Refugee Rights and the Trump Administration: Week One

On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued nearly 200 executive orders, memoranda, and proclamations, many of which pertain directly to immigration, asylum, and refugee resettlement. These actions, along with additional executive orders and legislation expected in the weeks and months ahead, are poised to reshape United States policy in a significant way.

In response, HIAS is introducing a new series summarizing important developments and explaining what they mean. These recap posts, along with relevant articles, statements, and resources, can be found at a new page we’ve built to track the new administration’s effect on displaced people.

In this first edition, we review how the executive orders published during Trump’s first week in office impact refugees and other displaced people.

U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP)

What Happened: President Trump signed an executive order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). The suspension, which will review exceptions on a case-by-case basis, will be reviewed every 90 days. There are no requirements for when it must re-start, which means the suspension is indefinite. All refugee arrivals were suspended, closing the door on thousands of refugees who were scheduled to arrive in the U.S.

What It Means: By and large, refugees will not be admitted into the United States for the foreseeable future. Those who have been waiting years for admission — individuals and families who have navigated the process and done everything correctly — will be kept in limbo indefinitely. The Trump administration even canceled scheduled flights that would bring refugees to the United States.

CBP One

What Happened: President Trump ended the use of the CBP One app as a way to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. Launched in 2023, the app allowed asylum seekers to schedule appointments with U.S. Border Patrol at regular points of entry to the United States. Existing appointments for after January 20, 2025 will no longer be honored and applicants will no longer be able to make new appointments.

What It Means: CBP One was the only legal means for someone to seek asylum to the United States from the U.S.-Mexico border. Since its inception, it processed 1 million people and, as of Monday, more than a quarter million applicants had their appointments canceled as a result of President Trump’s order. Potential asylum seekers will now face indefinite, extended stays in Mexico, where they will face potential threats to their safety.

National Emergency at U.S.-Mexico Border

What Happened: President Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. The executive order allows the president to deploy the armed forces, including the national guard, to obtain “complete operational control of the border.” It also orders the Defense and Homeland Security departments to build more physical infrastructure at the border — i.e., a wall — and orders these departments as well as the Attorney General to take “appropriate” steps to impede and deny unauthorized immigration.

What It Means: Based on the inaccurate perception that immigration at the U.S. southern border threatens the security of the United States, Trump’s national emergency declaration sets an extreme, antidemocratic, and ahistoric precedent, violating the constitutional separation between the military and civilian government. Military personnel are not equipped to handle the complex humanitarian needs of those fleeing for safety, and the order redirects money better spent on supporting international operations or fixing our broken asylum system. The vague wording of the order makes it far more difficult to ensure accountability or oversight.

“Remain in Mexico”

What happened: An executive order signed by President Trump formally reinstated the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), better known as “Remain in Mexico,” which the president introduced during his first term and was discontinued under President Biden. The policy forces non-Mexican asylum seekers to wait on the Mexican side of the U.S. southern border while waiting for their case to be resolved.

What it means: Restoring MPP violates domestic and international law, placing asylum seekers at risk of violence and instability. Human Rights Watch has reported that after MPP was put in place during the first Trump presidency, many of those enrolled in the program were victims of kidnapping, rape, extortion, and other forms of horrific violence while waiting in Mexico — and there is little reason to expect that the outcome would be different this time.  Restoring MPP will also worsen chaos and confusion at the border and incentivize people to pursue irregular channels, which would lead to worse humanitarian outcomes.

Birthright Citizenship

What happened: President Trump signed an executive order repealing birthright citizenship, which grants automatic citizenship to any child born in the United States regardless of the immigration status of the parents. Under the order, children born to undocumented immigrants in the U.S. — as well as many legal, temporary residents — will no longer obtain citizenship.

What it means: Almost immediately following the executive order, 22 U.S. states and the cities of San Francisco and Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit to block the order on 14th Amendment grounds. On Thursday, a judge blocked the executive order from going into effect.  But should it be implemented, the order would create a second class of citizenry for, arguably, the first time since the Civil War. It would also greatly expand the stateless population within the U.S.

Humanitarian Parole

What happened: An executive order terminated all humanitarian parole programs. This includes the CHNV program, which had allowed qualifying individuals from four countries — Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Venezuela — to fly to the United States and remain there for up to two years if they could secure a sponsor in the U.S. The order may affect 1.4 million people.

What it means: The CHNV program, introduced by President Biden in 2023, was a legal pathway into the country for people from certain countries dealing with severe political and economic crises. Terminating the program closes down a safe and carefully monitored pathway to safety. It has also created uncertainty for people with humanitarian parole status in the U.S.