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Immigration has always been at the core of Donald Trump's political agenda.
In 2015, when he appeared on Trump Tower's famous golden escalator and announced his first candidacy for the U.S. president, he accused Mexico of bringing drugs and criminal activities into the United States. Since then, immigration has been an important issue for him to rally his supporters.
Trump spent his first term as president trying to stem the influx of immigrants, but some of his policies were limited by the courts.
By the second term, however, these constraints had weakened. The Supreme Court has become more lenient on its policies, and Congress has allocated tens of billions of additional dollars to strengthen immigration enforcement.
Who should be allowed to live in the United States remains a major issue for voters in the upcoming congressional midterm elections. The election is widely seen as a referendum on Trump's presidency.
When Trump successfully ran for president in 2024, he promised to seal the border and deport immigrants on a large scale. Today, few can deny that he has delivered on both promises.
But even among voters who support tighter immigration policies, there are concerns that the crackdown has gone too far.
Trump’s signature policy is mainly reflected in the following five aspects.
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1. Borders almost completely closed
The number of people crossing the border has surged under Joe Biden's presidency. In 2023 and 2024 alone, more than 4.5 million migrant "contact incidents" were recorded at the southern border of the United States, reflecting the large number of immigrants heading north to the U.S. border at that time.
The Biden administration ultimately brought the monthly numbers down sharply by restricting asylum applications and deporting immigrants who entered the country illegally without formal processing.
After Trump returned to the White House, the once steady flow of migrants became few and far between, and the number of migrant contact incidents at the border dropped sharply.
By the end of Trump’s first year back in office, the chaos at the border that made headlines around the world during the Biden administration had largely disappeared.
For example, when the BBC visited the Texas border city of El Paso in November 2025, it found that the streets were peaceful. In the past, these sites have housed temporary camps that housed thousands of people who were allowed to temporarily enter the United States while awaiting immigration proceedings.
The Trump administration has taken an aggressive, multi-pronged approach to achieving what he often describes as the "most secure" border the United States has ever seen.
The measures include effectively freezing asylum applications at the border, ending the practice of detaining migrants before releasing them into the United States, deploying troops at the border and pressuring Mexico to stem the flow of migrants heading north.
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin issued a statement on October 16, saying: "President Trump promised the American people to secure the border, and the data proves that he has fulfilled his promise."
"The results couldn't be clearer: Strong enforcement does work."
2. Border wall construction accelerated
One of Trump's signature promises during the 2016 campaign was to build a "big, beautiful wall" along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,218-kilometer) U.S.-Mexico border.
In his second term, wall construction has accelerated, in part due to an additional $46.5 billion (£34.7 billion) in Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill.
According to U.S. government data, before Trump returned to the White House, about 644 miles (approximately 1,036 kilometers) of "major fence" had been built on the border, which is the wall closest to the border. In addition, there is also a 75-mile (approximately 121 kilometers) "second wall" farther away in the United States.
Since then, another 250 miles (approximately 402 kilometers) of new fences and related facilities have been completed, including primary fences, secondary fences, water barriers, and technical equipment to help detect illegal border crossings. An additional 1,443 miles (approximately 2,322 kilometers) of border barriers are currently under construction.
However, experts point out that the picture is far more complex than the numbers suggest, as to how many new facilities are actually being built, and how many are simply improvements or updates to existing facilities.
There is also debate over how much of an impact the wall itself will have on overall immigration numbers.
"There hasn't been a significant change in the number of people crossing the border since the new wall construction really got underway," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration enforcement expert at the American Immigration Council.
He added that there is currently no indication that the border wall has reduced the number of migrants crossing the border. The decline is more a result of Trump's policies and his political messaging.
Trump continues to view the border wall as a successful policy and continues to claim that Mexico has paid for the wall.
On October 17, Trump said at a rally in Kentucky: "I am the king of the wall."
"Mexico, by the way, did pay for that wall," he said. "I imposed tariffs on them and I charged them all sorts of fees that they've never paid in their history."
3. Rapid increase in detention and deportation numbers
Much of the news focused on Trump’s immigration policies comes from within the United States. Many cities have been hit as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents launch operations in cities across the country to arrest people authorities believe are in the United States illegally.
During his campaign, Trump promised to launch what he described as "the largest deportation campaign in American history" upon taking office. Officials said at the time that operations would prioritize those who had committed crimes.
Since Trump returned to the White House, the number of arrests and subsequently the number of people being held in immigration detention facilities has risen sharply.
According to data obtained by the "Removal Data Project", a U.S. immigration data database jointly operated by the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles, in July this year alone, the number of arrests hit a record of nearly 50,000 people.
However, the same set of data also shows that a large proportion of those arrested have no criminal conviction records. In July 2026, the proportion of detained immigrants with criminal records dropped to an all-time low of 27%.
The number of deportations has also increased significantly. As of mid-July this year, ICE was deporting an average of 1,255 people from the United States every day; by comparison, the average number was about 770 in the final months of Biden's term. However, the number of deportations itself has increased dramatically in the last year of the Biden administration.
However, the enforcement methods used by ICE in American cities have made many Americans increasingly uneasy, including many who generally support tightening immigration restrictions.
This unease became even more pronounced in early 2026 when authorities launched Operation Metropolis, a massive two-month law enforcement operation in Minneapolis that left two American citizens dead.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released on October 21 showed that 50% of voters trust the Democratic Party to handle immigration issues; in comparison, 46% trust the Republicans. In the past, immigration has been a traditional strong point of the Republican Party.
Another poll conducted by Politico and Public First in late September found that Republicans are deeply divided on this issue. Among Republicans who are not supporters of Trump's "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement, 31% believe the crackdown on immigration has become too aggressive.
4. The number of refugees accepted has dropped significantly.
Trump suspended refugee admissions almost immediately after returning to the White House last year, saying at the time that admissions would only resume if it was proven to be in U.S. interests.
However, in February this year, Trump signed an executive order to reopen the refugee admissions process on a limited basis, targeting Afrikaners from South Africa.
The White House has repeatedly claimed that these people are being killed and "persecuted", but the South African government has denied the accusations.
The upper limit for refugee admissions in the United States for fiscal year 2026 was initially set at 7,500. But in May this year, the Trump administration raised the limit to 17,500, citing "unforeseen emergency refugee situations."
Overall, the U.S.’s admissions of refugees has slowed significantly. U.S. State Department data shows that a total of 16,292 refugees were admitted to the United States in fiscal year 2026, 16,287 of whom were from South Africa.
By comparison, in the last two full fiscal years of the Biden administration, in 2023 and 2024, the United States accepted 60,000 and 100,000 refugees respectively.
In fiscal year 2024, the countries of origin receiving the largest number of refugees include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Syria and Venezuela.
During Trump's second term, the government also terminated the "Temporary Protected Status" (TPS) for some immigrants, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people losing protection from deportation.
This humanitarian protection measure originally allowed individuals from countries deemed unfit to return safely to legally reside and work in the United States after passing review.
Haiti is one of the countries affected. In June this year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the temporary protected status of approximately 350,000 Haitians in the United States.
5. Tighten visa policies and launch a US$1 million “golden ticket”
The Trump administration has also tightened other legal ways to live and work in the United States through a number of policy changes.
Dozens of countries that the Trump administration considers to pose security risks have been subject to full or partial visa and entry restrictions.
The authorities have also strengthened background checks and implemented new regulations, requiring some people already living in the United States to return to their countries of origin to apply for green cards, slowing down the application process.
In September 2025, the Trump administration shocked the U.S. technology industry by announcing a $100,000 fee for the new H-1B professional work visa. The holders of this type of visa are mainly from India.
In May this year, US Citizenship and Immigration Services stated on the social platform X that the number of H-1B visa registrations in fiscal year 2027 dropped by 40%.
"The data clearly shows that the days of abusing the program through mass registration of low-wage jobs are over," the statement said.
The statement also stated that this program is now better able to achieve its original purpose, which is to attract highly skilled foreign workers while protecting the wages, working conditions, and employment opportunities of American workers.
Although the courts have so far blocked the implementation of the $100,000 fee, the threat of the imposition of the fee appears to have deterred employers.
However, some experts warn that the Trump administration's goals of protecting American jobs, raising wages, and preventing companies from outsourcing work may be difficult to achieve.
One study from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School found that changes to H-1B visa policy would have "little significant impact" on the wages of native-born workers in the United States because the benefits of less competition in the labor market would be offset by slower productivity growth.
However, the United States has also opened other immigration pathways, provided the applicant has an extra $1 million.
The "Trump Gold Card" program launched in 2025 is designed to attract wealthy foreigners to live in the United States. Applicants must "donate" US$1 million to the U.S. government and pay a non-refundable application fee of US$15,000.
Trump said at the time that the plan would boost the U.S. economy. However, the number of applications so far does not appear to be enthusiastic. As of April this year, only one applicant had been approved.
This article was originally written in English. We used artificial intelligence to assist in translation and was reviewed by BBC journalists before publication. Learn more about how we use artificial intelligence.
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