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Immigration continues to play a large role in the 2024 US presidential race, with former president Donald J. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris now running against each other, following President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s withdrawal from the race on July 21, 2024. Trump has focused on immigration in his campaign, dedicating time at nearly every campaign stop to border issues and his plans to fix them should he win reelection. Immigration dominated every night of the 2024 Republican National Convention and was a major point of contention at the first presidential debate on June 27, 2024. Now, Trump is blaming Harris for the border crisis, labeling her Biden's "border czar" and attacking her immigration record in political ads.
Under Biden, Harris did not oversee the formulation or implementation of policy at the border—that responsibility lay with the commissioner for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the National Security Council senior director for transborder security. Instead, Harris was tasked with a two-pronged diplomatic assignment to reduce the incentives migrants have to leave Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, first by enhancing lawful pathways for migration to the United States and second by strengthening ties with and improving infrastructure, supporting business, and bolstering civil society in those countries.
Most US adults consider immigration to be a top policy priority and would like to see immigration to the United States decline. However, there is little consensus on specific immigration policies, as noted in a previous blog post that lists major policy actions made under Trump and Biden. To track Harris's and Trump's future immigration plans, this page follows up to list policy proposals made by each campaign as of August 2024.
TRUMP'S NEW POLICIES | TRUMP'S RESTORED POLICIES | HARRIS'S POLICIES
Summary of Trump's proposed immigration policies, 2025
Trump (alongside former Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller) is planning, if elected, to implement a historically restrictive US immigration agenda starting in 2025. He promises to carry out the "largest domestic deportation operation in American history," which would require relocating military troops to the US-Mexico border, authorizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids of workplaces, denying due process to unauthorized migrants, constructing additional ICE detention facilities along the southern border, and overturning the Flores settlement, which provides protections for migrant children. Importantly, both the military and National Guard would be used to round up and deport unauthorized migrants. Trump also intends to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented parents, deport and revoke the visas of foreign pro-Palestinian student protestors, revoke humanitarian parole, and impose "ideological screening." To date, Trump has only announced one proposal to increase immigration: automatic green cards for noncitizen graduates of US colleges and universities.
Trump also plans to restore all of his first-term immigration policies. He once again plans to "build the wall" along the US southern border, restrict both legal and illegal immigration, reinstate the "Remain in Mexico" and "Safe Third Country" agreements, and subject visa applicants to "extreme vetting," among other policies.
List of Trump's New Immigration Policy Proposals
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Table 1 Largest domestic deportation operation in American history |
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What It Is: Deports approximately 11 million migrants deemed unauthorized from the United States in a multiyear military campaign. (Some proposed actions that could be classified under this policy label remove legal status for people who are lawfully present and are listed in separate tables below.) To carry out mass deportations, this policy proposal would deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican states, reassign other federal agents to ICE, and move "thousands of troops currently stationed overseas" to the US-Mexico border. To speed up the pace of deportations, this policy proposal would modify ICE deportation procedures to allow for workplace raids (rather than exclusively individual arrests). It would also use existing legislation to deny due process to unauthorized migrants and to suspected members of drug cartels and gangs. The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act would be used to expand expedited removal—a form of deportation that denies unauthorized migrants hearings and the opportunity to file appeals—for up to two years after arrival, and the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 would be used to deport unauthorized migrants who have engaged in "predatory incursions" (i.e., suspected drug cartel and gang members). To alleviate the burden this policy proposal places on existing ICE detention facilities, the federal government would build enormous detention facilities along the border to hold unauthorized migrants while they await deportation. Trump plans to redirect money within the defense budget to fund this effort, just as he did to fund border wall construction during his presidency. Because the Flores settlement prohibits the federal government from indefinitely detaining unauthorized migrant children, families would likely be excluded from these proposed detention facilities. The Trump administration will try to overturn the Flores settlement if he is reelected, though it tried and failed to do so previously. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (Insurrection Act of 1807; Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996; Alien Enemies Act of 1798; redirected defense budget funds). |
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Sources: Trump has vowed on many occasions to carry out the "largest domestic deportation operation in American history." Stephen Miller outlined and endorsed the policy proposal on November 11, 2023, in a comprehensive interview with the New York Times on Trump's 2025 immigration plans, and the proposal was also highlighted at the first presidential debate on June 27, 2024. As for the specifics of this policy proposal, Trump promised to move troops to the US border to carry out deportations several times, including at a campaign rally on October 29, 2023, in an op-ed for the Des Moines Register on January 3, 2024, and in an interview with Time Magazine on April 30, 2024. Miller endorsed the authorization of ICE workplace raids in both a podcast interview on November 14, 2023, and his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. Trump promised to deny due process to unauthorized migrants both on his campaign X (formerly Twitter) account on October 16, 2023, and in his Des Moines Register op-ed. Miller endorsed the construction of additional ICE detention facilities in both his November 2023 podcast interview and his November 2023 New York Times interview; Trump similarly refused to rule out building additional detention facilities in his Time Magazine interview. Finally, Miller endorsed overturning the Flores settlement in his November 2023 New York Times interview. |
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Table 2 End birthright citizenship |
| What It Is: Disqualifies children born in the United States by undocumented parents from automatic US citizenship, passports, Social Security numbers, and "certain taxpayer funded welfare benefits." To qualify for birthright citizenship, at least one parent must be either a US citizen or lawful permanent resident. This policy proposal also effectively ends "birth tourism," which the Trump campaign defines as "tens of thousands of foreign nationals fraudulently enter[ing] the U.S. each year during the final weeks of their pregnancies for the sole purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for their child." There is, however, ongoing debate over whether "birth tourism" is even a sizeable phenomenon. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (Executive Order); likely to be challenged in court. |
| Sources: This policy proposal was first endorsed by Stephen Miller in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. Trump himself announced the policy on May 30, 2024, in a video posted to his campaign website. |
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Table 3 Deport pro-Palestinian student protestors |
| What It Is: Deports and revokes the visas of foreign students who have participated in pro-Palestinian and/or anti-Israel protests. To carry out these deportations, this policy proposal would "proactively send ICE" to pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the United States. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952); likely to be challenged in court. |
| Sources: Trump first announced this policy proposal on his campaign X (formerly Twitter) account on October 16, 2023. He endorsed it again at a campaign rally on October 28, 2023, and Miller endorsed it in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. On May 14, 2024, at a private roundtable event in New York, Trump promised to throw "any student that protests…out of the country." On July 9, 2024, the Republican party made deporting foreign, pro-Palestinian student protestors part of its 2024 platform. |
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Table 4 End Biden parole programs |
| What It Is: Terminates all humanitarian parole programs established under the Biden administration. Immigration "parole" is a designation that temporarily allows "certain noncitizens to physically enter or remain in the United States if they are applying for admission but do not have a legal basis for being admitted," as well as apply for work authorization. Over 1 million people have been allowed to enter the United States under Biden administration humanitarian parole programs, such as the CBP One app, processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV), the Uniting for Ukraine policy, and Afghan Arrivals under the US Refugee Admissions Program. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952). |
| Source: Trump first announced this policy proposal in a video to his campaign website on November 1, 2023, vowing on "Day One" to "shut down Joe Biden's abuse of parole authority." |
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Table 5 Ideological screening |
| What It Is: Expands ideological screening in visa issuance processes in order to block the entry of immigrants "the Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes." Specifically, "sympathy for jihadists, Hamas, or Hamas ideology will be automatically disqualifying." During the first Trump administration, ICE had considered deporting foreign nationals for their political beliefs but ultimately never instituted the policy, which has been criticized as a violation of the First Amendment. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (Executive Order). |
| Sources: Trump first announced this policy proposal on his campaign X (formerly Twitter) account on October 16, 2023. He endorsed it again the following day at a campaign rally in Clive, Iowa. Miller also endorsed this policy proposal in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. |
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Table 6 Green cards for foreign students |
| What It Is: Automatically awards permanent resident cards to vetted, noncitizen graduates of US colleges, junior colleges, and universities. Permanent resident cards—more commonly known as "green cards"—allow noncitizens to live and work permanently in the United States. Excluded from this policy proposal are "radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, [and] America haters." Neither Trump nor his campaign have clarified whether this policy proposal covers all noncitizens (including those who entered the United States illegally or overstayed their visas) or only student visa recipients. |
| Claimed Authority: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (final rule); Congressional legislation. |
| Sources: Trump first announced this policy proposal during a podcast interview on June 20, 2024. The Trump campaign further clarified this policy on June 21, 2024, in a statement to ABC News. |
List of Trump's Restored First-Term Immigration Policies
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Table 7 Border wall |
| What It Is: Builds an additional 200 miles of physical barriers along the US-Mexico border. There are approximately 654 miles of barriers along the 1,933 mile southern border: 354 miles of physical barriers (i.e., fences, walls, bollards, "Normandy" barriers) and 300 miles of vehicle barriers. Under Trump between 2017 and 2021, the Department of Homeland Security built 458 miles of physical barriers, including 52 miles of new barriers. Though Biden suspended all border wall construction via presidential proclamation after assuming office, this policy was continued on a smaller scale under his administration. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (presidential proclamation; redirect defense budget funds). |
| Sources: Trump specifically pledged to build an additional 200 miles of border wall during his keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 4, 2023. He again endorsed this proposal in an interview with Time Magazine on April 30, 2024. More recently, Trump promised to finish "the wall" in his address to the Republican National Convention on July 18, 2024. |
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Table 8 Travel bans (or "Muslim bans") |
| What It Is: Prohibits foreign nationals from certain countries and the Gaza Strip from traveling to the United States. Trump issued several iterations of the travel ban during his presidency, with varying lists of countries and degrees of travel restrictions. On June 26, 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the third iteration of the ban, which barred foreign nationals of eight countries—Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela, and Yemen—from traveling to the United States indefinitely. Biden terminated the travel ban on January 20, 2021. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (Executive Order; Presidential Proclamation). |
| Sources: At a campaign rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa on July 7, 2023, Trump promised "When I return to office, the travel ban is coming back even bigger than before and much stronger than before." On October 16, 2023, at a campaign event in Clive, Iowa, Trump announced that he would include refugees from the Gaza Strip in his new travel ban. That same day, Trump endorsed the new travel ban on his campaign X (formerly Twitter) account. Miller also endorsed the travel ban in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. |
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Table 9 End Temporary Protected Status (TPS) |
| What It Is: Terminates TPS designations for foreign nationals of certain countries. TPS is a program that allows migrants to legally reside and work within the United States for up to 18 months, subject to renewal. Trump as president sought to terminate TPS for foreign nationals of El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, Honduras, and Nepal. After assuming office, Biden extended TPS for those countries as well as Burma, Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia, Ukraine, South Sudan, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Cameroon, and Syria. |
| Claimed Authority: US Department of Homeland Security (Immigration Act of 1990). |
| Source: Miller endorsed ending TPS in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. |
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Table 10 Refugee ban |
| What It Is: Suspends the travel of all refugees to the United States for a set period. As president, Trump suspended the admittance of refugees several times, as well as implemented additional screening measures for refugees from certain "high national security risk" countries. Biden reinstated the refugee program and revoked all additional screening measures after assuming office. |
| Claimed Authority: Unilateral executive action (Executive Order; Presidential Proclamation). |
| Sources: On October 16, 2023, Trump endorsed the new refugee ban on his campaign X (formerly Twitter) account. Miller also endorsed this policy proposal in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. |
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Table 11 Title 42 Public Emergency Health Order |
| What It Is: Allows health officials, with the approval of the president, to restrict immigration from select countries for as long as deemed necessary to prevent a disease from spreading to the United States. Under Trump, Title 42 amounted to a ban on asylum-seeking by the unauthorized migrants subject to it. Title 42 ended on May 11, 2023, after the federal government lifted the COVID-19 national and public health order. In a second administration, Trump plans to invoke Title 42 using diseases such as "severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like R.S.V.," or by making the argument that mass migration conveys "a variety of communicable diseases." Past evaluations of COVID-19 suggest there is little to no correlation found between unauthorized migrant entry and infection rates in the United States. |
| Claimed Authority: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and executive action (Title 42 of the Public Health Service Act of 1944). |
| Sources: Miller first endorsed this policy proposal in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. On January 3, 2024, Trump vowed to renew Title 42 to "end the child trafficking crisis" in an op-ed for the Des Moines Register. On April 30, 2024, in an interview with Time Magazine, Trump again vowed to reinstate Title 42. |
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Table 12 Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP, or "Remain in Mexico") |
| What It Is: Requires asylum seekers arriving at the southern border to remain in Mexico while their claims are processed in US immigration courts. Under Trump, MPP applied to asylum seekers from Brazil and Spanish-speaking countries other than Mexico; excluded were unaccompanied children and unauthorized migrants processed for expedited removal, with "known physical/mental health issues" with criminal records, or determined by an asylum officer to "more likely than not" face torture or persecution in Mexico. Under Biden, MPP was expanded (MPP2) to include asylum seekers from the entire Western hemisphere (excluding Mexicans), as was the process by which asylum seekers "could be removed from the program due to a fear of persecution of torture in Mexico." Biden has yet to successfully terminate MPP2 despite two attempts over the course of nearly two years. Though Trump promises to reinstate MPP in a second term, Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected any future reimplementation in February 2023. |
| Claimed Authority: US Department of Homeland Security (Section 235[b][2][C] of the Immigration and Nationality Act); likely to be challenged by Mexico. |
| Sources: Miller first endorsed this policy proposal in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. Trump later vowed to reinstate "remain in Mexico" in his April 30, 2024 interview with Time Magazine. |
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Table 13 Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACAs, or "Safe Third Country" agreements) |
| What It Is: Allows the United States to deport asylum seekers to a "safe third country" (an agreed ACA country) for protections there instead of in the United States. Under Trump, three countries—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—negotiated ACAs with the United States, but only one such agreement—the US-Guatemala ACA—was implemented. Unaccompanied children, nationals of ACA countries, and asylum seekers determined by an asylum officer to "more likely than not" face persecution or torture in ACA countries were excluded from these agreements. Biden terminated all ACAs after assuming office. |
| Claimed Authority: US Department of Justice and US Department of Homeland Security (joint interim final rule "Implementing Bilateral and Multilateral Asylum Cooperative Agreements Under the Immigration and Nationality Act"). |
| Sources: Miller first endorsed this policy proposal in his November 11, 2023 New York Times interview. |
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Table 14 Public housing and work permit ineligibility |
| What It Is: Terminates all work permits for asylum seekers and renders unauthorized migrants ineligible for public housing. Previously, the Trump administration issued a proposed rule with the Department of Housing and Urban Development that would have made families with any members residing illegally within the United States ineligible for public housing. Biden withdrew the proposed rule on April 2, 2021. Trump also previously proposed regulations to make unauthorized migrants ineligible for work permits. Biden terminated these proposals on February 7, 2022. |
| Claimed Authority: Department of Housing and Urban Development (proposed and final rules); Department of Homeland Security (proposed and final rules). |
| Sources: On November 1, 2023, Trump endorsed this policy proposal in a video posted to his campaign website. |
Summary of Harris's proposed immigration policies, 2025
Prior to dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, President Biden sought to curtail illegal immigration with congressional legislation, throwing his weight behind the bipartisan border deal that failed first in February 2024 and more recently in May 2024. After the deal's initial failure, Biden called on Congress to pass the border deal during his State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, even going so far as to make a direct appeal to Donald Trump to join him in pressuring Congress. On March 19, 2024, during an interview with Univision, Biden said "If we brought it [the bipartisan border deal] up tomorrow, there's enough Republicans and Democrats…to make it become law. I'm going to continue to push for it." Biden also urged House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to back the bill on its second attempt in May, ordering them to "stop playing politics and act quickly to pass this bipartisan border legislation."
Vice President Kamala Harris has reiterated Biden's stance that the US immigration system is broken and requires a legislative fix, both along the campaign trail and in her duties as vice president. At a New York Times summit on November 30, 2023, Harris stressed "It [the US immigration system] needs to be repaired, and we are working on that in a way that we establish a safe and humane and orderly immigration system at the border." Harris pushed for the failed bipartisan border deal in a White House press release on February 4, 2024, urging Republicans to "address it [the border deal] with the urgency and seriousness it requires…rather than politicize this issue." On July 30, 2024, at a campaign rally in Atlanta, GA, Harris castigated Trump for tanking the bipartisan border deal as well as touted her tough prosecution record on the border, saying "I went after transnational gangs, drug cartels, and human traffickers that came into our country illegally…and won." A new digital Harris campaign ad similarly frames the 2024 election as a choice between "the one who will fix our broken immigration system, and the one who's trying to stop her."
Harris has made the failed bipartisan border deal a centerpiece of her platform, underscoring that it would have increased funding for border agents, detention facilities, and fentanyl detection technology. She has also distinguished herself from Biden by adopting an enforcement-first approach to immigration. The failed border deal, therefore, likely reflects Harris's immigration agenda for 2025: a mix of tough border restrictions and policies favored by immigration advocates. Below is a list of major provisions included in the failed bipartisan border deal that will likely be pursued by Harris should she maintain control of the White House in 2025.
List of Harris's proposed immigration policies from bipartisan border deal
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Table 15 Changes to US asylum: Higher standard for asylum eligibility |
| What It Is: Requires asylum seekers to establish a "reasonable possibility" that their asylum application will be approved. This is a more difficult bar to meet than the current "significant possibility" standard: In 2023, 65 percent of asylum seekers passed their "credible fear" interviews while only 44 percent passed their higher standard "reasonable fear" interviews. Asylum seekers must also show greater proof of persecution if returned to their countries of origin, including by demonstrating that they could not avoid persecution by simply moving to a different town or region within their home country. Together, these changes would make it more difficult for asylum seekers to claim refuge in the United States. |
| Claimed Authority: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (final rule); congressional legislation. |
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Table 16 Changes to US asylum: "Protection determination" |
| What It Is: An alternative to expedited removal, "protection determination" is a six-month process conducted exclusively by asylum officers outside of the immigration court system. Under the failed bipartisan border deal, virtually all asylum seekers would be placed into either protection determination or expedited removal; those under protection determination would be permitted to live in the United States under government supervision while they await their fear screening. Asylum officers would have 90 days to conduct a fear screening, after which asylum seekers would either be deported, referred to a full "merits interview," or granted asylum. Asylum seekers not interviewed within 90 days, as well as those referred for a merits interview or granted asylum, would then become eligible for work permits. This new process would make it more difficult for asylum seekers to claim refuge in the United States, especially given that final asylum decisions would be subject to very little judicial review. |
| Claimed Authority: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (final rule); congressional legislation. |
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Table 17 Increased detention capacity |
| What It Is: Provides ICE with almost $8 billion in emergency funding, including funding to expand the capacity of detention facilities. Specifically, provides enough funding for ICE "to keep at least 50,000 detention beds available—an increase of 47 percent from the 34,000 beds allocated in 2023, 2022, and 2021." |
| Claimed Authority: Congressional legislation. |
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Table 18 Citizenship for Afghan allies |
| What It Is: Grants conditional permanent resident status to foreign nationals of Afghanistan who fled to the United States following the withdrawal of the US military in 2021. In addition, the failed bipartisan border deal authorizes up to 10,000 special immigrant visas for family members of Afghan allies and requires the State Department to continue to offer consular services in Afghanistan. |
| Claimed Authority: Congressional legislation. |
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Table 19 Increases to legal immigration |
| What It Is: Creates 250,000 green card–eligible employment-based and family visas over the next five years. This policy proposal would increase employment-based visas by 13 percent and family-based visas by 7 percent through 2030. |
| Claimed Authority: US Citizenship and Immigration Services (final rule); congressional legislation. |
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Table 20 Funding for asylum officers, border patrol, and lawyers |
| What It Is: Provides about $20 billion in funding for the border. Specifically, this funding would be used to hire up to 4,300 new asylum officers, increase illegal drug screenings, expand ICE detention capacity (as mentioned previously), and guarantee legal counsel for unaccompanied children at the southern border. |
| Claimed Authority: Congressional legislation. |
Data Disclosure
This publication does not include a replication package.
Special Project
Special thanks to Anjali Bhatt and Melina Kolb for additional editing and Michael Clemens for comments.