Project 2025: Immigration

This is the first article of a series on the impact that Project 2025 would have on the work and mission of Doctors of the World-USA.

The 2024 U.S. Presidential election will have much higher stakes than previous years, with repercussions that will largely affect America’s most vulnerable populations. Trump’s campaign shares similarities to his first term, especially when it comes to immigration. The same rhetoric is used towards migrants, and he reiterates old policies and promises. 

If re-elected, Trump plans to revive several first-term border policies, such as banning entry from certain Muslim-majority nations and reapplying COVID-19-era asylum restrictions, this time possibly linked to diseases like tuberculosis. He’s also once again advocating for an expanded border wall and even suggests separating children from their families during migration processing.

While these policies faced legal challenges during his first term, limiting their impact, a second term could bring far-reaching consequences. This is especially concerning because of two key factors: Trump’s influence on the Supreme Court through his three appointees and the development of Project 2025, a plan to overhaul the executive branch with sweeping policies that could endanger millions, particularly through its immigration agenda.

 

What is project 2025? 

 

Project 2025 is a proposed federal policy agenda that was authored by former Trump administration officials in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that opposes abortion, reproductive rights, racial equity, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights and everything in between. The centerpiece for Project 2025 is the “Mandate For Leadership,” a 900-page manual for reorganizing the entire federal government agency by agency to serve a conservative agenda. 

While Trump may have distanced himself from Project 2025, make no mistake, it was largely written by his administration. Of the 38 authors of this proposal, 31 were appointed to positions during Trump’s first term. Should he be re-elected, many of the policies and executive orders outlined in the plan could be swiftly implemented.

 

Project 2025 and Immigration 

 

Project 2025 places a heavy emphasis on slashing immigration levels and expanding federal power to control state’s policies regarding migrants.  The proposals within this manual aim to circumvent Congress and the courts, ultimately dismantling the foundations of our immigration and asylum-seeking system, in direct contravention of both U.S. and international law. The repercussions will be long lasting and far-reaching, impacting our economy, security, international relations as well as undermining the vitality of our workforce. 

Project 2025 and Trump both promise to enact what they call the ‘largest mass-deportation’ the U.S. has ever seen. The policies towards immigration are diverse and widespread: they focus on raids, ending birthright citizenship, separating families and dismantling the asylum system. The plan goes beyond targeting incoming migrants, but it threatens to also deport immigrants that have lived in the U.S. for years. The whole program is, without a doubt, a violent, xenophobic attack on immigrants in the U.S. 

 

 Immigration Policies Under Project 2025: 

 

 

Mass Detention, Deportation and Family Separation 

 

Project 2025 has no qualms targeting children in their policy. The far-right policy agenda seeks to eliminate important benefits for unaccompanied minors and transfers their care from Health and Human Services to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), enabling the large-scale detention of young children. The plan also advocates for reducing the standards for migrant detention, calling for temporary structures like tents instead of solid structures. 

To expedite mass deportations, Trump is preparing an expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. He also intends to help Immigration And Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts of carrying out raids through the reassigning of other federal agents and deputizing police officers and National Guard troops from Republican-led states. 

Project 2025 further proposes to eliminate restrictions on ICE operations in sensitive zones. This would allow raids to be carried out in schools, hospitals and religious institutions. One of Trump’s advisors and an author of Project 2025, Mr. Stephen Miller has stated that ICE would be moving away from the practice of arresting specific individuals and would begin carrying out more workplace raids and other sweeps in public places in order to arrest ‘scores of unauthorized immigrants at once’. 

To support these mass deportations, the plan calls for establishing mass detention centers. While Congress could refuse to provide the necessary funds, Project 2025 proposes that Trump could redirect money from the military budget. 

Overall, with Project 2025, the U.S. would quickly become a volatile environment for migrants. The potential of frequent raids on schools and other areas that should be viewed as ‘safe spaces’ could leave many, including children, feeling fearful and vulnerable. Families would be at risk of being torn apart with lasting, devastating consequences.

 

Attacks on Dreamers and Family-based Immigration 

 

Project 2025 also seeks to  target policies that protect immigrant children and families. Dreamers – undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children, grew up here, and identify as American – are a central target. The far-right policy agenda calls to strip legal status from over 500,000 Dreamers by eliminating staff dedicated to processing renewal applications. The plan also aims to end family-based immigration and put an end to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). 

Trump will also push to end birthright citizenship for babies born in the U.S. to undocumented parents by ordering agencies to stop issuing citizenship-affirming documents like passports and social security cards. This would violate the U.S. Constitution Amendment XIV, Section 1, Clause 1, however with the makeup of the current Supreme Court, it could likely pass in court.  

Federal assistance as well as loans to non-citizens and non-permanent residents would also be part of Project 2025’s strategy to make the U.S. inhospitable to migrants. The plan goes further by targeting the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), prohibiting visas for students from ‘enemy nations.’ Ultimately,Project 2025 is attempting to isolate the U.S. and feuling fear of anything or anyone that does not fit their definition of an ‘American.’

 

Militarization 

 

With Project 2025, the U.S. could see the dramatic militarization of its borders and immigration system. The far-right policy agenda encourages the use of the U.S. military to crack down on migrants arriving at the border. In the last few years, we have already witnessed high rates of violence along the border, perpetuated by CBP and ICE. Whips, excessive force and aggressive car chases have already claimed too many lives and have left many struggling with trauma and grief. 

Project 2025 even goes so far as to propose a war with drug cartels in Mexico, much like Nixon’s ‘war on drugs,’ which had devastating effects in the U.S. and across the Southern border, leading to higher rates of conflict, violence and deaths. Repeating such a failed approach would be a grave mistake. 

Although the Posse Comitatus Act exists, a law that forbids the use of the armed forces for law enforcement purposes, there is a loophole. If Trump invokes the Insurrection Act, federal troops could be deployed to apprehend migrants. This means that taxpayer money would be used to fuel violence against vulnerable communities instead of offering them the protection they desperately need.

 

Suspending Due Process 

 

Project 2025 is a real threat to due process within the U.S. immigration system, effectively dismantling legal protections for immigrants and undermining fundamental human rights. The agenda looks to make sweeping changes across the entire legal immigration system including expediting deportations that eliminate immigrants’ rights to a fair hearing. This would allow Trump to bypass established legal processes, giving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) more power and authority to declare a ‘mass migration event’ and take drastic actions against immigration, like scrapping all Title 8 requirements thus allowing them to automatically expel migrants. 

To accelerate deportations, Project 2025 is proposing the immediate expulsion of migrants in cases of ‘loss of operational control’ or USCIS backlogs. These backlogs exist largely due to persistent underfunding driven by Republican officials. By continuously reducing funding and stripping jobs from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, Trump will justify increasing unfair deportations, stating that the U.S. does not have the capacity to process asylum claims. 

Under the Project 2025 agenda, the United States would soon resemble a police state. Trump intends to introduce a ‘show-me-your-papers” mandate, which would empower ICE to arrest individuals anywhere in the country without a warrant. It would further coerce the local law enforcement to participate in border enforcement or face penalties.

Perhaps most concerning is the plan to consolidate key immigration agencies —U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) –  into a single, powerful entity, which could centralize authority over immigration matters, stripping oversight and accountability from ICE and classifying all USCIS operations. This would concentrate power in ways that threaten the rights and dignity of immigrant communities, turning what should be a fair immigration system into one driven by enforcement and exclusion. Furthermore, the proposal seeks to remove immigration judges from the Department of Justice, rather placing them under DHS. This could potentially erode the independence of the judiciary, turning the judges into harsh enforcers of strict immigration policy. Human rights organizations warn that this consolidation would likely lead to further abuses of power and a disregard for the legal protections that immigrants are entitled to under U.S. law.

 

Attacks on Legal Immigration 

 

Legal immigration to the U.S. would also face serious restrictions under Project 2025, through its attempts to dismantle several key policies and programs that protect vulnerable populations and uphold humanitarian principles. 

In addition to eliminating DACA and family-based immigration, the far-right policy agenda will also seek to strip policies like the Temporary Protected Status (TPS), as well as visas for victims of crime, drastically reducing pathways to legal residency. 

Project 2025 would direct USCIS to cease application intakes whenever backlogs are deemed ‘excessive’, with the intention to exacerbate existing delays and further halting applications for asylum, TPS, as well as T and U visas. Overall, T and U visas are meant to help the most vulnerable people, like victims of human trafficking, gang violence and other crimes, who further cooperate with law enforcement. 

By ceasing applications, many migrants will not be able to find safety in the U.S. However, Project 2025 takes this a step further by proposing a limit on the use of T and U visas.

The agenda also puts plans in place to repeal the TPS designations, a program that has, for decades, provided immigrants from countries facing extreme conditions like armed conflicts or environmental disasters with work authorization and legal protections. Repealing TPS would strip over 850,000 individuals of their legal protections, adding them to the unauthorized immigrant population despite their deep connections in the U.S., including homes, businesses, and U.S. citizen children.

Project 2025 further seeks to end work authorization for many immigrants, limit temporary worker visas (H-2A and H-2b), and transform the H1-B program into an elite visa accessible only to the highest-paid applicants. Human rights organizations warn that these measures not only undermine the principles of due process and fairness but also risk the deportation of individuals with strong social and economic ties to the country. This could result in billions of dollars in lost economic activity and damage the U.S.’ reputation as a haven for those fleeing persecution.

 

Impact on Non-Immigrants

 

The policies outlined in Project 2025 will not only pose a threat to immigrants, but will also have significant ramifications to U.S. citizens, by linking access to federal benefits as well as funding with states’ cooperation on immigration enforcement. 

The far-right agenda proposes to block federal financial aid for up to two-thirds of American college students should their states dare allow particular immigrant groups, like the dreamers, to access in-state tuition. 

The plan would also seek to bar U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent resident. 

Additionally, states would be forced to share driver’s license and taxpayer identification information with federal authorities or risk losing essential funding. 

Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) would face restrictions on providing aid. In order for states or localities to qualify for FEMA aid, they would need to commit to total information-sharing with the federal law enforcement, including immigration enforcement.  This would allow the federal authorities to access all motor vehicle and voter registration databases. This is not only a complete violation of privacy for millions of Americans as well as an abuse of federal authority against states autonomy, but it would also further isolate immigrant communities. 

Overall, Trump and Project 2025 are planning a wide-spread takedown of the immigrant population in the U.S., with little regard for the U.S. Constitution and humanitarian law. Their response to any opposition, whetherfrom individuals or states, is to coerce compliance through financial penalties and invasive surveillance tactics. 

 

Doctors of the World & Project 2025 

 

In late 2022, Doctors of the World launched a Migrant and Refugee Transitional Care Clinic in El Paso, Texas. The clinic now regularly provides care to migrants and asylum-seekers for a variety of health issues they encounter during their journey through South and Central America to the United States. We frequently offer mental health support to those who have endured trauma, violence, and extreme stress along the way. We have also provided prenatal care to expectant mothers and treated young children with antibiotics for illnesses. Additionally, we often address injuries sustained while crossing the border, whether from falling off the wall, trekking through the desert, or swimming across razor wire barriers in the river.

The majority of our patients come to the U.S. for similar reasons: they seek security, opportunity, and safety. They are fleeing violent political regimes, gang violence, poverty, climate change, and persecution. However, we are deeply concerned that Project 2025 could significantly hinder our ability to provide care to those who need it most. Government policy and intervention could severely impact our life-saving work, and the potential for raids by ICE and DHS could deter many asylum seekers from seeking medical assistance out of fear for their safety. 

Although El Paso is a sanctuary city, Project 2025 could force it into submission by withholding FEMA aid, which would harm both migrants and local residents. Further militarization of the border would also increase the risk of injuries and violence inflicted on migrants by U.S. authorities. We are already caring for many “fall of the wall” cases that involve severe lower-extremity trauma which take time to care for and heal.

At Doctors of the World, we are profoundly concerned that Project 2025 could severely restrict our efforts and prevent the delivery of essential humanitarian aid to vulnerable migrant populations. We strongly urge you to take action by voting this November.

 

It’s time to take a stand and vote 

 

Trump and Project 2025 pose a great danger to both Americans and immigrants in the United States. The agenda is ruthless in its determination to dismantle one of the United States’ core foundations: its immigrant population. 

The U.S. was founded and built by immigrants, yet this vital part of our rich history seems to be overlooked by Trump’s administration – most of whom are the authors of Project 2025. Rather, the agenda seeks to isolate the U.S., cutting itself off from new ideas and stifling growth. 

Should Trump win the election, the U.S. would lose. Its economy, diversity, culture and innovation would be dealt a serious blow. While current immigration laws face a lot of issues, the solution is not to completely destroy them, but to invest time and resources to create better policies that address modern demands. America’s strength has always come from its immigrants, and stopping that flow won’t “make America great again” – it will only diminish the country we can become.

 

 

Sources: 

• PROJECT 2025:
• Project 2025, Explained | American Civil Liberties Union
• What is Project 2025? Wish list for a Trump presidency, explained
• What Project 2025 would mean for immigrants
• The fifteen categories of immigration cut off by Project 2025 – Niskanen Center
• Sweeping Raids and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans – The New York Times
• Project 2025: Immigration – America’s Voice