Concertina wire blocks a gap in a fence 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. Agence
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump signed an government order Monday to crack down on “sanctuary cities” that defy his hardline immigration insurance policies, because the US president closes in on his first 100 days again in workplace.
The Republican has claimed main progress in honoring his election marketing campaign guarantees to stem unlawful border crossings from Mexico, which soared to all-time highs underneath his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden.
The order directs officers to publish inside 30 days an inventory of states and native authorities that “impede the enforcement of Federal immigration legal guidelines,” saying these named threat dropping entry to sure authorities funding.
READ: Trump escalates immigration crackdown to mark 100 days
Trump will this week be hailing his achievements since returning to the White Home, claiming successes on the economic system, overseas coverage and authorities effectivity, in addition to on migration.
However his recognition has plunged since January, with greater than 40 % of People saying they “disapprove strongly” of him, based on a Washington Submit-ABC opinion ballot.
Trump’s spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt on Monday 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 stated. “He has restored the rule of regulation, 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 American voters involved about unlawful immigration.
Butted heads
Monday’s government order targets “sanctuary cities” that sometimes prohibit native officers from telling federal brokers about undocumented immigrants if they’re vulnerable to deportation.
The mayors of 4 such cities — Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York — had been questioned over their immigration insurance policies throughout a tense listening to at Congress in March.
READ: How the general public’s shift on immigration paved the way in which for Trump’s crackdown
Courts have upheld the legality of sanctuary legal guidelines, and a US decide dominated final week that Trump’s administration can not withhold federal funds from authorities providing restricted protections to undocumented migrants.
In an indication of Trump’s deal with immigration, placards lined the White Home garden Monday displaying the mugshots of immigrants.
The phrase “arrested” was printed in capital letters above every picture and, under, 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 an inventory of 100 people that it stated had been the “worst of the worst prison unlawful immigrants” arrested since Trump took workplace.
In the meantime, Republicans within the Home of Representatives launched a invoice giving Trump powers to levy a bunch of onerous immigration expenses — together with a minimal $1,000 price for asylum purposes.
Trump has additionally despatched troops to the Mexican border and designated Latin American gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13 as terrorist teams.
However he 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 appropriate to a listening to.
READ: US Supreme Court docket intervenes to dam Trump deportations
Tom Homan, Trump’s level man on border safety, advised reporters Monday that “now we 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 elimination marketing campaign in US historical past.
The federal government has not been releasing complete knowledge, however the Migration Coverage Institute stated 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.
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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.