The architect of many of former President Donald Trump’s most effective and controversial policies on Friday laid out what is likely to be Trump’s first-day immigration plan if he beats President Joe Biden in November.
“The simple part is seal the border, deport all the illegals,” Stephen Miller told an audience at the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference.
“You get in; you have two policy objectives that you proceed with utter determination on: seal the border, no illegals in, everyone here goes out. That’s very straightforward,” Miller said.
More so than Homeland Security officials, Miller was the brainchild of Trump’s immigration policies that saw a sizable cut in illegal immigrants succeeding in crossing the border. He was involved in every angle, from building a border wall to working with Mexico to keep migrants on the southern side of the border until their paperwork needed to enter the United States was ready.
When Biden came to office, the new president ended virtually every Trump immigration policy. The result has been historic and record-breaking illegal immigration. Some expect 10 million illegal immigrants to have crossed the border by the end of Biden’s first term.
The issue has become so hot in the nation that it now tops the economy as the No. 1 election issue and polls show a wide lead for Trump on it.
Trump has spoken broadly about what he would do, but Miller dished details of what a new plan would likely include.
He said that construction of the border wall would resume, the so-called “remain in Mexico” policy would be re-established, travel bans from certain countries would resume, and limits to asylum would be imposed.
He also told the crowd of conservative politicians and young activists that the military would have a role.
“You deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration enforcement. And then you also deploy the military to the southern border, not just with a mission to observe but with an impedance and denial mission,” Miller said. “In other words, you reassert the fundamental constitutional principle that you don’t have a right to enter into our sovereign territory to even request the asylum claim. The military has the right to establish a fortress position on the border and to say no one can cross here at all.
Miller, president of the influential America First Legal, said that a second Trump presidency would build on the successes of the first.
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“We did a few of those in the Trump administration; you would bring those back and add new ones on top of that,” he said. Another idea he offered was to establish staging grounds for immigrant flights back to their home nations.
“It’s a series of interlocking domestic and foreign policies to accomplish this goal,” Miller said.