On his first day back in office, President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders designed to bolster his long-promised crackdown on illegal immigration.

“As commander in-chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is what I’m going to do,” Trump said Monday during his inaugural address.

Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, told CNN Tuesday that “targeted enforcement operations” to deport non-citizen criminals were already ongoing. Another administration official, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman, said criminals will not be able to hide in schools and churches as Trump is allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest people in those places.

The bold action follows a fundamental shift in public attitudes toward the immigration issue under President Joe Biden. With illegal border crossings reaching a record high, roughly two-thirds of Americans support broadly deporting illegal immigrants — though that figure drops off more if deportations include the separation of families.

Here are the major executive actions Trump has taken to address immigration so far in his second term:

Resume border wall construction

Trump’s signature campaign promise for nearly a decade has been the construction of a physical barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border. His first term saw the construction of about 450 miles of wall, but efforts to expand on this were halted by Biden in 2021.

By an executive order titled “Securing Our Borders,” Trump formally authorized construction on the wall to continue immediately.

Restore ‘Remain in Mexico’

Trump instructed all federal agencies to begin reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which requires migrants to wait for their asylum hearings on the Mexican side of the border. The Biden administration also suspended this policy upon taking office in 2021, though a court order forced them to revive it briefly in December 2022.

The policy requires cooperation from the Mexican government, which cooperated in the past but has not yet publicly committed to doing so under Trump this time.

Deploy military to border, designate cartels as terrorists

One of Trump’s bolder actions was declaring the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border a national emergency, allowing him to move military personnel there. The president ordered the Department of Defense to deploy “as many units or members of the Armed Forces” as necessary to help the Department of Homeland Security obtain “complete operational control” of the border.

A subsequent Trump order designating Mexican drug cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations opens up new ways to penalize the movement of illegal substances and trafficked migrants across the border.

End birthright citizenship — and subsequent lawsuits

Perhaps the most controversial executive order signed by Trump, the children of some undocumented people could lose their citizenship status — including access to schools, health care and more.

The order’s language appears to conflict with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” The Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) established that children born in the U.S. are full citizens, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

The order has already been challenged in a lawsuit filed by at least two dozen Democratic attorneys general, who argue Trump lacks the authority to nullify a constitutional amendment.

Promise of mass deportations

Trump’s promise to deport hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. illegally would require cooperation from state and local law enforcement, which is exactly what he tried to do by directing the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to set up immigration task forces in all 50 states.

Another order called on officials to “promptly” expand detention sites for migrants and increase agreements with local law enforcement so they can be deputized as immigration offices.

Known as 287(g) agreements, they would allow local officials to oversee the “investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security.”

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