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Codification of President Donald Trump’s immigration and border policies wasn’t done in two years, with a narrow Republican majority in both houses. After Tuesday, it may be a practical impossibility. But that’s nothing new: The last major immigration reform law passed in 1996.
These days, border and immigration results are driven by the White House, not Congress. So, how do things look today compared with the last midterm elections in 2022?
When it comes to our border, the federal government’s job can be summed up by the Three Ds:
- Deter inadmissible foreign nationals from entering the United States illegally.
- Detain them (as the law requires) until their due process is done.
- Deport them, if the courts so order.
Joe Biden’s administration ditched that in favor of the Three Ps:
- Process inadmissible aliens and quickly release them into the country.
- Parole (bypassing visas and other legal means) and induce even more to come.
- Punt them into the backlogged asylum system, hoping they’ll stay indefinitely.
Trump II jettisoned Biden’s Three Ps and revamped the Three Ds, with quick results.
FILE – Guatemalans deported from the U.S. arrive at La Aurora airport in Guatemala City, Dec. 30, 2025, after deplaning a repatriation flight. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)
" data-large-file="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AP26232671644031.jpg?w=1024" src="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AP26232671644031.jpg?w=1024" alt="FILE - Guatemalans deported from the U.S. arrive at La Aurora airport in Guatemala City, Dec. 30, 2025, after deplaning a repatriation flight. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)" class="wp-image-4732472" srcset="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AP26232671644031.jpg 1024w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AP26232671644031.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AP26232671644031.jpg?resize=768,512 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px">
FILE – Guatemalans deported from the U.S. arrive at La Aurora airport in Guatemala City, Dec. 30, 2025, after deplaning a repatriation flight. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo, File)
First, Trump ended the mass parole programs by which Biden brought in almost 3 million aliens and stopped releasing inadmissible aliens arriving illegally at the border. In fiscal 2025, only 691,906 arrived — one-quarter as many as in fiscal 2023. And according to DHS, none were released into the interior. Instead, they were detained and mostly prosecuted for illegal entry.
Second, the Trump administration has increased interior enforcement of immigration law. That means arresting illegal aliens and detaining them during their removal proceedings.
Essential to keeping this up was a recent ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the government can detain aliens who have not been admitted, even if they’ve been here a while. Three illegal alien plaintiffs, assisted by activist groups, had argued that there is a right to “new process” earned by simply being here long enough. The court ruled that the plaintiff aliens “have received the process due to unadmitted aliens,” and that “procedural due process does not require bond hearings centered on assessing dangerousness and flight risk.”
Simply put, that means the government doesn’t have to go to court every time they detain an alien for removal and explain why. Putting that new burden — which Congress expressly avoided requiring — on the government would massively impede efforts to remove illegal aliens.
A third area of achievement has been ramping up visa vetting and reducing issuance in countries with high fraud rates, weak document integrity, or where nationals often overstay their visas. Coupled with this, the government is finally enforcing the Public Charge rule, designed to prevent indigent aliens from coming here and immediately using taxpayer-funded benefits. Consular officers abroad and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services domestically had long been instructed to minimize such concerns.
Fourth, the Trump administration cracked down on abuse of work visas. Vice President JD Vance called out employers for using H-1B visas to hire cheaper, average-skilled foreign labor while they fire more experienced Americans. Big employers, from high tech to universities, want the cheap labor pipeline kept open, and wages kept lower. But young graduates and skilled American workers don’t want opportunities and jobs taken from them to give to lower-paid noncitizens.
The Department of Justice has investigated companies for discriminating against Americans “by preferring to recruit foreign H-1B visa holders over U.S. workers.” After one effort was shut down by a federal judge, DHS has proposed a $103,265 fee for new H-1B petitions. DHS also wants to charge a $70,000 fee for foreign students to work full-time on their student visas through a controversial program called Optional Practical Training (OPT), with an additional $30,000 for renewals. OPT hires are exempt from certain payroll taxes, allowing employers to save up to 15%. This gives them an incentive not to hire American graduates, even when unemployment among recent graduates exceeds the national average.
The Department of Labor has suspended applications from seven technology companies for abusing the process by which foreign H-1B and other temporary workers become permanent residents, known as PERM. The suspensions included U.S. tech giants and also several Indian outsourcing companies that supply cheaper workers to American companies using visas. Labor also said it was investigating nine U.S. universities for abusing J-1 visas, which are supposedly for exchange programs, to bring in workers.
The U.S. Border Patrol keeps watch along the US-Mexico border Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Douglas, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin,File)
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The U.S. Border Patrol keeps watch along the US-Mexico border Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Douglas, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin,File)
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The U.S. Border Patrol keeps watch along the US-Mexico border Thursday, April 3, 2025, in Douglas, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin,File)
While we have seen huge changes in border and interior law enforcement, what hasn’t happened are large worksite raids or enforcement against employers. On this, Trump is being pulled in opposite directions by opposing interests: employers versus American graduates, workers, and his conservative base. At the same time, “sanctuary” policies have made immigration enforcement more expensive, time-consuming, and dangerous, particularly for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
There are other notable changes since the Biden years. No more planeloads of illegal aliens are being dropped off in U.S. cities in the dead of night by the feds, or busloads sent during the day by border-state governors. State governments aren’t commandeering parks, airports, and even schools to house illegal immigrants. Under Mayor Eric Adams, New York spent billions of tax dollars a year to supply released illegal immigrants with food and other benefits. In 2022, New York’s Roosevelt Hotel was packed with taxpayer-funded illegal aliens. Today, it appears not to be taking any guests at all.
Last but not least, violent crime in America has gone down 25%, according to a Department of Justice survey since last year. One can’t directly attribute that to reduced illegal immigration and the deportation of thousands of repeat-offender illegal aliens, but it’s a fair assumption that removing convicted murderers and thieves leads to less crime.
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All in all, Trump has delivered on much of what he promised, though there is more to be done. Meanwhile, the political median among liberals is being pulled even further to the left by the Democratic Socialists of America, towards a policy of zero enforcement. The reduction ad absurdum of this can be found in a recent bill from Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) that would abolish not just ICE but the entire Department of Homeland Security, end all immigration detention, repeal the designation of any terrorist organization, and make deportation almost impossible.
The contrast couldn’t be more stark.
Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center and author of “The Ten Woke Commandments (You Must Not Obey)” from Academica Books.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
