Barely a week into his second administration, US President Donald Trump has set out to fulfil many of his populist election promises, including pulling his country out of the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization (WHO), renaming the Gulf of Mexico, and recognising only two sexes and scrapping DEI policies. But it’s his anti-immigration and deportation orders that have had the most visible impact on the streets.
Trump and his likes have fuelled social anxieties and channelised them against the ‘other’ – often the minorities and immigrants. The use of military planes for deportation and the public nature of arrests of migrants frames them as a legitimate security threat to American society. Trump has called anti-immigration and deportation a move to protect America from ‘invasion’. Cabinet members as well as other Republican leaders have not stopped short of using dehumanising language, and Trump has further supplemented these moves with direct diplomatic pressure on source countries.
The obvious flashpoint of this move was the public spat between Trump and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who had initially refused to take in the deportees. However, the POTUS arm-twisted the Colombian government into accepting the migrants with punitive tariffs.
Though disruptive, these moves are a continuation of the policies Trump had initiated in his first stint. While millions of migrants and refugees move towards precarity because of these executive orders, whether this will have any substantial effect on international politics remains debatable.
Continuity From Trump 1.0 To 2.0
Even in Trump’s first stint (2017-2021), immigration was one of the top agendas in his campaign. Between 2017-2021, Trump introduced stricter vetting mechanisms, imposed a racist travel ban and constructed barriers, or ‘the wall’, along its Southern border.
Four years forward, in a flurry of executive orders, the new Trump administration seems to be escalating those policies. The US refugee admissions programme has been indefinitely suspended, leaving over 20,000 refugees stranded. Further, thousands of American troops have been redeployed to ‘seal the border’ after an executive order declared an emergency at the US-Mexico border. The mobile application, CPB One, which regulated the entry of migrants, has also been shut.
Trump has also cut funding for agencies responsible for assisting the integration of refugees into society. In a move similar to the ‘Muslim ban’, Trump has tasked agencies with identifying countries to impose complete or partial immigration bans. He has also strengthened the powers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest and detain ‘illegal’ migrants.
At home, these moves are being celebrated. Homeland Security proudly said on X, “..we have fulfilled President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport violent criminals illegally in the country”. Trump and his aides, like the new Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, have made a conscious effort to label these efforts as measures being taken against “dirtbags” or “illegal” and “criminal” migrants who “threaten” the safety of the US.
There is still some ambiguity over the number of people that will actually be deported in the coming months—by January 28, the Trump administration had already deported some 7,300 people. Mexico and other South and Central American states are setting up shelters and camps to host the return of migrants and refugees. But the uncertainties extend to people and diasporas beyond them.
Implications For Diaspora?
While Indians have been the biggest beneficiaries of the American tech boom and the H-1B visa regime, the rules governing naturalisation and family visas are also likely to change.
India is one of the largest sources of undocumented migration into the US. Trump has already discussed the issue of immigration with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a call, after which Trump said that India “will do the right thing”. The MEA, according to reports, is already planning to accept nearly 18,000 undocumented immigrants.
The order—currently stuck in court—to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the US to people with temporary visas is also going to increase the anxieties of young migrant families. Further, over a million Indians in the US right now are waiting for their green cards. The policy changes could extend the waiting period for many of these applicants.
While there has been a significant shift within the Indian American community towards the Republicans under Trump, the diaspora and its politics are too complex to put in a box. The anti-immigration drive is bound to impact them beyond just deportation. Such an anti-immigrant outlook may take the form of casual and institutional racism in day-to-day life.
Emigration from India has been at an all-time high. Already, policy changes in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia aimed to limit immigration are a cause for concern. However, these issues may not affect India’s bilateral relations with the US to a great extent. That relationship hinges more on questions on trade and tariffs; in the last Trump term, it was the American pressure to dial down India’s diplomatic engagement with Iran that had complicated things.
It is likely that the coming four years will witness a similar scene. In any case, the systemic pressure to contain China will ensure that India and the US strengthen relations in the Indo-Pacific through greater defence and technological synergy.
Not A Trumpian Trend
While Trump’s crackdown on migration is going to ruffle the feathers of source states like India, Mexico, and others, it will not impact substantial strategic alignments. Moreover, it is important to note that deportation is not a policy unique to Trump. In fact, the data of deported migrants in the first Trump administration is comparable to Biden’s tenure, and, in fact, lower than the first Obama administration’s. While Trump deported 3.13 million people in his first term, the number of people sent back under Obama stood at 3.16 million. Under Biden, this figure touched a staggering 4.44 million across 2021 and 2022.
The immigration regime has always been a political tool to facilitate the movement of certain people vis-a-vis the securitisation of others. This is most visible in the parole provision, which legalised entry and work of people from Afghanistan and Ukraine recently, and select South American nations earlier. Trump has halted even this avenue for the time being. Therefore, it is not the numbers but the populist fashion and the accompanying legal changes that set Trump apart from his predecessors.
A Rejection Of Globalisation
The resilience of the far-right and ethno-populism across the world reflects a near pan-universal rejection of the globalisation agenda. The West needs the labour and not necessarily the labourers. These trends are bound to leave the most vulnerable at risk. The mobility of people, especially from the Global South, is going to be scrutinised and regulated, but they won’t impact state-to-state relations, unfortunately. The United States is still the biggest bully in global politics. As the case of Colombia proves, states will stand for the rights of their people only as long as their broader economic and security interests are not threatened.
[Chetan Rana is currently a Senior Editor, 9Dashline, and a PhD Candidate at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His research areas include security and conflict in the Indo-Pacific, Populism and Indian Foreign Policy.]
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author