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.
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