President Donald Trump began his second term in the White House on Monday with a raft of policies aimed at fundamentally reshaping the U.S. immigration system. He declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, placed limits on birthright citizenship, ended the Biden-era parole program, and suspended refugee resettlement indefinitely.
President Trump’s executive order is already being challenged in court. Experts say they are partly symbolic in nature. But they are a direct reflection of President Trump’s campaign promise to curb both legal and illegal immigration into the United States and his direction to government agencies on future policy decisions.
“As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than to protect our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I intend to do. We will do so at a level never seen before.” “We’re going to do that,” President Trump said in his inaugural address, highlighting some of his immigration-related executive orders.
Adriel Orozco, senior policy adviser at the American Immigration Council, said some of the orders will have an immediate impact and send a message to Americans and government agencies that “big changes are coming.”
Here’s what some of President Trump’s executive orders aim to do and what they mean for South Florida’s immigrant communities.
Completion of parole procedure
In an executive order titled “Securing the Border,” President Trump directed the Secretary of Homeland Security to end parole processing for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The Biden administration-era program allowed more than 500,000 citizens from four countries to live and work in the United States for two years. Republicans challenged the system in court, calling it an overreach of executive parole powers, but a federal judge in Texas dismissed the case. New applications to sponsor parolees under the four-country program will no longer be accepted. Experts told the Miami Herald that the pending applications are unlikely to be processed and approved.
The Biden administration, which had already said in October that it would not renew parole for current beneficiaries, credited the program with reducing recorded illegal crossings between ports of entry by people from those four countries by 91%. Many of the parolees have traveled to South Florida or have relatives or are drawn to larger communities in their home countries to live here.
In the same executive order, President Trump ordered the end of all categorical parole programs. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would “phase out parole programs that do not comply with the law” to end “widespread abuse of humanitarian parole.”
The Biden administration-era mobile phone application CBP One, which allowed immigrants to be temporarily paroled into the United States by scheduling appointments with immigration officials at the southern border, is no longer functional. do not have. Customs and Border Protection announced that as of Monday, existing appointments had already been cancelled.
“This dramatically reduces the ability of people to come to the United States and express themselves if they are in a precarious situation,” Orozco said.
Experts said family reunification programs in Cuba and Haiti, which allow U.S. residents to bring relatives from both countries home, could also be at risk. The former Trump administration suspended interviews for the Cuban unification process in 2017 and announced the end of the Haiti program in 2019, but the Biden administration has reinstated them with a revamp. Parole programs for children in Central America, as well as Afghans and Ukrainians, could be affected, lawyers and experts say.
“By cutting off legal routes to the United States, including the parole program, the Trump administration is sending a clear message that it does not want immigrants entering the country, even if they are legal.” Angela Kelly says. Bar Association.
Refugee entry suspension
President Trump has ordered that entry of refugees into the United States through the long-standing U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to be suspended indefinitely starting January 27th. The secretaries of Homeland Security and State are expected to submit a report within three months on whether the program will be reinstated. It’s good for the US. People whose applications had already been approved through the program will not be able to enter the country, including Afghans whose flights were canceled.
Biden has authorized the entry of 125,000 refugees, primarily from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, in fiscal year 2024. The Refugee Admissions Program has provided a path for people in South Florida’s immigrant communities to resettle in the United States. Thousands of Cubans have entered the United States through the program so far, according to federal data.
Nearly 17,000 Venezuelans entered the United States as refugees from October 2021 to December 2024, according to State Department statistics.
Restriction of citizenship by birthright
President Trump issued an executive order restricting birthright citizenship to children of lawful permanent residents or American citizens. Judicial decisions and longstanding precedent under the Fourteenth Amendment have granted U.S. citizenship to infants born on U.S. soil, with the exception of children of diplomats.
The order states that while the 14th Amendment grants citizenship to people born or naturalized here, it does not apply to children of parents who are in the country illegally or on temporary work, tourist, or education visas. states that it does not apply. In Florida, the approximately 280,000 children who are U.S. citizens often have at least one relative living in the state illegally.
The order will take effect next month and affect future births. The law orders federal agencies not to issue citizenship documents such as passports or accept citizenship documents from local or state governments.
Orozco, of the American Immigration Council, said the order also directly impacts people on long-term work visas, such as H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, whose green cards or citizenship status has been delayed for years. He pointed out that he was deaf.
The American Civil Liberties Union and a dozen states have already moved to challenge the executive order as unconstitutional in court. Experts and lawyers have previously told the Herald that such executive orders are illegal, but courts could still overturn long-standing precedent.
“Courts in general are less predictable than they have been in generations past,” said Kelly of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Further crackdowns will be carried out in the future
Experts said Monday that illegal immigration at ports of entry has declined significantly in recent months, and President Trump’s policies will reduce legal entry routes and increase illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. He said it was possible.
Experts also stressed that further policy measures are likely to be taken, such as travel bans for nationals of certain countries, similar to those under the first government. The Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a memo that essentially prohibited immigration enforcement in sensitive areas such as hospitals, schools, disaster shelters and places of worship. During his campaign, President Trump said he wanted to end Temporary Protected Status, a federal program that allows people from countries already in turmoil to temporarily live and work in the United States, for countries such as Haiti. An attempt was made to introduce it during the next administration.
That could have a significant impact in Florida, which has the highest number of Temporary Protected Status recipients, according to Congressional Research Service data. Of the state’s approximately 296,000 temporary protected status holders, 92% are Haitian or Venezuelan.
President Joe Biden expanded protections for nationals of countries including Venezuela and El Salvador in his final weeks in office.
“What happened here is important…but there’s also the question of what hasn’t happened yet. And what hasn’t happened yet is reminiscent of the first Trump administration and what was in place at that time. But given the executive orders we’re seeing and being promised, all of this could continue,” Doris Meisner, senior fellow at the U.S. Immigration Policy Program and director of the Migration Policy Institute, said Tuesday. He spoke at a press conference.
