Trump to limit immigration for 60 days due to coronavirus, may extend
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday temporarily halting immigration to the United States, with the exception of farm workers and the immediate family members of American citizens.
The order will be in place for at least 60 days, at which point, Trump told reporters on Tuesday, he would re-evaluate an “extension or modification” based on the state of the economy, currently devastated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump characterized the order as “strong” and said that it was intended to “put unemployed Americans first in line for jobs” amid spiraling unemployment fueled by the effects of the outbreak.
“It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced by new immigrant labor flown in from abroad,” Trump said. “I think as we move forward, we will become more and more protective of them.”
Trump said that the order was still being written as of Tuesday evening, and that he planned to sign it the next day, circumventing what is typically a lengthy interagency review process for major executive actions.
He specified farm workers as a critical exemption, but also said that, “from a humane standpoint,” close family members of Americans would also be allowed in.
“This order will only apply to individuals seeking a permanent residency – in other words, those receiving green cards. Important. It will not apply to those entering on a temporary basis,” he said. “It will have certain exemptions, because you need certain exemptions.”
Throughout the day, White House officials were caught off guard when pressed for details on the contents of the order. But the Trump campaign was well-prepared with a defense.
On Tuesday afternoon, without the order complete and without details of its contents available to the public, the president’s reelection campaign sent out an email to supporters with a link to a glossy survey asking them to express support.
“The President asked us to reach out to you specifically to take our Immigration Executive Order Survey so that he could get his finger on the pulse of the American People,” the email states.
The campaign presented Trump’s order to voters as a core part of his response “to protect our Nation,” pointing to the dramatic effects the pandemic has had on American jobs.
“President Trump’s immigration policy just makes sense as the United States fights the war against the coronavirus,” Tim Murtaugh, communications director for Trump’s reelection campaign, said in a statement. “He has two main goals: to protect the health and safety of Americans and to safeguard the economy. This decision addresses both.”
With the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services offices closed and international travel at a standstill, it is unclear what the new restrictions would aim to achieve beyond what has already occurred in response to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has killed over 40,000 people in the United States.
Kayleigh McEnany, the new White House press secretary who until recently served as a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, offered an initial defense of the “necessary” action that echoed the campaign’s response.
“President Trump is committed to protecting the health and economic well-being of American citizens as we face unprecedented times,” McEnany said. “As President Trump has said, ‘Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers.’ At a time when Americans are looking to get back to work, action is necessary.”
The Departments of Homeland Security and State did not respond to requests for comment, and the Defense Department said that it has not received any new guidance from the White House in recent days.
“I have not had additional taskings over the last few days,” Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, head of U.S. Northern Command, said at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday.
But Pentagon officials have noted that additional military forces were requested by the Department of Homeland Security earlier this month to help “seal off” the U.S. border from migrants who may be carrying the virus.
“Those forces are in place,” O’Shaughnessy said.
The forces are limited in what they can do, because of standing U.S. law that prohibits federal troops from conducting law enforcement activities on U.S. soil.
Overall, there are approximately 5,500 U.S. active duty and National Guard forces assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border. The forces were initially dispatched there in late 2018 to reinforce parts of the border wall.
“Our job is really the detection and monitoring aspect of it,” O’Shaughnessy said. The additional troops will be operating 60 mobile surveillance sites,” he said.
“We man these mobile cameras,” he said. “We point out when we see activity and then the customs and border personnel, or the border patrol agents actually are the ones to respond to that activity.”
Tara Copp contributed to this report.
Updates with Trump comments from briefing.
This story was originally published April 21, 2020 at 3:14 PM.
