Here are Donald Trump’s immigration and border priorities for a second term.

After defeating Vice President Kamala Harris, winning both the Electoral College and the popular vote by landslides, President-elect Donald Trump said he has a mandate from voters across the country to deliver on his campaign promises, especially on immigration and borders.

“We have a country that needs help, and it needs help badly,” he told supporters early Wednesday in his victory speech. “We are going to fix our borders; we are going to fix everything in our country. We made history tonight for a reason.”

Just as Trump’s first term in the White House focused on immigration priorities such as his signature border wall project, his next term is likely to place a similar emphasis on these issues.

Here’s what President-elect Trump’s first day in the Oval Office could look like, from expanding deportation rules to further restricting access to asylum:

Trump has repeatedly promised a mass deportation operation.

During the election campaign, Donald Trump called for “the largest deportation operation in American history.”

Expelling undocumented immigrants has been a fundamental part of Trump’s platform, but he has not provided details on how he would carry out mass deportations. A few details he shared include the use of the National Guard and local law enforcement agencies such as police departments to carry out his plans.

“If I thought the situation was getting out of control, I would have no problem using the army,” he told TIME magazine earlier this year.

There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. government estimates from 2022. According to a report published by FWD.us, nearly 28 million Americans, including 20 million Hispanics, live in mixed-status households.

“This represents approximately 1 in 12 U.S. residents and nearly 1 in 3 Latinos who face deportation or family separation.” according to the report.

According to the American Immigration Council that Trump’s plan would cost the US more than $315 billion, with an estimated 2.3 million more people released into the country by US Customs and Border Protection between January 2023 and April 2024.

Trump unveiled “Operation Aurora” at an Oct. 11 campaign stop in Aurora, Colorado, where he provided more details on how he plans to carry out deportations of illegal immigrants with gang ties.

“I make this promise and I swear to you: November 5, 2024 will be the day that America is liberated,” Trump told his supporters. “I will save Aurora and every city that has been invaded and conquered.”

Trump has said he intends to invoke the Enemy Alien Act of 1798, a law that allows the president to deport any noncitizen who comes from a country with which the United States is at war, to implement his plans. USA TODAY reported Last month, Trump could possibly use the same powers that President Franklin Roosevelt used during World War II to detain people of Japanese, German and Italian descent.

Other deportation plans include eliminating “radicals who support Hamas” to “make our college campuses safe and patriotic again,” according to the statement Trump campaign website.

How will Trump crack down on the border?

Speaking at the Arizona-Mexico border in Cochise County in August 2024, Trump emphasized the need for “strong borders” after four years of Biden’s policies.

Trump listed accomplishments of his first term, such as partially ending catch-and-release and implementing the controversial Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the Remain in Mexico program.

“Everyone stayed in Mexico until they were released, and they either got in or they didn’t. Most of them didn’t qualify,” Trump said. “The last holes in the wall were going to be filled, but then Kamala came along and tore down all of Trump’s border rules and stopped all wall construction.”

Containing immigration at the southwest border remains an important part of Trump’s campaign and presidency. According to the Trump campaign, the president-elect has promised to “close the border and stop the migrant invasion.” Agenda 47 Platform.

Trump has vowed to resume border wall construction, which was put on hold after he lost the 2020 election. During his first administration, Trump pushed to build about 450 miles of new barriers, costing about $11 billion appropriated by Congress in 2019. Much of the construction replaced old existing fencing.

Trump also proposed adding 10,000 Border Patrol agents at a campaign stop in Prescott Valley, Arizona, where he accepted approval from the National Border Council. In recent years, the Border Patrol has had difficulty recruiting and retaining agents, despite having funded positions available to fill.

Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Council, shared some optimism in an October interview with The Arizona Republic at a campaign event that Trump candidate Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio held in Tucson.

“I think it’s achievable, but it has to be done through the right policies,” Del Cueto said. He criticized the Harris campaign’s similar plan to hire more agents.

“If they’re going to hire more agents just so they can sit in processing centers and speed up processing, it doesn’t make any sense,” Del Cueto said.

He noted that hiring more agents will become increasingly important as more agents reach retirement age.

Trump has also repeatedly refused to say whether he would resume family separation at the border.

Here are the legal immigration processes Trump wants to curb

During his second term as president, Donald Trump promised to eliminate or radically change many of the legal pathways established to allow migrants and refugees to reach the United States without having to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border.

“As President, I will immediately stop the migrant invasion of America,” Trump wrote in a Sept. 14 newspaper post. Truth Social message.

This includes well-established pathways such as the refugee resettlement process, which has been around for decades. Last year, the US State Department resettled over 100,000 refugeesthe highest figure since 1994.

The President has the power to set an upper limit on the number of vetted refugees allowed into the country. When Trump took office in 2017, he lowered the ceilings year after year, eventually to hit 40-year low in 2021 in the same year, only 11,400 refugees were accepted.

But Trump’s plans also include ending the eligibility for humanitarian parole, which allowed the Biden administration to process and release thousands of migrants into the country under the so-called “catch and release” strategy.

Trump has vowed to shut down the CBP One phone app, which is the only legal way for asylum seekers to make claims at border ports of entry. The Department of Homeland Security schedules 1,450 appointments daily.

He criticized the CHNV program, which allowed U.S. border officials to screen migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and then force them to fly to the U.S. on parole. Trump said this amounted to circumvention of immigration laws, criticized the flights and promised to stop them immediately.

Stephen Miller, his closest immigration adviser and author of many of his harsh immigration policies, tried to limit the availability of legal visassuch as green cards, during the previous Trump administration. Reports indicate he may try to limit other legal proceedings during Trump’s second term.

Will Trump finally succeed in ending DACA?

During his first year as president in 2017, Trump unsuccessfully tried to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. He faced a major obstacle when the U.S. Supreme Court blocked his attempts to cancel the program in 2020 on procedural grounds.

DACA has since become the target of a federal lawsuit filed by Texas and other Republican states seeking to declare the program illegal. This case is being reviewed by the conservator 5^th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the decision can come at any time.

Although Trump did not address the future of the 12-year DACA program during his second term, his past actions lead many recipients to believe that he would subject them to deportation again once he became president.

There are approximately 535,000 active DACA recipients in the United States, including approximately 20,000 active recipients in Arizona.

In 2020, Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the high court’s four liberals to keep DACA in place. But one potentially key difference this time is that the court’s ideological center has shifted sharply to the right.

This means that even without Roberts’ support, there are enough conservative justices to kill the program if and when a Texas lawsuit challenging DACA reaches them.

USA TODAY contributed to this story.