US President Donald Trump on Monday signed executive orders declaring illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border a national emergency, designating criminal cartels as terrorist organisations and targeting automatic citizenship for US-born children of immigrants in the country illegally. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to Amanda Frost, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, about the legal hurdles that the measures could face at the state and federal level.
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NewsTranscript
00:00This is Apropos.
00:04The Trump administration is already carrying out targeted immigration enforcement actions
00:09as part of the crackdown pledged by the newly reinstalled U.S. President.
00:13That's according to the White House's new Borders are.
00:16Separately, more than a dozen Democratic-led states have filed a lawsuit challenging Donald
00:22Trump's order to curtail birthright citizenship, a decades-old policy that guarantees that
00:27American-born children are U.S. citizens regardless of their parents' legal status.
00:33With the latest on the immigration crackdown, here's Emerald Maxwell.
00:40Nydia Montenegro was so close to realizing her dream of a new life in the United States.
00:46She'd made it to the border town of Tijuana three days before her asylum appointment,
00:50scheduled Wednesday, after fleeing violence and poverty at home in Venezuela and surviving
00:55a kidnapping as she travelled north into Mexico.
00:59Just to have it all taken away at the last hurdle, when the incoming Trump administration
01:04cancelled all appointments.
01:07We don't know what to do.
01:10Really, the joy we had, it stops here.
01:15We don't know what we're going to do.
01:17We're left in limbo.
01:20Nydia is among thousands of migrants who have had their hopes of legally reaching the U.S.
01:24dashed suddenly on Monday.
01:27Some received emails cancelling their appointments, while others desperately tried to open the
01:31U.S. government app, known as CBP-1, in vain.
01:35It's a crushing disappointment, with many at a loss for what to do next.
01:41Plan B is to stay here, but even here they're saying that we can't stay, that everyone must
01:46go back to their country.
01:48They're talking about massive deportations.
01:51Shutting down this legal path to asylum was only one of a raft of measures or executive
01:56orders signed off by Donald Trump on Monday.
02:00He also ordered an end to birthright citizenship.
02:02It's ridiculous.
02:04We're the only country in the world that does this with birthright, as you know.
02:09Which isn't true.
02:11Around 30 countries in the world have birthright citizenship, or Jus soli, primarily in the
02:15Americas.
02:17It's also enshrined in the U.S. constitution, and is already facing a legal challenge, something
02:22that Trump is no stranger to.
02:24But the returning U.S. president will be hoping that since his first term, he will have reshaped
02:29the courts enough, having appointed 234 federal judges to reverse decades of established law.
02:36For more, let's cross live to Amanda Frost.
02:40She's a professor of law at the University of Virginia in the U.S.
02:44Thanks so much, Amanda, for being with us on the programme this evening.
02:47An awful lot to get through here.
02:49A raft of new measures being introduced by Donald Trump over the past 24 hours or so.
02:54The White House, it says its targeted immigration enforcement actions are already underway.
02:59We don't have any details at the moment as to where exactly or what exactly is happening
03:04with that.
03:05Can individual states intervene here?
03:08What kind of protections do these people who are going to be targeted, who are being targeted,
03:12actually have?
03:13Yes.
03:14Well, there's two groups.
03:15One, of course, are people at the border, like the woman that you just interviewed in
03:19the last clip, and they can be barred from entering and have been barred from entering
03:23for the most part, those who are seeking asylum and had those appointments, their CBP1 app.
03:28There's also people living in the United States who are either undocumented or have what you
03:32sort of think of as a quasi-legal status.
03:35Maybe they're waiting for asylum or their so-called Dreamers, Deferred Action for Childhood
03:39Arrival recipients.
03:41Those people could be targeted for enforcement and removal, and states have limited ability
03:47to protect them.
03:48They don't have to help the government remove them, but they can't hinder the government
03:51from removing them.
03:52So it really is a matter of the government's will and the amount of enforcement resources
03:56Congress is willing to allocate to the executive to accomplish this goal.
04:00And as for enlisting local law enforcement officers into carrying out these orders, can
04:06they actually be forced to do so, or does that depend on them volunteering, so to speak,
04:11to cooperate?
04:13States cannot be forced to assist the federal government in immigration enforcement.
04:18There's a principle in U.S. government federalism that says the federal government can hire
04:23people and enforce its laws, but it can't force the states to do so.
04:27That said, the federal government can be coercive.
04:29It gives a lot of federal funds to states, and it could try to condition that funding
04:34on state cooperation and immigration enforcement.
04:37And when we heard Donald Trump talking about planning to deploy troops and soldiers to
04:40control immigration, what kind of hurdles does he face in putting those kind of plans
04:45into place if he is going to do so, and what kind of legal requirements are there?
04:50What can the military actually do in this kind of situation?
04:55So this is a legally uncertain area.
04:59We're treading on new ground, as we so often are with Donald Trump and immigration, Donald
05:04Trump in a lot of areas.
05:06And so it's a question.
05:07There is something called the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the use of the military
05:11domestically in the United States for good reasons.
05:15That said, there are exceptions to those limitations, and it's possible the military can legally
05:20be deployed at the border.
05:21I'm certain there will be some legal challenges, and I'm also certain the Trump administration
05:25is going to plow ahead with efforts to use the military, because the resources allocated
05:31for immigration enforcement fall far short of the number of people.
05:35Donald Trump was president once before, and he did not change the numbers on the ground.
05:40There was 11 million undocumented immigrants when he came into office, and 11 million when
05:44he left.
05:45So he already failed once to reduce that number, and I'm not confident he'll be more successful
05:49this time, but he'll try.
05:51And Amanda, another thing that he's trying to do, again, just before we came on air,
05:54the Trump administration saying that it was reinstating the Remain in Mexico program that
06:01had been paused by Joe Biden.
06:04What kind of impact is that going to have?
06:05Is that something that you would have been expecting to see?
06:08Yes, I was expecting.
06:09I have to say, one thing Trump was, was transparent.
06:12He and his advisors, Stephen Miller among others, were very vocal about what they were
06:16planning to do, and they did it, or they're starting to try to do it.
06:20So the Remain in Mexico program was also known as MPP, Migration Protocol.
06:26It just said if you're seeking asylum, you cannot come into the U.S., you have to wait
06:30in Mexico until you have an appointment with an immigration official to claim asylum in
06:36the U.S., and you're not allowed to wait in the United States to do that.
06:40That program was put in place at the end of the Trump administration and remained in place
06:44part of Biden administration, part of the Biden administration.
06:47I think one of the questions is, what is Mexico going to do?
06:50Mexico is a sovereign nation with its own foreign policy goals and interests, and it
06:54has to play a role here, and Trump has to try to appeal to that.
06:57So that's an unknown for me about reinstating that program, but Trump says he'll do it.
07:03It's also going to be interesting to see how individual states inside the U.S. respond.
07:07We've already seen lawsuits being filed to block Donald Trump's actions when it comes
07:12to the birthright issue.
07:13At least 18 Democrat-led states saying that they're filing lawsuits against that.
07:19So what kind of actual constitutional right does Donald Trump have to impose these kind
07:24of measures?
07:25So this is one area in which the U.S. Constitution speaks very clearly, and it says that all
07:30persons born in the United States are citizens, very narrow exceptions for the children of
07:36diplomats.
07:37A French ambassador in the United States, that person's child wouldn't be a birthright
07:40citizen, but everybody else is.
07:43And the question is, are immigrants and undocumented immigrants subject to the jurisdiction of
07:48the United States?
07:49That's the language in the 14th Amendment.
07:51Yes, of course they are.
07:52They have to follow all U.S. laws, and so their children are born citizens.
07:57I think Donald Trump is going more for the rhetoric here than the reality.
08:01I think this lawsuit will quickly stay his executive order, and likely the executive
08:06order will fail as a matter of violating the constitutional law.
08:09But we'll see.
08:10Donald Trump has also posted a lot of, sorry, appointed a lot of judges and will appoint
08:15a justice before he leaves office.
08:17Yeah, and some analysts are saying that these measures, many of them will actually reduce
08:21legal migration rather than illegal migration.
08:25Is that something you would agree with, Amanda?
08:27I would agree with that, in part because the U.S. has been, certainly under the last Trump
08:32administration, a hostile place for even legal immigrants.
08:36And many Trump administration officials say they are opposed to legal as well as undocumented
08:40immigration.
08:41And of course, people that come legally tend to have other options.
08:44They have other attractive countries they could immigrate to, even if they want to leave
08:46their home country, that are more welcoming.
08:49You know, Canada, France, among them.
08:52So I think we might lose some legal immigration.
08:55Undocumented immigrants tend to be desperate, and they're fleeing for really good reasons.
08:59And I should add, U.S. citizens employ undocumented immigrants.
09:02And while the law prohibits them from doing so, no administration seems to enforce the
09:07law against the U.S. citizens that employ undocumented immigrants, including Trump's
09:11last administration.
09:12And also, are we going to see all migrants being treated equally here, or are these laws
09:17really just targeting certain communities and people coming from certain countries?
09:21Oh, yes.
09:22I mean, there's a long history of that, a U.S., you know, shameful American history
09:28of targeting certain racial groups over the course of, you know, starting with the Chinese
09:34Exclusion Act in 1882, going to the massive roundup of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans
09:40even in the 1930s and the 1950s.
09:43I suspect some similar racial targeting and country-specific targeting will occur again.
09:50And what kind of support does Donald Trump have?
09:52I mean, people did know what they were getting themselves into, really, when they decided
09:56to vote for him.
09:57So how is all of this being greeted by ordinary citizens in America?
10:00Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say I have my fingers on the pulse of every American, but I will
10:04say that clearly the atmosphere has changed in the United States in the sense that I think
10:09that Biden did mishandle the border at times, that there were too many people coming across
10:13post-COVID.
10:14It wasn't entirely his fault.
10:15It was a built-up demand.
10:18And they did put in place, the Biden administration did put in place limits that really worked,
10:22but they came too late for the voters.
10:25So I think there is a sense in the United States that we need to control the southern
10:28border, and I think there's some support for that.
10:31However, I think there is not support for tearing children from parents, or the kind
10:35of inhumanity that we may see if we see mass raids and deportations.
10:39And I think Americans don't realize how many of their neighbors, their friends, their colleagues,
10:44people that live among them, attend the church, their kids attend the school, how many of
10:48those people are at risk.
10:49And I think when those people start being deported, Americans might react very negatively.
10:53They'll also react negatively if their food costs more.
10:56And if you deport all the undocumented immigrants who harvest our crops, you're going to pay
11:00more for milk and eggs and, you know, food at the store.
11:04Manta, we'll have to leave it there for now, but thank you so much for being with us this
11:07evening and for all your analysis there.
11:10That is Amanda Frost.
11:11She is a professor of law at the University of Virginia.
11:14Well, that's it from us for now.