Extra

Afther two months of Trump 2.0, the 47^th President has fallen into a predictable pattern. Each day there’s a dominant news item. This morning it was Ukraine peace talks. Yesterday it was eliminating the department of Education. Trump has managed to tightly control the daily news cycle. 

Trump has reasons for doing this. He revels in the attention. He feels he has momentum and doesn’t want to lose it to the Democrats. Trump is playing to his media strength and, so far, it has served him well: he has rattled the Democratic Party and unnerved patriotic Americans. 

Nonetheless, Trump’s media maneuverings have a darker purpose: they are meant to hide the fact that the Trump presidency is falling. If we look outside the Trump media bubble, we see obvious signs of this: the economy is on the rocks and Trump doesn’t know what to do. In two months, the reputation of the United States has been savaged: the US has become a pariah nation. 

Public perception of Trump has turned negative: “According to an AtlasIntel survey of 2,550 respondents conducted between March 7 and March 12, Donald Trump currently has a 47 percent approval rating and a 52 percent disapproval rating for his job performance.” ( https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/donald-trumps-approval ) “One of the main reasons for Trump's waning support is discontent with his management of the economy. More than half (54%) of respondents to the most recent NBC News poll expressed disapproval of President Trump's economic management, while 44% expressed approval.” 

Most pollsters find that public perception of Trump is positive on only one issue: immigration. A recent NBC News poll found that 55 percent of respondents approved of his handling of “border security and immigration” while 43 percent disapproved. ( https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/poll-trump-faces-early-challenges-economy-united-gop-backs-big-change-rcna195860 ) 

This polling result explains why Trump repeatedly talks about immigration. He may throw out random items as his “message of the day;” for example, the claim that Joe Biden’s pardons are void because he didn’t sign them. Nonetheless, several times each week Trump returns to immigration. The Trump Administration regards this as a winning issue. 

Since January 20, Trump’s immigration record is mixed. Trump declared a state of emergency and shut down all immigration (except for white Afrikaners). This has dramatically curtailed legal immigration. The situation with H1B and H2B visas is confuse, but it appears that fewer applicants will be admitted for technical and agricultural jobs. 

With regards to illegal immigration, there here have been raids throughout the country, staffed by ICE personnel supplemented by members of the FBI, DEA, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The raid results have been mixed: Newsweek reports: “[ICE said] that it had removed 28,319 people from the U.S. interior between January 20 and March 11, averaging to around 3,887 per week, or 555 a day. However, ICE has generally been responsible for removing those detained at the border, also. If the latest numbers include border removals, then the new administration is falling behind [Biden’s] weekly average of about 5,000 last year.” ( https://www.newsweek.com/trump-mass-deportation-numbers-data-ice-2047311 ) 

Trump is not getting the deportation numbers he expected. To make the deportation effort look good, Trump has begun relying on media stunts, such as transporting some targeted individuals to US military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 

This past week Trump tried three new tactics to improve his immigration numbers: 

1.Used Alien Enemies Act: A week ago, Trump signed an order using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as the legal basis for his deportation of alleged “Tren de Aragua” (TdA) gang members. This obscure law can be used only if there is “declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States.” Therefore, Trump declared TdA as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” that is “perpetrating an invasion” of the US. 

Trump likes the use of the Alien Enemies Act because he believes he can deport suspected gang members, starting at the age of 14, with no due process. 238 alleged members of TdA were deported to a El Salvador, where they were interred in a high-security prison. None of the 238 were afforded due process in the US. (it’s alleged not all of them belong to TdA.) 

2. Arrested Mahmoud Khalil: On March 8, ICE arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent US resident with a green card, who helped lead Columbia University’s pro-Palestinian protests last spring, The Trump administration accused Khalil of “engaging in activities aligned to Hamas” and is seeking to deport him using a legal provision from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952: this gives the US Secretary of State power to removed individuals from the US if their presence is said to “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States”. 

3. Revoked Legal Status of 543,000 immigrants: Trump said he will revoke the temporary legal status of more than half a million migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela (CHNV). Those migrants have been told to leave the country before their permits, and deportation shield, are cancelled on April 24. 

These three actions are meant to give a boost to Trump’s struggling immigration initiative. Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of TdA. However, he should have been able to deport them without taking this step. Trump and ICE reasoned that invoking the Alien Enemies Act would be easier as ICE wouldn’t have to grant the suspects due process. 

Trump arrested Mahmoud Khalil – and other pro-Palestinian activists – to expand the deportation playing field. Khalil has a green card, but Trump seeks to revoke this on dubious legal grounds. Trump has gone after Khalil because he has led pro-Palestinian protests. Trump doesn’t want Khalil to express his political beliefs. (Note that Trump has begun to call people he doesn’t like “Palestinians.”) 

Trump’s termination of the CHNV program comes after his announcement that he would end the temporary protected status of an additional 500,000 Haitians living in the US. To be clear, when Trump heralded his “mass deportation” program, many voters thought he was talking about folks who had come to the US illegally and had a criminal record. Now the targeted population has shifted. 

Summary: Donald Trump has been disappointed in the number of deportations achieved by his immigration initiative. Polling results indicate immigration is his only point of strength. 

To make his mass deportation effort look good, Trump has changed the rules. ICE is no longer focused on individuals who came here illegally and have a criminal record. Now Trump has broadened the deportation focus to include all non-white immigrants he doesn’t like. Too bad if they came here legally; Trump intends to change the rules to void their status. 

Trump 2.0 is failing. As a result, Trump is doubling down on his dreadful immigration plan.