Immigration Focus for Presidental Candidates

As candidates shift focus to their policy agendas, immigration remains a key election issue.

Trump's Immigration Stance

• Build a wall along the Southern border
• Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, American Immigration Council: "What's happening at the border...is a pattern of migration we've seen over the last decade...Neither of which is an invasion."
• Immigration policy often set through executive action, vulnerable to election cycle changes

Biden's Approach

• Taken more executive actions on immigration than Trump
• Shifted right, blaming Republicans for failing to support bipartisan bill, claiming he could "shut down the border"
• Kathleen Bush-Joseph, Migration Policy Institute: Understanding contentious nature and vulnerability of policies to litigation and reversal

Agenda 47 and GOP Platform

End Automatic Citizenship

• Trump's Agenda 47: End automatic citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, citing it as an incentive for illegal immigration
• 14th Amendment: Grants citizenship to anyone born in the US; Trump seeks clarification to exclude those not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US
• Reichlin-Melnick: "Subject to jurisdiction" generally refers to those without diplomatic immunity; Stripping citizenship is a fringe theory not supported by most constitutional lawyers

Seal the Border

• Trump promises to "seal the border and stop the migrant invasion"
• Reichlin-Melnick: No president has sealed the border; Barriers exist on 654 miles of 1,933 mile border; Apprehensions rose during Trump's term, due partly to South American destabilization
• Bush-Joseph: Biden implemented policies reducing asylum seekers, focusing on diplomacy and regional cooperation, leading to decreased apprehensions

Largest Deportation

• Trump pledges largest deportation operation in history
• Bush-Joseph: Biden on track to match Trump's deportation numbers, but focuses on recent border arrivals and threats to security
• Reichlin-Melnick: Mass deportation challenging due to court backlog, limitations of ICE, and acceptance of deportees by countries like Venezuela

Birth Tourism

• Trump targets 'Birth Tourism', claiming foreign nationals enter fraudulently to obtain citizenship for children
• New visa guidelines in 2020, but no evidence of growing problem; Focus on granting visas for business/pleasure, not childbirth
• Reichlin-Melnick: Tourist visas valid for 10 years; Circumstances can change, leading to childbirth despite initial intentions

Stop Violent Crime

• Trump vows to stop migrant crime epidemic, crush gangs, and lock up offenders
• Research shows immigrants commit less crime than US-born individuals
• Recent data: Violent crime in US cities returning to pre-pandemic levels; Arrests of cartel leaders reduce flow of fentanyl

Sources:

• USA Today
• American Immigration Council
• Migration Policy Institute
• Donald J. Trump Agenda 47
• 14th Amendment, US Archives
• USA Today Border Wall Map
• State Department Safe Mobility Offices
• Newsweek on Birth Tourism
• CIS on Birth Tourism
• Cato Institute on Birthright Citizenship
• Pew Research Center on Immigration and Crime