As American families gathered around the table on Thanksgiving Day, hungry for turkey and pumpkin pie, President Donald Trump made a lengthy announcement via social media, detailing a renewed “America first” approach to immigration policy. “A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at … for being ‘Politically Correct,’ and just plain STUPID, when it comes to Immigration,” the president began. He then dove into a litany of societal ills he attributed to mass immigration from underdeveloped nations before declaring that he has a solution to those issues. “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover…”

But what are the issues the president intends to fix, and how does he intend to do so?

‘It’s Eating Them Alive’

“The official United States Foreign population stands at 53 million people,” the president said, citing U.S. Census Bureau data, “most of which are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels.” He added, “The real migrant population is much higher.”

According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS), the total foreign-born population in the U.S. stands at 53.3 million, up from 45 million in January of 2021, when Trump left office at the end of his first term. That figure includes naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents (such as green card-holders), those in the country on long-term visas (such as students or certain workers), those brought into the U.S. through refugee or asylum programs, and illegal immigrants. However, as the president and officials in his administration have pointed out, the real foreign-born population may be “much higher.” The Census Bureau itself admitted in 2015 that its reporting of the foreign-born population is likely undercounted by as much as 20%, largely due to the fact that illegal immigrants avoid self-reporting their legal status and avoid government surveys and questionnaires.

The president pointed out that immigrants “and their children are supported through massive payments from Patriotic American Citizens who, because of their beautiful hearts, do not want to openly complain or cause trouble in any way, shape, or form. They put up with what has happened to our Country, but it’s eating them alive to do so!” He continued, “A migrant earning $30,000 with a green card will get roughly $50,000 in yearly benefits for their family” through state and federal welfare programs. For example, a recent survey from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that nearly half (47%) of noncitizen households in the U.S. rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program benefits, at the American taxpayer’s expense, compared to less than one third (31%) of American-born households. “The results … are a reminder that once low-income immigrants settle in the country, it is very difficult to prevent their use of the welfare system,” wrote the study’s authors, CIS Research Director Steven Camarota and CIS Demographer Karen Zeigler. “This situation also raises important policy questions, including whether it makes sense to have an immigration system that allows in so many people who turn to taxpayers to support their children?”

Another example, cited by the president, comes from Minnesota. Christopher F. Rufo and Ryan Thorpe reported late last month that members of the North Star State’s “sizeable Somali community” have allegedly defrauded the state’s “generous” welfare programs, stealing billions of dollars from American taxpayers. Millions of those taxpayer dollars have been funneled by Somalis in Minnesota to the Somali terrorist organization Al-Shabaab. According to Rufo and Thorpe’s reporting, Somalis in Minnesota established falsified companies to take advantage of numerous benefits offered by the state, absconding with the ill-gotten funds. “What we see are schemes stacked upon schemes, draining resources meant for those in need. It feels never ending,” then-acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joe Thompson told City Journal. “I have spent my career as a fraud prosecutor and the depth of the fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away.”

Following the publication of the exposé, employees from Minnesota’s Department of Human Services charged that Governor Tim Walz (D) and other Democrats were actively facilitating the fraud and silencing whistleblowers. “Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response,” wrote a coalition of nearly 500 Human Services employees in a social media post. “Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports. Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation by Tim Walz, certain DFL members and an indifferent mainstream media.”

“As staff, we firsthand witnessed and observed fraud happening yet we were shutdown, reassigned and told to keep quiet. Sometimes more. Leadership did not want to appear to discriminate against certain communities and were unwilling to take action, such as stopping fraud, that would have an adverse impact on their image,” the Minnesota state employees continued. “This is a cascade of systemic failures leading up to Tim Walz. Agency leaders appointed by Tim Walz willfully disregarded rules and laws to keep fraud reports quiet — even to the extent of threatening families of whistleblowers,” they added. “These same leaders are not qualified for their jobs, instead getting leadership jobs via Tim Walz’s friendship so state government were left floundering.”

Referring to Somali crime in Minnesota, the president quipped, “The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both…” He also faulted “the worst ‘Congressman/woman’ in our country,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who he described as “always wrapped in her swaddling hijab…” The president also suggested that Omar may be in the U.S. illegally, citing allegations that the Somali-born Democrat married her brother in order to obtain legal permanent residency and become a naturalized citizen. The president said that Omar “does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how ‘badly’ she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc.”

Other Trump administration officials have also pointed to mass immigration as a source of problems for the country. For example, Vice President J.D. Vance recently noted that issues of affordability, particularly regarding housing, could be eased by continuing the Trump administration’s mass deportation program. “A lot of young people are saying housing is way too expensive. Why is that? Because we flooded the country with 30 million illegal immigrants,” Vance said last month. The president on Thursday also pointed to overburdened schools, high crime rates, housing shortages, “urban decay,” and “overcrowded hospitals,” among other issues, as problems stemming from or significantly worsened by mass immigration.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, explained, “The Left has grossly abused asylum and immigration ‘humanitarian parole’ to carry out its radical mass migration to this country. From that flows many downstream issues, including national security, public safety, and economic threats.” She continued, “No country, state, or locality can sustain the criminal, education, housing, healthcare costs, and more that the Biden Administration intentionally unleashed on Americans. It is why President Trump was re-elected and why the weekly examples of immigration and related tax crimes and abuse sustain Americans’ support for mass deportations — not just ‘the worst of the worst,’ but all deportable aliens.”

CIS Policy Studies Director Jessica Vaughan told The Washington Stand, “The U.S. refugee program can be a lifeline for displaced populations in need of resettlement, but in recent years they have grown very large, and have been very costly, especially for certain local communities where resettlement contractors have had free rein to bring in newcomers, and where taxpayers have largely picked up the tab.” She continued, “I believe that Trump was also thinking of the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and parolees let in by the Biden administration when he spoke of crime and urban decay — and we know that many of these have been accessing welfare programs.” Vaughan also noted the “staggering” instances of fraud committed by Somalis in Minnesota, commenting, “Between these cases, the problems with Afghan evacuees, and Europe’s experience, it’s no wonder Trump has lost faith in our country’s ability to successfully assimilate large-scale refugee flows.”

‘You Won’t Be Here for Long’

“Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many,” the president lamented in his Thanksgiving post. “I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover,” he continued, adding that he will “terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

“These goals will be pursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” the president asserted. But will he be able to achieve these goals?

The president is afforded broad legal powers and authorities over matters related to immigration and national security. Although no legal classification exists for a “Third World Country,” the president and his administration could classify a broad swath of nations from the Middle East and global south as potential national security threats and, under the authorities afforded the president by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), suspend all entry from those countries. INA Section 212(f) stipulates, “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants…”

This particular authority has been used by the president before. During his first term, the president issued an executive order barring entry to the U.S. by Iranian, Iraqi, Libyan, Somali, Sudanese, Syrian, or Yemeni nationals for a period of 90 days. The move was challenged in court, with progressive entities and organizations characterizing the executive order as Islamophobic due to the majority-Muslim populations of the affected countries. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, upheld the executive order, determining that the president was lawfully exercising the authorities delegated to him under INA and that the courts owed the president extreme deference in matters pertaining to immigration and national security.

Many of the president’s executive orders, particularly those related to matters of immigration, have been challenged over the course of his second term thus far, with a substantial number of legal challenges citing alleged violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which prohibits the government from acting in a manner “arbitrary and capricious.” While the president’s 2017 90-day ban on immigration from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen may have been permitted by the Supreme Court, a “permanent” pause on immigration from an even larger number of countries might be seen by the courts as “arbitrary and capricious” and could run afoul of equal protection scrutiny under the Supreme Court’s Bolling v. Sharpe ruling, with the president’s “Third World” designation being cast by opponents as a proxy for race or poverty. However, a temporary ban on immigration “detrimental to the interests of the United States,” with the option of extending the ban upon review, may be narrow enough to avoid being struck down by a court. Furthermore, broad blocks on travel from wide swaths of countries would likely face difficult APA challenges, unless the president and his deputies can demonstrate exactly why immigration from those countries is “detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

The president has also already made efforts to strip temporary protected status (TPS) and other temporary protections from some of the millions of foreigners ushered into the U.S. by his immediate predecessor, Joe Biden. However, those efforts have also met with conflict in the courts. Although INA explicitly shields decisions made by the Homeland Security secretary regarding TPS, parole, and other related functions from judicial review, federal judges are sparring with the Trump administration over whether or not the Homeland Security secretary has the legal authority to terminate TPS early, rather than either renew it or simply allow it to expire.

Under federal law, noncitizens are already barred from receiving most welfare benefits, so the president should only have to continue enforcing the law. However, many Democrats have opposed his efforts to prevent noncitizens from abusing taxpayer-funded welfare programs. For example, when attempting to identify and end abuse of SNAP, only 29 states (“mostly red states,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins noted at the time) complied with the administration’s requests for information. That program, as noted, has been used by noncitizens, including illegal immigrants. Democrat-led states largely refused to cooperate, just as many blue states and Democrat-managed cities have refused to comply with federal immigration law enforcement.

As for his pledge to “denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility,” the process is almost entirely a judicial one, although it must be initiated by the president’s deputies in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). 8 U.S.C. Section 1451 lays out the only grounds for denaturalizing naturalized citizens: the naturalized citizen must have been ineligible for citizenship at the time of naturalization, concealed or willfully misrepresented a material fact that would have made him ineligible for naturalization, or a handful of other reasons, such as affiliation with the Communist Party or the commission of Nazi war crimes prior to 1945. Under 18 U.S.C. Section 1425, a naturalized citizen can also be stripped of citizenship if convicted in a criminal trial of knowingly procuring citizenship illegally.

The president already has the legal authorities necessary to enact much of the agenda he outlined on Thanksgiving. It remains to be seen whether public opinion and the courts will allow him to deliver on his promise. When asked by reporters to define “reverse migration,” the president responded, “It means get people out that are in our country — get them out of here. I want to get them out. We got a lot of people in our country that shouldn't be here…” The president ended his Thursday announcement saying, “HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”