As the country and the world transition from Presidents Biden to Trump, we should expect the most dramatic changes in the short term to involve migration management at the U.S.- Mexico border. The number of intending migrants showing up at the San Diego-Tijuana border, for example, will decrease to a small fraction of what it has been during the past four years.
Reduced already by the too little, too late pre-election limits imposed by Joe Biden, migrant flows will further diminish sharply once Donald Trump’s severe restrictionist policies are announced in January. These will be coupled with intensified pressure by the new istration on Mexico to curtail irregular migration through its interior as well as at its northern and southern borders. Similarly, the Migrant Protection Protocols from the first Trump term in 2019 will most likely be restored, compelling individuals seeking asylum to wait out the process in Mexico and the government there to accept their presence while they do so. People will be discouraged from making the journey, if that is the outcome, and the smugglers know it.
Less predictable is the impact on the region of the mass deportations Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, has in mind on behalf of his boss. Making 11 million undocumented people disappear is easier said than done and probably not doable at all. Trump’s new border czar, Tom Homan, denies any intent of operating at that scale of disruption. He claims that initial priority will be given to identifying and ejecting people who pose criminal and national security risks and recent arrivals. His plans then are to focus enforcement at the workplace, removing employees (and their families) lacking legal status. These latter plans remain to be seen, as well as the willingness of large companies (and their consumers) to do without the cheap labor they have depended upon for more than eight decades.
Moreover, serious questions arise whether courts will tolerate detention camps larger than the ones in California that housed Japanese citizens and migrants during World War II; or whether the proposed use of the military would violate the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act (ending Reconstruction) that forbids active-duty soldier involvement in domestic law enforcement. And then there are significant cost issues to consider: Will taxpayers bear the tens of billions of dollars it will take to operate a mass deportation program at the level bandied about?
Similarly, uncertainly abounds about how the incoming istration will address those who are currently in the country with legal status. Whether Trump will end DACA for Dreamers or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for people from the 16 countries the government has deemed unsafe, despite his promise to do so, remains unknown. Pressure from his own party may change his views — at least with respect to some of those immigrants.
Also difficult to predict is the precise degree to which President Trump’s recently tweeted tariff policies will affect the vibrant North American cross-border trade from which U.S. regional and national economies benefit mightily, including San Diego-Tijuana. Much ranting about NAFTA last time resulted in actually strengthening the trade relationship among the three core countries of North America through the new USMCA agreement. The same could be true again, and Trump’s 25% tariff proposals “on day one” could be bargained away in exchange for Mexican concessions on illegal migration and narcotics enforcement and Canadian concessions on energy, organized crime and contributing more to their own national defense. (The agenda on China will differ.)
The point is that nobody knows for sure exactly what will happen, including the incoming president. that far more individuals who entered the U.S. illegally were deported during Barack Obama’s first term than during Trump’s.
Everyone in the region, and elsewhere, is advised therefore to take a wait and see attitude and be prepared to respond to the choices that are made and the values asserted. Watch what Donald Trump’s government does, not what he says.
Bersin is executive chair at Altana Technology and Inaugural North America Fellow at the Wilson Center. He previously served as U.S. Attorney in San Diego and “border czar” for the U.S.-Mexico border during the Clinton istration and as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the Obama istration. He lives in Washington, D.C.
