President-elect Donald Trump has not yet been sworn into office for his second term as president, but he is already racking up wins on illegal immigration, one of the biggest issues that propelled him to reelection.
A federal court in Texas struck down President Joe Biden’s “Keeping Families Together” program last Thursday, a policy created in August that would have needlessly and damagingly granted amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants and, more importantly, paved the way for a unilateral mass amnesty for all illegal immigrants in the country.
First created by then-President Barack Obama in 2013, “parole in place” smooths the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants by waving a magic wand and turning their past illegal entry into the country into a legal entry.
When Obama created the first “parole in place” designation, which was and is a flagrant abuse of the president’s parole power, he avoided a backlash to this illegal unilateral executive move by limiting it to the spouses, children, and parents of current and former members of the armed forces. Who wouldn’t want to grant citizenship to the family members of men and women who defended the country?
The program proved so popular that Congress codified it into law in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act. Crucially, however, Congress did not legitimize Obama’s abuse of parole in place for illegal immigrants. It did so only for family members of military personnel.
Biden then tried to use the “parole in place” trick to do for all illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens what Obama had done for the families of armed service members. This time, though, Texas and 15 other states challenged Biden in federal court and won.
It is true that Trump would not have implemented Biden’s parole abuses, but it would have required going through a formal rulemaking process to undo what Biden had done. Now that a court has struck Biden’s illegal program down, however, Trump has a head start on undoing Biden’s open border policies.
Trump will be able to shut down Biden’s CBP One app and CHNV, or “Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela,” parole programs on day one as well. Through the CBP One app parole program, Biden admitted more than half a million inadmissible immigrants into the country at ports of entry on the southern border. Through this program, migrants make an appointment with a Border Patrol agent at a port of entry, and after a cursory check of their claimed identities, they are waved into the country. Trump can simply order Border Patrol agents to stop making these appointments.
Biden has admitted another half million migrants through his CHNV program, which lets employers and other organizations sponsor migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to fly into the United States and instantly receive work permits and federal benefits. Again, Trump could stop approving new sponsorships on his first day in office.
It will be more difficult to revoke the parole status of the CBP One app and CHNV migrants, but Trump has time on his side. Instead of going through a regulatory process, Trump can just let the paroles expire, and then every migrant Biden admitted through his illegal parole program would become officially illegal and subject to deportation.
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For all the talk of building mass deportation centers and separating families, the reality is that Trump can do a ton of good simply by shutting off the firehose of migrants sprayed into the country by Biden. Once the streams of illegal migrants are shut off, Trump and his border czar, Thomas Homan, can then begin deporting the 1 million illegal immigrants or more who already have deportation orders against them but are on the loose.
Tracking down those under court-ordered deportation and collecting those who commit other crimes, such as theft and driving under the influence of drink or drugs, will keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers plenty busy. More importantly, Trump will have followed through on his promise of securing the border and deporting masses of people who should not be here.