A promise to secure the southern border and conduct the nation’s largest-ever deportation operation was the pillar of President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. He has vowed to start working on that goal on his first day in office.
National security expert Todd Bensman says there are several immediate changes Trump could make on Day 1 that would set him on the right track.
Bensman’s first suggested move? A flurry of reversals.
“Policies have to be reversed from the Biden administration and new ones put in place right away to sew up the border to make it so that people will not want to cross it illegally because they’ll be … detained and deported,” Bensman told EpochTV’s Jan Jekielek on an episode of “American Thought Leaders” that aired on Nov. 21.
A former counterterrorism specialist for the Texas Department of Public Safety, Bensman is also the senior national security fellow for the Center for Immigration Studies.
One policy that he said should be done away with is the use of so-called humanitarian parole programs to artificially lower the count of Border Patrol encounters with illegal immigrants at the southwest border.
Bensman noted that the government is allowing roughly 80,000 people a day—individuals who would have otherwise been illegal border-crossers—to enter the country lawfully through those programs. Those approved receive work authorization for two years, which is then renewable for an additional two years.
Bensman described the resulting pressure on U.S. citizens as “staggering.”
After axing those programs and the CBP One mobile app that facilitates them, Bensman said reinstituting the Remain in Mexico Policy that Trump established in his first administration should be the next priority.
The policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, required certain asylum seekers to await their immigration hearings in Mexico rather than allowing them entry into the United States.
Bensman also suggested that the president-elect ask Mexico to continue its current crackdown on illegal immigration, which has helped to lower Border Patrol encounters with illegal border-crossers in recent months.
At his final pre-election rally on Nov. 4, Trump issued a warning that he would implement a 25 percent tariff on all imported Mexican goods if the country did not stem the flow of drugs and people into the United States.
Legislative Reform
Aside from the changes Trump could make on his first day in office, Bensman said certain laws will need to be amended to ensure long-term reform.Asylum laws, for instance, “need to be tweaked” to remove the loopholes, he said.
“If you’ve come through 10 different countries that were regarded as safe and didn’t apply for asylum there in those countries, then you didn’t really need asylum, and therefore you can’t claim it,” Bensman said. “You can’t shop for the best country.”
Legislation from Congress will be required to change any laws on the books. Bensman said House Republicans are likely to reintroduce H.R. 2, the Secure the Border Act they passed in 2023, but that was never taken up in the Senate.
“That bill provides … a menu of fixes that bolsters the Immigration and Nationality Act and closes a lot of the loopholes that attract illegal immigration,” Bensman said.
One such loophole he pointed to was the 1997 Flores settlement agreement, which outlines the standards for detention of illegal immigrant children.
In 2015, a judge interpreted the settlement to mean that all illegal immigrant minors—unaccompanied or otherwise—must be released into the country after 20 days. The policy has, at times, led to the exploitation of children by adults seeking entry into the United States.
While the first Trump administration attempted to amend the settlement through the regulatory process, the Biden administration took over before the new rules could be finalized.
“The Biden administration came in and ended the process, so the Flores loophole remains,” Bensman said.
“So, the Trump administration will need to go through and finish the job there and close that loophole so that families that cross illegally can be detained and deported together.”
