Donald Trump and Joe Biden during a debate in 2020. / Reuters/Morry Gash

Days before the candidates square off in the first presidential primary debate, salvos on immigration were fired by both sides. CNN is hosting the first Joe Biden-Donald Trump presidential debate on June.27.

Panelists at the Ethnic Media Services briefing on June.14 analyzed the plan – detailed in a document hundreds of pages long by the Heritage Foundation – and its potential effects on Americans, immigrants, and the economy.

The actions of his past administration when Donald Trump attempted major changes to the immigration system, separated families at the border, imposed a “Muslim Ban”, canceled TPS for Hondurans and DACA for Dreamers, and threw administrative wrenches on legal immigration and asylum system were highlighted. Most of these actions were undone by the Biden administration, they reminded the electorate. 

This time around, they warned if Trump is elected, his camp has much more ambitious plans: massive deportations and detention camps, freezes on legal immigration categories, punishing citizens and legal residents if they study or live with undocumented persons, and a team in the wings waiting to implement these radical reforms.

The Heritage Foundation Report and Project 2025 

‘Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise’ is an 887-page document by the Heritage Foundation that is seen as a blueprint of the Republican plan.

Since the first edition of ‘Mandate for Leadership’ more than 40 years ago, says the Heritage Foundation, this “policy bible” aims to provide administrations with a blueprint of policy solutions. The Reagan administration implemented nearly half of the ideas included in the first edition by the end of his first year in office. In contrast, the Trump administration embraced nearly 64 percent of the 2016 edition’s policy solutions after one year.

“If Trump is elected, his camp has a much more ambitious plan. There are more than 175 changes to immigration policy,” said Cecilia Esterline, Immigration Research Analyst at the Niskanen Center, during the Ethnic Media Services briefing on June.14. 

“The balance of power between states and the federal government is threatened," she said. 

Balance of power between states and federal govt

In the US, the most explosive flashpoint in the relationship between the state and the federal government is the controversy surrounding illegal immigrants. Faced with the influx of illegal immigrants, the states burdened by the cost of managing the immigrants have been seeking ways to alleviate the problem. 

Texas, under Governor Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, had rolled out the barbed wire carpet along the Rio Grande River in July 2023. While state troopers were deterring migrants crossing the river from Mexico into the US, federal border patrol agents stepped in and provided care to the migrants. A spokesman for Abbott said: "Texas is deploying every tool and strategy to deter and repel illegal crossings between ports of entry," criticizing President Biden's border policies.

The federal government has broad constitutional powers in determining what aliens shall be admitted to the United States, the period they may remain, regulation of their conduct before naturalization, and the terms and conditions of their naturalization. Under the Constitution, the states are granted no such powers.

“Decentralizing power away from the federal government and by decreasing bureaucratic hurdles,” warns Esterline, “they hope to do it without Congress, using their executive authority. They will create across-the-board impediments to a functioning legal immigration system introducing processing delays and other administrative hurdles.”

The Republican salvo

Ex-president Trump, who is all but officially the Republican Party's nominee in November's election, shared on the ‘All-In’ podcast, that he would offer a green card to anyone who graduates from a US college to keep the most "brilliant people" in the country.

Trump answered to the podcast host, "What I want to do, and what I will do, is—you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically, as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges, too."

Trump, in one fell move, gave community college a boost.  

“I don’t believe it for a minute,” said Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Capehart on PBS Newshour. But, David Brooks of New York Times believes Trump will follow through on the green card for graduates. “He is looking a lot more flexible now on a number of issues,” said Brooks.

“I would like to see the nationality of the students who will be allowed to get these green cards. I wouldn’t be surprised if the students from Southeast Asia, Africa, etc., are excluded from the green card provision and only students from European countries are eligible,” he said. 

Skepticism on Trump’s commitment is fueled by the fate of the Immigration Reform Bill. Senate Republicans, last October, had demanded a bill that would help secure the southern border of the United States. Both Senator Chuck Schumer, the Majority Leader, and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Minority Leader, a bipartisan team of senators began negotiations to produce a bill that enough members of both parties could accept. 

The team negotiated for four months to produce this bill. It took less than four days for its support among Republicans to collapse. Why?

“The easiest explanation,” the Brookings Institute said, “is that Republicans in both Senate yielded to objections from their all-but-certain presidential nominee.”