HOUSTON – During his first week in office, President Donald Trump signed several executive orders and announced policies impacting border security and immigration.
By the numbers
Under President Joe Biden, the number of encounters along our southern border hit record highs. Customs and Border Protection defines an encounter as an immigrant arrested for illegally crossing the border or deemed inadmissible to the United States when trying to enter through a legal port of entry.
The number of encounters surpassed 2 million in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Encounters peaked in January 2024, hitting more than 300,000 in a single month. By December 2024, the number of encounters dropped to 96,048.
The White House announced an additional 1,500 troops are being sent to the border. The Texas Department of Public Safety has also poured resources into border security over the last four years.
According to a database of criminal charges filed under Operation Lone Star, more than 67,000 charges were filed between March 2021 and July 2024. DPS’s data shows more than 50 percent of those charges involved smuggling or were drug related.
CBP One
Another big change involves the scheduling function of the CBP One app. The app was introduced in 2020 as a way to expedite travel between Mexico and the U.S. In 2023, the Biden administration added a scheduling function that gave immigrants seeking asylum a chance to get in a virtual queue for an appointment to meet with immigration officials.
The idea was that if an immigrant could get an appointment to meet with immigration officials in the U.S., that person would be less likely to cross the border illegally and then apply for asylum. CBP officials said the app was used to schedule more than 900,000 appointments.
KPRC 2 Investigates traveled to a shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, on Jan. 7, before President Trump took office. Many immigrants from Honduras and Venezuela had been using the app for several months, waiting for an appointment.
“I am very happy for the people who’ve gotten appointments because we’ve all been waiting here for so long. You have to have patience,” said Cristian Manuel Martínez Rodríguez, a Honduran national who’d been waiting 7 months for an appointment.
We also spoke with several Venezuelan immigrants who had appointments with U.S. immigration officials and were waiting on the Mexico side of the border to be picked up. Many are worried their chances of being granted asylum will change with Pres. Trump in office.
“We had a problem in our country. We had to leave our country for political reasons. We had problems with authorities there, and our families were in danger,” said Nestor Molina.
Volunteers who run the Senda de Vida shelter in Reynosa said the app helped bring down the number of immigrants massing in border towns.
On his first day in office, the Trump administration shut down the scheduling function of the CBP One app, and existing appointments were canceled. Pres. Trump has said he wants to reinstate his Remain in Mexico policy, which required immigrants to wait in Mexico until their hearing date in immigration court, instead of being allowed to remain in the U.S. while their application works through our immigration system.
Birthright Citizenship
Pres. Trump also signed an executive order regarding birthright citizenship. The order is called “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.” The President argues the 14th Amendment has been applied improperly.
“The Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States,” Pres. Trump wrote.
Attorneys General from more than 20 states have sued to stop the order from taking effect. Constitutional law professor at Texas Southern University, Josh Blackman, said the case will likely go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“So, the short answer is that the president can’t change the meaning of the Constitution by an executive order. The long answer is that Trump says that he is correctly reading the Constitution and that the courts have read it incorrectly. The Supreme Court has not squarely addressed the issue of whether the children of illegal aliens are birthright citizens,” said Blackman. “The consensus view, and historically the view, has been that if you’re in the United States and you’re subject to our laws, then your children are going to be citizens. But Trump argues that that’s not the case, that even if you’re in the United States temporarily and subject to our laws, you have another loyalty. You’re subject to a foreign jurisdiction and therefore not birthright citizens.”
Pres. Trump’s executive order goes into effect Feb. 20 and applies to children of mothers who were in the U.S. illegally when they gave birth, or children of mothers who gave birth while in the U.S. legally but temporarily, and the fathers were not U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.
