He had promised not to waste time: two days after Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the new American president’s anti-immigration offensive is accelerating, between strict measures and sharp declarations. For his first interview since his inauguration on Monday, granted to one of the star hosts of Fox News, Sean Hannity, the Republican assured Wednesday January 22 that “terrorists by the thousands” were present in the country because of the border policies of the Biden administration, considered lax. Countries like Venezuela “took their street gangs and moved them to the United States,” said Donald Trump. “We will take care of it,” he added, asserting: “We arrived just in time.”
The former real estate magnate, who signed a decree on Monday evening calling into question land rights, has pledged to expel millions of undocumented people from the United States. Its spokesperson Karoline Leavitt announced this Wednesday that the army would deploy “1,500 additional soldiers to the border” with Mexico to fight against illegal immigration, under a decree from the president. These soldiers will be added to the more than 2,000 soldiers already present along this southern border. “These reinforcements will be mobilized to set up barriers and for other missions at the border. The first operations should begin in the next 24 to 48 hours,” said a senior military official on condition of anonymity. .
The American army will also be mobilized to expel migrants by air, indicated Robert Salesses, acting Secretary of Defense pending the confirmation of the controversial Pete Hegseth.
Arrival of refugees suspended
The new administration has also suspended until further notice all arrivals in the United States of thousands of refugees around the world who have requested asylum, including those who obtained it. According to a State Department document consulted Wednesday by AFP, “all previously planned refugee trips to the United States are canceled.” “No travel reservations will be made, processing of files and all activity before departure are suspended,” it is written in the note dated Tuesday. The UN’s International Organization for Migration is also being asked not to move refugees to transit centers.
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who is a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, was alarmed by the measures taken by Donald Trump, stressing that welcoming refugees was “a fundamental American value”. “The U.S. Refugee Admissions Program has long enjoyed bipartisan support and is a tool to save the lives of the most vulnerable refugees, while strengthening the security of Americans by promoting stability around the world,” he said. she said in a press release.
The US Department of Justice has threatened local authorities with prosecution if they fail to implement new anti-immigration policies.
Congress passes first anti-immigration law
At the same time, Congress on Wednesday adopted its first bill of the Trump presidency, which – as a symbol – attacks illegal immigration. The text, whose promulgation is expected quickly, requires the automatic detention by federal law enforcement of illegal immigrants who have been convicted or indicted for certain crimes.
The text was adopted by the House of Representatives with a Republican majority with 263 votes for and 156 against. A sign of changing trends on the subject of immigration within the American political class, around forty Democratic elected officials voted in favor. “Criminal illegal aliens must be detained, deported, and NEVER allowed to return to our country,” Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson told X.
But for left-wing elected official Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, this law is a slippery slope that will further erode the rule of law. “In a few months, there will be members of Congress who voted for this bill and who will claim that they were not aware of all the bad things that are going to happen because of it,” she said. launched from the hemicycle. Other elected Democrats denounced the staggering cost, according to them, of the measure adopted Wednesday, putting forward the figure of 83 billion dollars over the first three years. “That’s a lot of money to spend on a bill that’s going to cause chaos,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said on X.