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Salvadoran police officers escort an alleged member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recently deported by the U.S. government to be imprisoned in the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison, as part of an agreement with the Salvadoran government, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, in this handout image obtained March 16, 2025.
Where does Trump’s immigration crackdown stand, nearly 100 days in?
President Donald Trump’s actions against migrants have generated among the most controversy of any of his policies during the first few months of his presidency. His administration’s deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran maximum security facility has drawn comparisons to the worst abuses of totalitarian regimes, and Trump’s approval rating on immigration issues has slipped a bit in several polls.
Here’s a brief rundown of three of the most salient actions Trump has taken on migration.
1. Mass deportations of alleged criminal migrants
In March, the Trump administration defied court orders to remove over 200 Venezuelan migrants whom it alleged – without providing proof or due process – were criminals without legal status in the United States. The White House claimed it had the authority to do so thanks to the 1789 Alien Enemies Act, which it invoked to target the Tren de Aragua, a gang it alleges to be conducting “irregular warfare and undertaking hostile actions against the United States.”
The Supreme Court ruled on April 8 that while the administration could use this act to deport alleged gang members, it must provide them the opportunity to challenge their removals in court first. Eleven days later, it ruled that the administration must halt deportations under the Alien Enemies Act pending a further ruling from the court. The White House derided challenges as “meritless litigation” – even though it admitted in one case, that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, it mistakenly deported him to a potential life sentence in El Salvador. Despite another Supreme Court ruling that the administration must facilitate his return to the United States, the administration says it cannot retrieve him from El Salvador.
2. Executive Order “Protecting the American People Against Invasion”
Trump issued this broad executive order, aka PAPAI, within hours of his inauguration. It revokes several Biden-era executive orders related to immigration and attempts to further the crackdown Trump promised on the campaign trail.
For example, it removed restrictions on immigration authorities attempting to make arrests at sensitive locations like churches, schools, or certain workplaces. It urges state and local law enforcement to aid in immigration arrests, which are usually outside their jurisdictions, and threatens so-called sanctuary cities with the loss of federal funds if they do not assist. The order also mandates the creation of “Homeland Security Task Forces” in each state, reporting to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. These task forces are meant to marshall more manpower and resources to make arrests, but the White House has expressed frustration with the pace of detentions.
3. Militarized border protection
In another executive order signed on his first day in office, Trump declared a national emergency on the southern border, enabling military forces to take a greater role in securing the region. He also assigned the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot wide strip of land running along much of the border from New Mexico to California, to the Defense Department. DoD has announced it will administer part of the reservation as a section of Fort Huachuca, a military base in Arizona. Doing so will allow military personnel to put up barriers and make arrests as part of their security duties, but those actions are likely to be challenged in court.
Despite – or perhaps because of – the crackdown along the border, apprehensions are way down compared to the Biden administration. Authorities detained just 11,017 attempted migrants along the southern border in March 2025 compared to 189,359 in March 2024.
US President Donald J. Trump signs executive orders in the Cabinet Room of the White House on March 25, 2025.
GZERO Explains: How Trump’s executive order could impact millions of voters
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday that aims to secure elections by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. The order aims to guard against illegal immigrants voting in elections and would require all ballots to be received by Election Day.
The conundrum: The order has a strict list of ways to prove citizenship. So, while it will guard elections against illegitimate voting, it will also stop a lot of legitimate voters from casting ballots.
How does the executive order affect voter registration? Voters will have to provide proof of citizenship and valid photo identification. For most Americans, this will mean a passport or a combo of a Real ID-compliant license and a birth certificate. It also aims to eliminate online voter registration.
Who might this affect? About 140 million Americans do not have a valid passport. To put that into perspective, 153 million people voted in the 2024 presidential election. And close to 69 million women who have changed their names would have difficulty providing matching documents.
Is this enforceable? One provision of the order grants the Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, the authority, with assistance from the Department of Homeland Security, to issue subpoenas to states for reviewing voter rolls to ensure compliance with federal laws. It also says that failure to comply could lead to a loss of federal funding.
But this is unlikely to fly with the courts. The US Constitution is crystal clear that Congress and the states have jurisdiction when it comes to creating election laws. This is likely to be thrown out by the courts. However, legislation called the SAVE Act was passed by the House on April 10 and contains the same provisions as the executive order, and would make them law if it is passed through the Senate.
But requiring proof of citizenship has been a goal for Republicans for a long time. So, even if the executive order is blocked nationwide, it will likely mean many GOP-led states and counties adopt rigid citizenship requirements anyway.
Are non-citizens voting? Despite levels of illegal immigration rising in the US over the last decade, audits by state officials and political scientists have concluded that it is still rare. A 2022 Georgia investigation found that there were 1,634 incidents of noncitizens potentially attempting to register to vote between 1997 and 2022, but 1,319, or 80.7% of them, happened after 2016. But, and this is important, in none of the cases was the person allowed to vote.
Are the payoffs worth it? Kansas implemented similar strict voting rules requiring proof of citizenship in 2013 in response to its Secretary of State saying that it found 129 non-citizens to have voted or tried to vote since 2000. While that accounted for 0.0007 of the state’s voters, the new rules ended up preventing more than 31,000 eligible US citizens from registering to vote after it was enacted – accounting for 12% of all first-time voter registration attempts in Kansas that year.
An infographic of the changes to the US voting system under Trump's executive order
Graphic Truth: How Trump aims to alter the US voting system
Officials from the Democratic Party in 19 states have filed a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s efforts to alter the national voting process via an executive order entitled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” which they argue infringes upon states’ constitutional rights to manage their elections. The Trump administration argues that it is necessary to ensure election security.
How has Trump changed voting? Under the order signed on March 25, people must prove their citizenship to register to vote. This could affect 21.3 million Americans who don’t have proof of citizenship readily available. It also requires these documents to be shown to an election official in person, effectively eliminating online voter registration. The in-person documentation stipulation could make it harder for military and overseas voters to participate in elections.
Administratively, Trump’s order prohibits states from counting ballots received after Election Day, even if they were postmarked before. It also decertifies all voting machines nationwide, requiring that they be recertified under a stricter standard that none of them currently meet. According to the Brennan Center, it will cost states billions of dollars to upgrade their voting machines to comply before the 2026 midterms.
Finally, the order says that money from the federal government will be withheld if the citizenship requirement is not upheld and if the Department of Government Efficiency is not given access to voter information to ensure that noncitizens are not voting.
Who would this affect the most? The order’s narrow list of acceptable identification would require most Americans to use a passport to register. But less than half of Americans have a passport, and younger people, people of color, and those with lower incomes are less likely to have easy access to identification documents. Only 38% of Republicans have passports compared to 41% of all Americans. Additionally, many married women who have changed their last names may not have citizenship documents that reflect their current legal names.
Trump’s executive order has drawn heavy criticism, with many arguing it oversteps presidential authority and tramples on states’ rights to control their own elections. Legal challenges are piling up, and most experts think it’s only a matter of time before the Supreme Court gets involved.
Next up for the US: Constitutional crisis?
On Tuesday, he issued an executive order that would give him direct control over regulatory agencies that Congress established as independent. The order is designed to “ensure Presidential supervision and control of the entire executive branch,” including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board.
The move would change the longstanding balance of powers, giving Trump unprecedented authority, which legal scholars see as part of a long-term strategy by conservative legal activists to weaken the regulatory state.
The order also creates the possibility that Trump could use the agencies’ regulatory powers to reward or punish companies that get on his wrong side, alarming critics who already fear presidential overreach. Trump did not give them comfort on Saturday when he pithily expressed his view of his legal authority with a Napoleon quote: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
Trump’s many executive orders are being tested in court. The big question looming over that process: If they rule against him, will he yield, or will the United States face a constitutional crisis?
For more on this, read our GZERO Explains piece on it here.
Elon Musk carries X Æ A-12 as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 11, 2025.
Musk and Trump announce new executive order to reduce federal workforce
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday mandating federal agencies comply with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to slash their workforces – ordering agency heads to hire no more than one employee for every four who leave or are fired. The order does not apply to public safety, immigration, or law enforcement personnel.
The order was announced in a press conference between Trump and Musk on Tuesday night, where the world’s richest man faced questions about DOGE’s transparency and his own conflicts of interest. Musk rejected both accusations and claimed without evidence that he had uncovered billions of dollars of waste and fraud during his audit. At a minimum, eliminating 25% of federal employees would cut the federal budget by about 1%.
When it came to the judicial branch – which has stalled Trump’s “deferred resignation plan” and limited DOGE’s access to some of the government’s payment systems – Trump criticized the rulings but said that he would “always abide by the courts” though he is likely to appeal their findings up to the Supreme Court if they don’t go his way.
How Trump is remaking US public health, with NY Times reporter Apoorva Mandavilli
Listen: In President Trump’s short time in office, he’s already made sweeping changes to US public health policy—from RFK Jr.’s nomination to lead the health department to withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization. On the GZERO World Podcast, New York Times science and global health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli joins Ian Bremmer for an in-depth look at health policy in the Trump administration, and what it could mean, not just for the US, but for the rest of the world. President Trump has made it clear: he wants to slash government spending and remake institutions like the CDC, NIH, and FDA. But are those plans a much-needed correction to an overly bureaucratic system or prescription for the next pandemic? What do we need to know about bird flu and changes to USAID? Bremmer and Mandavilli discuss RFK Jr.’s influence in Trump’s second term and what the future of health and medical policy in America could look like.
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Trump's health agenda—from RFK Jr. to leaving WHO
From RFK Jr.’s nomination to lead the health department to an executive order withdrawing the US from the World Health Organization, President Trump has already made sweeping changes to public health policy, and this may be just the beginning. On GZERO World, New York Times Science and Global Health Reporter Apoorva Mandavilli joins Ian Bremmer for an in-depth look at health and medicine in the second Trump administration—and what it could mean, not just for the US, but for the rest of the world. With bird flu numbers rising in the US and a noted vaccine skeptic poised to become the country's most powerful public health official, should we be worried about potential new pandemics or cuts at the CDC and NIH? Will the FDA endorse RFK’s ideas about raw milk and unfluoridated water? RFK gets a lot right about the need to focus on disease prevention and remove toxins fom our food and environment, but many of his ideas are at odds with mainstream medical science, posing a risk to public health. Bremmer and Mandavilli break down the big stories in healthcare right now, and what the future of the US medical establishment could look like.
"We have a huge problem with trust in this country, and that predates RFK Jr.," Mandavilli says, "Now when you have somebody who has made those comments very openly about the CDC not being trustworthy or the FDA not being trustworthy, and that's who's leading the health department, I think we are in real danger of people [not trusting] anything."
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
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U.S. President Donald Trump throws a pen after he signed executive orders on the inauguration day of Trump's second Presidential term, inside Capital One Arena, in Washington, U.S. January 20, 2025.
Trump throws out Biden’s AI executive order
Hours after his inauguration, Donald TrumpscrappedJoe Biden's October 2023 executive order regulating artificial intelligence. That means AI companies won’t need to take certain safety and transparency measures related to developing the technology.
The new executive order was part of a spate of presidential actions issued on Monday. It signaled that Trump will take a hands-off approach to reining in artificial intelligence companies — if not industry at large.
In his second term, Trump has surrounded himself with Silicon Valley types including venture capitalist David Sacks, his crypto and AI czar, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, in charge of government efficiency efforts.