President Trump kept his promise to build a wall on our southern border between the United States and Mexico. With 450 miles complete—and many more in progress—illegal crossings plummeted over 87 percent in areas where the wall went up.
By enforcing America’s immigration laws, President Trump made major gains toward ending the humanitarian crisis at our border; keeping criminals, terrorists, and drugs out of our country; and protecting American workers and taxpayers against job loss and misuse of the welfare system.
Administration Achievements
ACHIEVING A SECURE BORDER
Secured the Southern Border of the United States
- Built over 400 miles of the world’s most robust and advanced border wall
- Illegal crossings have plummeted over 87 percent where the wall has been constructed
- Deployed nearly 5,000 troops to the Southern border. In addition, Mexico deployed tens of thousands of their own soldiers and national guardsmen to secure their side of the U.S.–Mexico border
- Ended the dangerous practice of Catch-and-Release, which means that instead of aliens getting released into the United States pending future hearings never to be seen again, they are detained pending removal, and then ultimately returned to their home countries
- Entered into three historic asylum cooperation agreements with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to stop asylum fraud and resettle illegal migrants in third-party nations pending their asylum applications
- Entered into a historic partnership with Mexico, referred to as the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” to safely return asylum-seekers to Mexico while awaiting hearings in the United States
Fully enforced the immigration laws of the United States
- Signed an executive order to strip discretionary Federal grant funding from deadly “sanctuary” cities
- Fully enforced and implemented statutorily authorized “expedited removal” of illegal aliens
- The Department of Justice prosecuted a record-breaking number of immigration-related crimes
- Used Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to reduce the number of aliens coming from countries whose governments refuse to accept their nationals who were ordered removed from the United States
- Ended asylum fraud, shut down human smuggling traffickers, and solved the humanitarian crisis across the Western Hemisphere
- Suspended, via regulation, asylum for aliens who had skipped previous countries where they were eligible for asylum but opted to “forum shop” and continue to the United States
- Safeguarded migrant families, and protected migrant safety, by promulgating new regulations under the Flores Settlement Agreement
- Proposed regulations to end the practice of giving free work permits to illegal aliens lodging meritless asylum claims
- Issued “internal relocation” guidance
- Cross-trained United States Border Patrol agents to conduct credible fear screenings alongside United States Citizenship and Immigration Services adjudication personnel to reduce massive backlogs
- Streamlined and expedited the asylum hearing process through both the Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP)
- Launched the Family Fraud Initiative to identify hundreds of individuals who were fraudulently presenting themselves as family units at the border—oftentimes by trafficking children—in order to protect child welfare
- Improved screening in countries with high overstay rates and reduced visa overstay rates in many of these countries
- Removed bureaucratic constraints on United States consular officers that reduced their ability to appropriately vet visa applicants
- Worked with Mexico and other regional partners to dismantle the human smuggling networks in our hemisphere that profit from human misery and fuel the border crisis by exploiting vulnerable populations
Secured our Nation’s immigration system against criminals and terrorists
- Instituted national security travel bans to keep out terrorists, jihadists, and violent extremists, and implemented a uniform security and information-sharing baseline that all nations must meet in order for their nationals to be able to travel and emigrate to the United States
- Suspended refugee resettlement from the world’s most dangerous and terror-afflicted regions
- Rebalanced refugee assistance to focus on overseas resettlement and burden-sharing
- 85 percent reduction in refugee resettlement
- Overhauled badly broken refugee security screening process
- Required the Department of State to consult with states and localities as part of the Federal government’s refugee resettlement process
- Issued strict sanctions on countries that have failed to take back their own nationals
- Established the National Vetting Center, which is the most advanced and comprehensive visa screening system anywhere in the world
Protected American workers and taxpayers
- Issued a comprehensive “public charge” regulation to ensure newcomers to the United States are financially self-sufficient and not reliant on welfare
- Created an enforcement mechanism for sponsor repayment, deeming to ensure that people who are presenting themselves as sponsors are actually responsible for sponsor obligations
- Issued regulations to combat the horrendous practice of “birth tourism”
- Issued a rule with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make illegal aliens ineligible for public housing
- Issued directives requiring Federal agencies to hire United States workers first and prioritize the hiring of United States workers wherever possible
- Suspended the entry of low-wage workers that threaten American jobs
- Finalized new H-1B regulations to permanently end the displacement of United States workers and modify the administrative tools that are required for H-1B visa issuance
- Defended United States sovereignty by withdrawing from the United Nations’ Global Compact on Migration
- Suspended Employment Authorization Documents for aliens who arrive illegally between ports of entry and are ordered removed from the United States
- Restored integrity to the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by strictly adhering to the statutory conditions required for TPS
