How Trump Is Changing Immigration Enforcement

In his first week in office, President Donald Trump acted on his core campaign issue: immigration. In a short span of time, the president signed executive orders calling for the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and a crackdown on so-called “sanctuary cities,” which limit collaboration between local authorities and federal immigration agents.

The orders fell in line with Trump’s repeated pledge to control illegal immigration in the United States and suggested that Trump will likely pursue an immigration agenda that resembles the aggressive deportations of former President Obama’s first term. The Obama administration deported record numbers of undocumented immigrants, much to the frustration of immigrant advocates. In his first term alone, he. By the end of his tenure, Obama had deported more people than. There was also a corresponding push for legalization under the Obama administration—and that push is absent from Trump’s order.