James Pittman: Hey. Welcome to Immigration Uncovered. This is our inauguration day 2025 episode. Today is January 20th. The festivities around the second inauguration of Donald Trump are winding down.

James Pittman: And, as expected, after the inauguration ceremony, he did proceed, to, a session where he did sign some executive orders, a number of which pertain to immigration. So, all of these things are developments in progress, but I wanna touch base with our audience and just let you know what we know so far. So among the executive orders are the following. First is a national emergency declaration. So this basically states that there's a national emergency on the southern border, and the purpose of this is to allocate, military funds and resources to expand, the border wall, which is actually more like a fence, and deploy troops to the southern border.

James Pittman: So this is supposed to free up funding to build more sections of the wall, support operations to stop people from crossing over, and to send troops and military personnel to, quote, repel the disastrous invasion of our country. Alright. That was number 1. Next thing is what one thing they did right away was cancel the customs and border protection 1, which we call c b one app. This is an app, that people who are arriving at the border use to schedule appointments so they can be seen by border patrol officers, border customs and border protection so that they can present their claim for asylum or formally request asylum at a designated port of entry in a systematic way.

James Pittman: This is, an app that the Biden administration had created and put into, put into use, and so the the executive order today shuts that down. It halts the Biden era app for scheduling asylum appointments. Now what happened was in several, border cities in Mexico, migrants actually saw their appointments just canceled immediately on the app as soon as Trump took office. There had been about there have been about 280,000 people who have been logging into the app on a daily basis, to secure an appointment. This is as of a week or two ago.

James Pittman: And Reuters, had a report. They, reported that in Matamoros, Mexico, a group of migrants who were arriving from, the central Mexican state of Zacatecas arrived at a legal at a legal border crossing at midday who had appointments, but they were turned back by customs and border protection who said all appointments, even for today, are now void. Even if they had been previously scheduled and they were scheduled for today, those appointments are void. So, there, one person, miss Mendez, opened her inbox 30 minutes after the inauguration and saw an email counseling her appointment. So there was on the ground reporting about that.

James Pittman: The next executive order is the reinstatement of the remain in Mexico policy. So as of today, asylum seekers arriving at the border must wait in Mexico during their case processing. This policy, remain in Mexico, was formerly known as the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP, and it requires asylum seekers arriving at the southern border to wait in Mexico while their immigration cases are processed in the US immigration courts. This is this was implemented under the 1st Trump administration in 2019 aimed at deterring illegal crossings and managing resources on the border, but it was highly heavily criticized for exposing people to dangerous conditions in Mexico while they waited very long periods of time. So when the Biden administration came into office, it ended this policy in 2021.

James Pittman: There was litigation back and forth, but now Trump has reinstated Pittman, and this this signals an overall stricter asylum climate. Now note that, actually enforcing this policy does require some degree of cooperation from the Mexican government, and it remains to be seen how that is gonna play out. So we have to stay tuned for the practicalities of its implementation. The next executive order was a a bombshell, which is going to have the effect of attempting to revoke birthright citizenship. So, basically, this executive order states that the US government is not going to recognize the children of undocumented migrants as US citizens even though they were born on the territory of the United States.

James Pittman: Now this is in contravention to the settled understanding of the 14th amendment of the US constitution, and a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union is imminent. It may have already been filed in the last few hours, or it it it is imminently going to be filed. And, so this, move aims to end the practice enshrined in the constitution's 14th amendment, which states that, quote, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. So the ACLU spokesperson, Kija Matos, who's the head of the National Immigration Law Center, told, the media outlet, The Bullwork, This move is an example of the new administration's lack of regard for the constitution attempting to repeal birth birthright citizenship by executive order is both absurd and unconstitutional, and we'll be expecting, pretty speedy, litigation over that. Now the leading case on this topic, is actually James all the way back to 18/98, and it's a supreme court case called the United States versus Wong Kim Ark. That is a 18 98 case that established birthright citizenship. It involved a San Francisco native whose parents were from China, and his parents were not eligible to become US citizens. So he departed the US and came back and, wound up in court, and the court ruled that Wong Kim Ark was a US citizen because he was born in the United States. So the facts of this one, this is sort of the settled precedent. He was born in San Francisco to Chinese immigrants.

James Pittman: His parents were permanent residents of the US, but for a legal reason, they were not eligible to become citizens. He returned to the US after visiting, China. Immigration officers attempted to deny him entry. He sued the federal government, arguing that he was a US citizen under the 14th amendment, and the Supreme Court ruled in his favor 6 to 2. So that is what this executive order attempts to overturn, and it's gonna be, let's say, fascinating would be an understatement to see how this plays out in the courts given the current composition of today's Supreme Court. The next executive order was the designation of certain drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. So that is a move that directs the state department to classify these criminal organizations as terrorist organizations due to the nature of their criminal activity, and that carries with it a host of sort of sanctions, penalties, legal penalties against participants, legal penalties against anyone found to be involved to whatever degree, as well as, you know, travel restrictions and other restrictions on financial institutions and other institutions of dealing with individuals associated with these cartels. The next executive order is the use of the Alien Enemies Act. So president Trump has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a very old law that is seldom used. And this was done to, quote, direct the government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of foreign gangs and criminal networks, bringing devastating crime to US soil, including our cities and inner cities.

James Pittman: So this is, again, this is a very high profile move against, you know, the what, the Trump administration claims is a significant threat from foreign criminals and foreign gangs. Now the Alien Enemies Act itself is supposed to be invoked whenever the following exists, a war declared between the US and a foreign nation or government, or an invasion or predatory incursion perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the US by a foreign nation or government, and the president makes a public proclamation. So that is that this is, again, going to be litigated very swiftly because do those conditions exist? Is there a war between the US and a foreign nation or government? Seems no.

James Pittman: Right? No. And the next is, the next is really the prong that the administration is gonna be relying on, an invasion or predatory incursion. Is this what, you know, the the authors of the Alien Enemies Act had in mind when they, wrote the law, an invasion or predatory incursion by foreign criminals, or what did did they have in mind, like foreign spies or, you know, sort of military agents or armed agents of a foreign power? That's probably what they had in mind, but we're seeing it invoked in this context against alleged criminals. So we have to see how this plays out in litigation. And let's see here. Yep. So that is that's a pretty good wrap up for where we are as of right now. I mean, certainly, we don't have I don't have news at this moment of any mass raids or mass deportations, that kind of thing. We can expect to see raids coming. We can expect to see ramped up removal, but we don't have, any reports at the moment. We will continue to keep, we will continue to keep you informed as things develop. So thanks very much for listening to me give you this update from inauguration day. Again, James Pittman, and and see you next time on Immigration Uncovered.