Five ways Trump has changed immigration in the US

ByBernd Debusmann Jr and Mike Hills. Immigration has always been central to Donald Trump's message.

Key points

• By comparison, in the final two fiscal years of the Biden administration – 2023 and 2024 – 60, 000 and 100, 000 entered the country, respectively.
• A vow to build a "big, beautiful wall" at the almost 2, 000-mile (3, 218km) US-Mexico border was a signature promise of Trump's 2016 campaign.
• Progress on it has speeded up in his second term, boosted by $46.5bn (£34.7bn) in new funding from Trump's "One Big Beautiful" spending bill.
• "President Trump promised the American people a secure border, and the data proves he delivered, " Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin remarked in an official note on 16 October.
• The cap for refugee admissions for the 2026 fiscal year was initially set at 7, 500.

When he famously stepped onto the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for his first presidential term in 2015, he accused Mexico for of sending drugs and crime north of the border – and it's been a constant rallying cry ever since.

Some of his first-term ambitions to stem the flow of would-be immigrants were constrained by the courts.

But restraints have been weaker in his second term, with a more accommodating Supreme Court and tens of billions of extra enforcement capital from Congress.

Who should be allowed to live in the US remains a major problem on the minds of voters in the upcoming midterm elections. It are largely seen as a referendum on the Trump presidency.

He promised a closed border and mass deportations in his successful 2024 campaign – and few can deny that he's delivered on both.

But even among those who voted for a tougher stance, there is a concern that the crackdown has gone too far. His signature policy has played out in five key ways. 1. A border that is largely closed.

Crossings exploded during Joe Biden's presidency, with over 4.5 million migrant "encounters" recorded at the southern border in 2023 and 2024 alone, reflecting the massive numbers of individuals headed north to the US border.

His administration eventually brought the monthly figures down significantly by restricting asylum claims and removing migrants entering the US illegally without processing.

When Trump returned to office, that stream of migrants became a trickle. Border encounters plummeted.

By the end of Trump's first year in office, the chaotic scenes that had generated headlines around the globe during the Biden administration had largely gone.

On a trip to the border city of El Paso, Texas, in November 2025, for example, the BBC discovered quiet streets where there had previously been makeshift camps housing thousands of migrants granted parole in the US to await immigration proceedings.

To achieve what he often describes as the "most secure" border in US history, the Trump administration has taken an aggressive, multi-pronged approach.

That has included effectively freezing asylum applications at the border, ending "catch and release" of detainees into the US, deploying troops to the border and pressuring Mexico to clamp down on the flow of migrants headed north.

"President Trump promised the American people a secure border, and the data proves he delivered, " Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin remarked in an official note on 16 October. "The results could not be clearer: strong enforcement works." 2. Building of wall speeding up.

Meanwhile, a vow to build a "big, beautiful wall" at the almost 2, 000-mile (3, 218km) US-Mexico border was a signature promise of Trump's 2016 campaign.

According to administration figures, external, concerning 644 miles of "primary wall" – closest to the border – existed before Trump returned to the White House, along with 75 miles of "secondary" wall set slightly further inside the US.

Since then, 250 more miles of new wall have been completed, including primary, secondary and waterborne barriers, along with the technology that helps detect illegal crossings. An extra 1, 443 miles of barriers are at present under construction.

Experts, nevertheless, paint a more complex picture of what has been actually built rather than just improved or updated.

Additionally, the impact the wall is itself having on the broader immigration figures is up for debate.

"Since new wall construction has really begun in earnest, there has been no significant change in the number of people crossing the border, " remarked Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration enforcement expert at the American Immigration Council.

There is no indication the border wall has reduced migrant crossings, he continued. The reduction has been more down to Trump's policies and messaging.

Trump, for his part, continues to point to the wall as a successful policy – and continues to claim that Mexico paid for it.

"I'm the King of the Wall, " Trump remarked at a rally in Kentucky on 17 October. "By the way, Mexico did pay for that wall. I charged them tariffs and I charged them costs like they've never paid in history."

Hispanic voters supported bring Trump to power – in Texas, the tide may be turning. 3. Detentions and deportations rocketing.

Most of the headlines generated by Trump's immigration policies have come from the US interior, where operations by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to round up individuals they say are in the US illegally have rocked cities nationwide.

During his campaign, Trump promised an immediate start to what he described as the "largest deportation operation in American history". It authorities stated would commence with residents who have committed crimes first.

Arrests – and subsequent detentions in immigration facilities – have shot up significantly since Trump returned to office, including a record of almost 50, 000 in July this year alone, according to data obtained by the Deportation Data Project, external, a repository of US immigration data run out of University of California, Berkeley, and UCLA.

But the same data, external demonstrates that a substantial chunk of the arrests involve individuals without criminal convictions. In July 2026, detentions of immigrants with criminal histories reached an all-time low of 27%.

Deportations have additionally ramped up significantly. By mid-July this year, ICE was removing an average of 1, 255 individuals from the country per day, compared to concerning 770 in Biden's final months in office – although Biden's own removals had sharply risen in his final year in office.

But the tactics applied by ICE in US cities have produced plenty of Americans grow uncomfortable, including numerous of those who backed stricter restrictions broadly. This became increasingly evident after Operation Metro Surge, a two-month substantial scale enforcement action in Minneapolis in early 2026 that left two US citizens dead.

For context, a New York Times and Siena poll, external published on 21 October identified that 50% of voters trust Democrats to handle the matter, compared with 46% for Republicans – despite the problem being a traditional Republican strength.

In practice, a separate poll, from Politico and Public First, external in late September, discovered deep splits between Republicans on the problem, with 31% of non-MAGA Republicans, meaning those not aligned with Trump's movement, believing that campaign has become too aggressive. 4. Refugee intake down sharply.

After returning to the White House last year, Trump almost immediately suspended refugee admissions, saying at the time these could only restart if they were shown to be in US interests.

In February, nevertheless, an executive order signed by Trump narrowly re-opened that process for Afrikaners from South Africa. This person the White House has repeatedly stated are being killed and "persecuted" – a claim that the administration in Pretoria has denied.

Meanwhile, the cap for refugee admissions for the 2026 fiscal year was initially set at 7, 500. It was raised to 17, 500 in May this year since of what the administration described as an "unforeseen emergency refugee situation".

Overall refugee admissions have slowed to a relative trickle. State Department data demonstrates that 16, 292 refugees were admitted into the US in the 2026 fiscal year – of whom 16, 287 were South African.

By comparison, in the final two fiscal years of the Biden administration – 2023 and 2024 – 60, 000 and 100, 000 entered the country, respectively. In the 2024 fiscal year, the highest numbers came from Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, Syria and Venezuela.

Hundreds of thousands of individuals protected from deportation lost that protection when a humanitarian protection called Temporary Protected Status (TPS) was additionally concluded in Trump's second term. It offered vetted individuals the right to live and work in the US if their home countries were deemed to be unsafe to return to.

Taken together, the developments around five ways Trump has changed immigration in the US point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.