United States navy personnel set up concertina wire on prime of the wall alongside the US-Mexico border between San Diego and Tijuana close to the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego, California on April 23, 2025. — Picture by Agence France-Presse
The White Home introduced Monday a crackdown on “sanctuary cities” that defy Donald Trump’s hardline immigration insurance policies, because the president closes in on his first 100 days in workplace.
Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt mentioned the administration would title and disgrace cities accused of blocking efforts to guard “American communities from prison aliens.”
The Republican chief will signal an govt order later Monday directing officers to publish a listing of “jurisdictions that impede the enforcement of federal immigration legal guidelines,” she instructed reporters.
The announcement got here with Trump celebrating main progress in honoring his election marketing campaign guarantees to stem unlawful border crossings from Mexico.
The figures soared to all-time highs underneath Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, and the Republican received the White Home partially on guarantees to fight what he repeatedly claimed was an invasion of prison migrants.
However his reputation has since plunged, with greater than 40 % of Individuals saying they “disapprove strongly” of him, in accordance with a Washington Put up-ABC opinion ballot.
Trump instructed pollsters and information organizations must be sued for fraud over the “faux information.”
The president will this week be hailing his achievements in his first 100 days, claiming successes on the financial system, international coverage and authorities effectivity in addition to on migration.
Leavitt famous a 95 % drop in encounters of undocumented migrants on the Mexico border — from 140,000 to 7,000 — within the 12 months from March 2024, when Biden was nonetheless in workplace.
“America’s borders are actually safe due to President Trump,” she mentioned. “He has restored the rule of legislation, enforced our immigration legal guidelines and defended America’s sovereignty.”
Trump’s election marketing campaign rhetoric about taking up the alleged hordes of rapists and murderers resonated with voters involved about unlawful immigration.
READ: Guarantees made, guarantees stored? Trump’s agenda nonetheless a piece in progress after 100 days
Inflow of migrants
As a part of the drive to ship on his pledges, Republicans in Congress are focusing on “sanctuary cities,” which generally prohibit native officers from telling federal brokers about undocumented immigrants if they’re vulnerable to deportation.
Lawmakers hauled the mayors of 4 such cities — Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York — over the coals at a listening to in March.
And Republicans within the Home of Representatives launched a invoice on Monday giving Trump powers to levy a bunch of onerous immigration costs — together with a minimal $1,000 charge for asylum purposes.
In an indication of the emphasis the administration is putting on immigration, placards lined the White Home garden, every displaying the mugshot of somebody the administration referred to as an “unlawful alien.”
The phrase “arrested” was printed in capital letters above every picture and, beneath, the crime of which they had been accused — from “first-degree homicide” and “sexual abuse of a kid” to “distribution of fentanyl.”
An accompanying White Home press launch included a listing of 100 people that it mentioned had been the “worst of the worst prison unlawful immigrants” arrested since Trump took workplace.
Trump has additionally despatched troops to the Mexican border, imposed tariffs on Mexico and Canada for allegedly not doing sufficient to cease unlawful crossings, and designated gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as terrorist teams.
However Trump has butted heads with judges, rights teams and Democrats who say he has ignored constitutional rights in speeding to deport migrants, generally with out the proper to a listening to.
Tom Homan, Trump’s level man on border safety, instructed reporters Monday that “we now have probably the most safe border within the historical past of this nation.”
He was requested about deportation charges, which have lagged behind Biden’s numbers, regardless of Trump’s promised marketing campaign of the biggest mass removing marketing campaign in US historical past.
The federal government has not been releasing complete knowledge, however the Migration Coverage Institute mentioned it appeared on monitor to take away half 1,000,000 folks this 12 months — fewer than the 685,000 deportations recorded in fiscal 12 months 2024 underneath Biden.
Your subscription couldn’t be saved. Please attempt once more.
Your subscription has been profitable.
Homan argued that comparisons had been bogus, since Biden’s deportation numbers included folks eliminated on the border, and most of these folks had been now being stopped earlier than getting in.
