Trump's plans for border security: List of steps

President Donald Trump rolled out a blueprint to increase security at the southern border in a series of executive orders on Monday after being sworn into office. 

Some of the orders revive priorities from his first administration that his predecessor had rolled back, including forcing asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico and finishing the border wall. Others launched sweeping new strategies, like an effort to end automatic citizenship for anyone born in America and ending use of a Biden-era app used by nearly a million migrants to enter America.

Actual execution of such a broad immigration agenda is certain to face legal and logistical challenges.

Here’s what has happened and what to expect:

CBP One app disappears

What we know:

In a sign of how quickly things played out, migrants who had appointments to enter the U.S. using the CBP One app saw them canceled minutes after Trump was sworn in, and Mexico agreed to allow people seeking U.S. asylum to remain south of the American border while awaiting their court cases.

The backstory:

The online lottery system gave appointments to 1,450 people a day at eight border crossings to enter on "parole," which Joe Biden used more than any president.

Seen from an aerial view, immigrants walk along the U.S.-Mexico border wall after crossing the Rio Grande into El Paso, Texas on February 01, 2024 from El Paso, Texas. (Credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

It was a critical piece of the Biden administration’s border strategy to create new immigration pathways while cracking down on people who enter illegally. Supporters say it brought order to a chaotic border. Critics say it was a magnet for more people to come.

Mexico agrees to take back migrants

The backstory:

The Trump administration is reinstating its "Remain in Mexico" policy, which forced 70,000 asylum-seekers in his first term to wait there for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

What we know:

Mexico, a country integral to any American effort to limit illegal immigration, indicated on Monday that it is prepared to receive asylum-seekers while emphasizing that there should be an online application allowing them to schedule appointments at the U.S. border.

What they're saying:

Immigration advocates say the policy put migrants at extreme risk.

"This is déjà vu of the darkest kind," Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, told the Associated Press. She said policies like "Remain in Mexico" have exacerbated conditions at the border while doing little to address reasons migrants leave home in the first place.

Aiming to end birthright citizenship

The backstory:

Anyone born in the U.S. automatically becomes a citizen, including children born to someone in the country illegally or in the U.S. on a tourist or student visa. It’s a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War to assure citizenship for all, including Black people.

What we know:

An executive order Trump signed on Monday suggests that the amendment has been wrongly interpreted, and it would go into effect in 30 days — meaning it would not be retroactive.

What they're saying:

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups immediately sued, calling it "a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values." Trump said he thought he had "very good grounds" for the order.

Promised mass deportations

What we know:

Trump is working to move his pledge of mass deportations of at least 11 million people in the country illegally. One order signed on Monday restores efforts to pursue everyone in the country illegally, moving away from the Biden administration’s more narrow deportation criteria. He also wants negotiations with state and local governments to deputize police to enforce immigration laws.

As in his first term, Trump also wants to end federal grants to "sanctuary" jurisdictions — states and cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Bigger military role in border security

What we know:

Trump ordered the government, with Defense Department assistance, to "finish" construction of the border wall and send troops to the border. His executive orders suggested the military would help the Department of Homeland Security with "detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistics services." Trump directed the defense secretary to come up with a plan to "seal the borders" and repel "unlawful mass migration."

What we don't know:

He did not say how many troops would go — leaving it up to the defense secretary — or what their exact role would be.

RELATED: What is an executive order?

Dig deeper:

Both Trump and Biden have sent troops to the border before. Historically, they have been used to back up Border Patrol agents, who are responsible for securing the nearly 2,000-mile border, and not in ways that put them in direct contact with migrants. Critics say using troops this way signals that migrants are a threat.

Cartels as foreign terrorist organizations

What we know:

A Trump order signed on Monday paves the way for criminal organizations such as Tren de Aragua or MS-13 to be named "foreign terrorist organizations." MS-13 is a transnational gang that originated in Los Angeles and gained a grip on much of Central America. Tren de Aragua is a Venezuelan street gang that has become a menace on American soil.

"The Cartels functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States," the order reads.

Trump is also raising the possibility of invoking a wartime power act for the first time since World War II to deport gang members who are deemed members of a foreign terrorist organization.

Pausing permission for refugees

What we know:

Trump also is indefinitely suspending refugee resettlement. The refugee program is the type of legal immigration that the Trump administration says it's for, said Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, one of 10 resettlement agencies helping refugees start new lives in the U.S.

The backstory:

For decades, the program has allowed hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution worldwide to come to the United States. Trump also suspended the refugee program in his first term, and after reinstating it, slashed the numbers of refugees admitted. Under Biden, the program was rebuilt to a three-decade high.

ImmigrationDonald J. TrumpU.S. Border WallDonald J. TrumpU.S. Border SecurityU.S.News