Donald Trump arrives for departure at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, … [+]
Developments in 2024 will reverberate in 2025 to drive US immigration policy. This will make some events predictable, such as Donald Trump’s pursuit of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. However, other developments in 2024 could predict unexpected results for immigration in 2025.
Trump’s election and his campaign rhetoric on immigration
Donald Trump’s recapture of the White House will influence future immigration policies more than any other event in 2024. However, how he won it mattered. Trump used extreme rhetoric to characterize immigrants and individuals with temporary protected status. He accused Haitians of eating their neighbors’ pets and said immigrants were “attacking villages” and invading cities. He claimed that many immigrants were released from foreign prisons and insane asylums to commit crimes in America. In December 2024, Trump blamed the truck attack in New Orleans that killed 14 people on “criminals coming in” from other countries, even though the attacker was a 42-year-old US-born Army veteran. Journalists who fact-checked Trump disputed these characterizations.
Trump’s rhetoric will lead to at least four core policies in 2025. First, an effort to deport people in the US in illegal status en masse. Second, the Laken Riley Act becomes law. The legislation mandates the detention of undocumented immigrants arrested for theft and enacts other changes, including measures that could further restrict legal immigration. Third, Trump said during the campaign that he wanted to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and, by extension, TPS holders from other nations. In January 2024, the Biden administration extended TPS to Venezuelans, Salvadorans, Ukrainians, and Sudanese. Fourth, by escalating the threat posed by illegal immigration, Trump has encouraged the use of any means available to stop illegal entry across the southwest border, regardless of the consequences.
Republicans gain narrow majorities in the House and Senate that will affect immigration policy and spending
Republicans held the House and won the Senate. However, the margins are narrow in both chambers. That could complicate efforts to implement restrictive immigration policies, including approving spending to fund a border wall, increased detention and more mass deportation agents. Republicans hope to get that spending through reconciliation, which could avoid a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. The tumultuous process the public witnessed in December 2024 to prevent a government shutdown shows that at least some House Republicans will avoid new spending that is not accompanied by substantial compensation.
The Republican victories have encouraged more Democrats to seek accommodation with GOP lawmakers on immigration issues. Some House and Senate Democrats supported passage of the Laken Riley Act despite the bill’s controversial measures. The bill could allow a state attorney general to sue to block visas for a country that doesn’t take back a deportee, usurping executive branch power and potentially preventing hundreds of thousands of workers, students or visitors from entering the United States , including from India and China.
Elon Musk listens as Donald Trump addresses a meeting of the House Republican Conference at the Hyatt … [+]
Silicon Valley allies who helped Trump win high-skilled immigration support
Donald Trump’s victory in 2024 differed from 2016 in at least one significant way: In 2024, he had unprecedented support from venture capital firms, tech executives and Elon Musk. CBS News reported that Musk spent $277 million to support Trump and other Republicans in 2025. Musk is already embroiled in a public dispute over H-1B visas with anti-immigrant political activist Laura Loomer, who attacked a political appointee Indian immigrant.
Tesla, headed by Musk, appeared in 2024 as number 16 among the companies with the most approved H-1B petitions for initial employment, having never cracked the top 25 in previous years. In FY 2024, Tesla had 742 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment, more than double the 328 in FY 2023 and 337 in FY 2022, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.
In June 2024, Trump recorded a podcast interview on the show Everything inside with venture capitalists who had been hosting him for a fundraising event. Venture capitalists voiced support for high-skilled immigration, prompting a response from then-candidate Trump. “What I want to do and I’m going to do is if you graduate from a college, I think you should automatically get a green card as part of your degree to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said. “And that includes junior colleges, anyone who graduates from a college. You go there for two or four years.” Trump promised to address the issue on “day one.”
Trump’s action on this promise seems impossible. However, support for more skilled immigration by Musk and others runs counter to the restrictive policies the Trump administration pursued in its first term. Trump officials, including senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, sought to make it impossible for many foreign-born scientists and engineers to qualify for H-1B status. She also issued a rule, later blocked, that tried to price H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the US labor market.
The potential increase and decrease in refugee admissions to the US and its impact on immigration levels
In FY 2024, 100,034 refugees arrived in the United States, according to the US Refugee Processing Center. That compares to just 30,000 arrivals in FY 2019 and 11,814 in FY 2020 under Trump. Stephen Miller worked against refugee admissions in Trump’s first term, and he returns to the White House in 2025 with a more powerful title. The Biden administration set a cap of 125,000 refugees for FY 2025. Religious and human rights groups are preparing for Miller to ignore that cap, suspend refugee admissions, and bring refugee arrivals to FY 2019 and FY 2020 levels or higher. low. Reducing refugee admissions will reduce overall levels of legal immigration.
Low border numbers and Mexican immigration cooperation
Donald Trump campaigned and continues to talk as if the border remains in “crisis.” The data point to a different reality: Illegal entry is lower today than when Donald Trump left office. In December 2024, there were 47,326 Border Patrol encounters on the Southwest border, 37% below the level of 75,316 encounters in January 2021 when Trump was president. The Biden administration’s use of legal avenues, a June 2024 executive order on asylum policy, and close cooperation with Mexico contributed to the significant decline at the border since July 2024.
Trump faces a dilemma: He can’t say Americans elected him to address a problem that has already been largely solved. That would interfere with convincing members of Congress to pass high levels of spending on immigration enforcement and legal efforts to declare a national emergency. That means he will likely ignore the data, continue his rhetoric and, among other things, criticize Mexico until he announces a deal with the Mexican government. It is possible that after the Trump administration implements its policies, including eliminating legal avenues, illegal entry will be higher in Trump’s second term than when Joe Biden left office.
Immigration Lawsuits and the End of Chevron Deferral
In June 2024, the US Supreme Court ruled Loper Bright Enterprises et al. against Raimondo: “The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency’s interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is cancelled.”
The end of Chevron’s deference to federal agencies could help businesses, universities and public interest groups in immigration lawsuits during a second Trump administration if officials adopt policies like those in the first term. This could affect several issues, including asylum, public charge, H-1B visas and international student policies, and lead to unexpected results.
