President Trump has decided that the most important mission, across the federal government, is immigration enforcement — not investigating serious crimes of drugs or guns, terrorists or tax evaders, or preparing our military for missions overseas.
His administration has shifted unprecedented federal resources to this mission — the biggest such reorganization since 9/11. But is it making America safer, or leaving us more vulnerable?
Trump’s executive orders use language evocative of the period after 9/11 and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. The orders refer to a migration emergency, invoke the language of war — “invasion” and “predatory incursion” — and designate as terrorist organizations the cartels that have been facilitating this migration.
But even after 9/11, emergency warlike powers were not invoked against immigration to this extent.
Several of Trump’s executive actions have redirected the missions and resources of not only DHS but also the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State to prioritize immigration enforcement.
One is designed “to ensure that the Armed Forces of the United States prioritize the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United States along our national borders.” Trump’s orders declaring an “invasion” of migrants are the basis for this redirection of military activity.
The same order gives the military command with responsibility for the defense of North America the mission to “seal the borders” and a mandate to create mission plans and guidance for the use of the Force to repel “forms of invasion, including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
Note the recognition that these are “criminal” activities, although they are described as an “invasion.” A longstanding law, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, prevents the military from engaging in civilian law enforcement inside the United States, with an exception under the Insurrection Act of 1807 — which the Trump administration has threatened to use.
These changes have led to a significant redeployment of military and federal law enforcement resources toward immigration enforcement inside the United States. On the military side, these include using Department of Defense facilities to detain arrested migrants, employing Department of Defense aircraft to deport migrants, deploying Navy warships to the Gulf of Mexico to manage illegal immigration, and using Air Force reconnaissance planes to monitor the southern border.
Another recent action reassigned a 60-foot strip of federal land along the border in New Mexico and Texas as a military zone, which allows the military to arrest migrants crossing there. Military resources have been used at the border in the past, but never to this extent in modern times.
Arrests at the border have reached record lows, raising questions about this continuing use of military assets. Arrests inside the country are high, disruptive and fear-generating, even though deportations haven’t reached Biden-era levels. The fiscal costs are also high, forcing the Department of Homeland Security to reconsider using military aircraft for deportations.
Meanwhile, federal law enforcement resources across the government are also being redirected. The office of Homeland Security Investigations within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was specifically redirected back to immigration enforcement as its primary mission. This reversal leaves its work investigating human trafficking, counter-proliferation, drug smuggling and other missions as secondary.
Another executive order directed the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security to supplement available personnel to secure the southern border and enforce immigration laws, essentially ordering law enforcement officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives; FBI; and the U.S. Marshalls Service to serve as immigration agents.
The Homeland Security secretary also requested that IRS criminal investigators assist with immigration enforcement and deputized the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service as immigration officers. And recent reports even have U.S. Postal Service Inspectors being used in immigration investigations.
On the prosecutions side, the Department of Justice has been ordered to prioritize prosecution of all criminal penalties authorized under immigration law, including many offenses that have not been criminally prosecuted in decades, such as misdemeanor fines or imprisonment for failing to report a change of address.
These actions raise questions about whether other crucial law enforcement functions are being de-emphasized: Are the Drug Enforcement Administration’s drug cartel investigations, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives’ illegal gun tracking, FBI’s serious crimes and terrorism investigations, ICE’s child trafficking investigations, and the Department of Justice prosecutions being affected? How long is this redeployment expected to last?
Yes, the increase in immigration during the Biden administration created significant challenges at the border and in U.S. cities, with some entrants posing criminal or security threats. However, most immigrants do not fall into these categories. That makes the Trump administration’s singular focus on immigration enforcement questionable.
Despite the administration’s claim it is going after “the worst of the worst,” it also is deporting student protestors, families, and those fleeing persecution. And the actions of the vast majority of immigrants do not support the administration’s claims that we are facing an “invasion” or terrorist threat so existential as to call for several national emergency declarations. At least one federal judge has agreed.
Of course, we should take all legitimate threats to our homeland and our borders seriously. But those are not limited to the realm of immigration. In zeroing in on immigration enforcement, the administration risks neglecting other serious threats to national security — to our peril.
Theresa Cardinal Brown is a fellow at the National Immigration Forum, a Council on National Security and Immigration leader and a veteran of the Department of Homeland Security who served in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
