens. The oft-abused H-1B program should be transformed into an elite program through which employers are vying to bring in only the top foreign workers at the highest wages so as not to depress American opportunities. Additionally, Congress should:

  • Improve the integrity of the temporary work visa programs;
  • Repeal Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations;
  • Permanently authorize and make mandatory E-Verify; and
  • End parole abuse by legislating specific parole standards.” (Ref. 1, page 145 – 146)

 

“At least until USCIS is caught up on all case backlogs, all applicants rejected for any benefit or status adjudication should be required to leave the U.S. immediately. Ordinary process can resume once all case backlogs have been adjudicated.

 

Finally, USCIS should pause the intake of applications in a benefit category when backlogs in that category become excessive. Once USCIS adjudicators can decrease that caseload to a manageable number, application intake should resume.”  (Ref. 1, page 146)

 

“NECESSARY BORDER AND IMMIGRATION STATUTORY, REGULATORY, AND ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES…

Legislative Proposals

  • Title 42 authority in Title 8. Create an authority akin to the Title 42 Public Health authority that has been used during the COVID-19 pandemic to expel illegal aliens across the border immediately when certain nonhealth conditions are met, such as loss of operational control of the border.
  • Mandatory appropriation for border wall system infrastructure. The monies appropriated would be used to fund the construction of additional border wall systems, technology, and personnel in strategic locations in accordance with the Border Security Improvement Plan (BSIP).” (Ref. 1, page 147)

 

“Unaccompanied minors

  1. Congress should repeal Section 235 of the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), which provides numerous immigration benefits to unaccompanied alien children and only encourages more parents to send their children across the border illegally and unaccompanied. These children too often become trafficking victims, which means that the TVPRA has failed.” (Ref. 1, page 148)

 

“Asylum reform

  1. The standard for a credible fear of persecution should be raised and aligned to the standard for asylum. It should also account specifically for credibility determinations that are a key element of the asylum claim.
  2. Codify former asylum bars and third-country transit rules.
  3. Congress should eliminate the particular social group protected ground as vague and overbroad or, in the alternative, provide a clear definition with parameters that at a minimum codify the holding in Matter of A-B that gang violence and domestic violence are not grounds for asylum.” (ref. 1, page 148)

 

“State and local law enforcement

  1. Congress should unequivocally authorize state and local law enforcement to participate in immigration and border security actions in compliance with Arizona v. United States.
  2. Congress should require compliance with immigration detainers to the maximum extent consistent with the Tenth Amendment and set financial disincentives for jurisdictions that implement either official or unofficial sanctuary policies.

 

Prosecutorial discretion. Congress should restrict the authority for prosecutorial discretion to eliminate it as a “catch-all” excuse for limiting immigration enforcement.

 

Mandatory detention. Congress should eliminate ambiguous discretionary language in Title 8 that aliens “may” be detained and clarify that aliens “shall” be detained. This language, which contrasts with other “shall detain” language in statute, creates unhelpful ambiguity and allows the executive branch to ignore the will of Congress.”

(Ref. 1, page 149 – 150)

 

“Averting or curtailing a mass migration event

  1. Provide that whenever the Secretary of Homeland Security determines that an actual or anticipated mass migration of aliens en route to or arriving off the coast of the U.S. presents urgent circumstances requiring an immediate federal response, the Secretary may make, subject to the approval of the President, rules and regulations prohibiting in whole or in part the introduction of persons from such countries or places as he or she shall designate in order to avert or curtail such mass migration and for such period of time as is deemed necessary, including through the expulsion of such aliens. Such rule and regulation making shall not be subject to the requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act.
  2. Provide that notwithstanding any other provision of law, when the Secretary makes such a determination and then promulgates, subject to the approval of the President, such rules and regulations, the Secretary shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements of Title 8 that the Secretary, in his or her sole discretion, determines are necessary to avert or curtail the mass migration.” (Ref. 1, page 152)

 

“Department of Housing and Urban Development: Ensure that only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents utilize or occupy federally subsidized housing.

 

Department of Education: Deny loan access to those who are not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents, and deny loan access to students at schools that provide in-state tuition to illegal aliens.”  (Ref. 1, page 167)

 

“Rightsizing refugee admissions

… One casualty of the Biden Administration’s behavior will be the current form of the U.S. Refugee Admission Program (USRAP). The federal government’s obligation to shift national security–essential screening and vetting resources to the forged border crisis will necessitate an indefinite curtailment of the number of USRAP refugee admissions. The State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which administers USRAP, must shift its resources to challenges stemming from the current immigration situation until the crisis can be contained and refugee-focused screening and vetting capacity can reasonably be restored.”  (Ref. 1, pages 177 – 178)

 

References:

  1. Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise, Project 2025, Presidential Transition Project;

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf