US migration policy: Restrictive turn, Enforcement escalation, and Legal contestation

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CWA # 1919

State of Global Politics 2025

US migration policy: Restrictive turn, Enforcement escalation, and Legal contestation

The World This Week #338, Vol 7, No 52, 31 December 2025

Tanvi Thara Harendra Jha
31 December 2025

What happened in 2025?
a. Policy restrictions and border closures
On 20 January, President Trump issued an Executive Order, broadening expedited deportation authority and at the same time limiting access to asylum at the southern border. The proclamation indefinitely suspended the Refugee Admissions Program and officially suspended it as of 27 January. According to the White House, Trump stated: "The United States has been inundated with record levels of migration, and states and localities are unable to absorb migrants."

According to the American Immigration Council, before the Trump administration, the Biden administration had already enforced substantive asylum restrictions through a proclamation that suspended asylum whenever the daily border encounter exceeded 2,500 under Title 42. Trump 2025 restrictions were constructed directly on these Biden precedents, with the graduated restrictions replaced with categorical asylum elimination.

b. Aliens Enemies Act and El Salvador deportations
Trump used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on 14-15 March as a justification to accelerate the deportation of 261 individuals, with 137 having been actually deported due to the wartime statute. The administration sent these people back to Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) in El Salvador, which was a maximum-security mega-prison with 40,000 inmates. The Trump administration gave El Salvador a one-year detention contract for the deported people as part of a bilateral arrangement. CECOT had draconian conditions of detention, such as constant surveillance with lights on throughout, confined rival gang affiliates with other members in the same cells, and a disciplinary violation of up to 14 days in pitch black solitary confinement. Many detainees reported that they had not communicated with their families. In July, via US-facilitated flights, Venezuelan authorities had sent back to Venezuela more than 250 Venezuelan nationals detained in CECOT, including some 125 of whom had spent more than 125 days without charges.

On 01 May, US District Judge Fernando Rodriguez determined that the application of the Alien Enemies Act by Trump was beyond statutory power and stated that the acts of Tren de Aragua were not an invasion or predatory incursion to justify the application of the statute in 1798.

c. Detention infrastructure militarisation
White House reported that Trump signed an order to broaden the scope of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base operations on 29 January to house 30,000 migrants, the largest militarisation of civil immigration detention ever. In January 2025 alone, according to Reuters, the Pentagon spent about USD 38 million of its money on Guantanamo operations. In April 2025, satellite shots showed that of the number of around 260 military tents that had initially been set up to house migrants, about two-thirds had been cleared, with only about 400 people imprisoned there.

d. Domestic protest movement
The Day Without Immigrants protest took place on 03 February all over the country. Statistics gathered by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) project revealed that immigration-related protests had reached historic peaks in early 2025 and more than 700 anti-immigration protests had occurred in all 50 states by early March. As of 07 March, 27 per cent of all protest events reported involved immigration-related events, and three per cent involved all of 2024.

What is the background?
First, Central American migrants are the primary population affected by the 2025 restrictions. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the population of Central American-born individuals in the United States is estimated at 3.8 million, including 1.6 million from El Salvador, 1.4 million from Guatemala, and 1.1 million from Honduras. Another 1.1 million are Venezuelan nationals. These populations have experienced a tenfold growth in immigration from Central Americans since 1980. The demographic profile shows that most Central American immigrants are working age: 81 per cent are in the 18-64 age group, compared with 77 per cent of all immigrants. Central Americans have the highest labour force participation rate at 71 per cent, compared with 66 per cent for all foreign-born and 62 per cent for native-born.

Second, the 2025 enforcement machinery was simultaneously employed on several mutually supporting planes. Border Patrol activities, community-based ICE raids, the militarisation of detention infrastructure, accelerated removal processes, and voluntary departure programs served as redundancy: disrupting any one line of enforcement would be offset by other means. ICE community-based operations increased exponentially, and by September 2025, the number of arrests had reached a record in the past 10 years. The targets of these operations included workplace sites, such as construction sites, agricultural activities, and meat-processing plants, indicating a deliberate targeting of industries that relied on migrant labour. Militarisation of detention was experienced on a whole new level with the expansion of Guantanamo Bay and foreign detention facilities.

Third, several Trump administration policies were subject to review by federal courts throughout 2025, creating a state of legal uncertainty that undermines the coherence of the policies. An invitation to the Alien Enemies Act was successfully challenged in court at both the district and appellate levels, with judges holding that the statutory requirement for presidential action was absent. A judicial stay was imposed on the asylum suspension order. It was a pattern of legal challenge, even though the government had command of unprecedented enforcement resources, which implied substantive legal limitations on executive authority.

What does it mean for 2026?
First, the deepening of legal and political polarisation. Immigration will remain a contentious issue. Prolonged judicial contests can constrain the executive's powers or alter policy. The 2025 trend, marked by a series of policies open to legal challenge, indicates further legal action against the administration's remaining 2026 policies

Second, institutional capacity will be further strained. There is growing pressure on immigration courts, detention facilities, and local governments. The agricultural, construction, and food-processing industries, which are labour-intensive, might be disrupted overall in terms of the labour force. Militarisation of civil detention by enlarging Guantanamo and overseas detention facilities sets an example of the further militarisation of infrastructure.

Third, the international and regional implications. The issue of deportation affects US relations with Mexico and Latin America. The Mexican government's resistance to unilateral US designation systems indicates the potential for tension between the two nations regarding bilateral migration management. Migration control is becoming characterised by foreign collaboration, coercion, or even bargaining, and developing countries may oppose agreements that place their sovereignty under the enforcement agenda of the US. The international convergence toward migration restriction implies reduced international support for expanded asylum protections, which could benefit the US enforcement cooperation in various jurisdictions.

About the author
Tanvi Thara Harendra Jha is an Undergraduate Student from Alliance University, Bengaluru.

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