Border Report Live: Trump's immigration orders grip border communities

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EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) -- Hours after the Pentagon announced that it would send 1,500 active duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico, reports surfaced that the number was actually 10,000.

According to CBS News, which obtained an internal government memo, Trump administration officials are not only considering deploying as many as 10,000 soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border, they are using Department of Defense installations to hold migrants awaiting deportation.

The deployment is included in the dozens of executive orders President Trump signed moments after his swearing-in ceremony. Many address what he had been promising throughout his campaign: to crack down in illegal immigration by limiting asylum, carrying out mass deportations and sending troops to the border, among many other things.

On the morning of Inauguration Day, thousands of asylum-seeking migrants learned that their CBP One appointment with U.S. immigration officials had all been canceled.

From Matamoros to Tijuana, migrants cried and stood in awe not knowing what their move would be.

But since Monday, migrants have continued to show up at ports of entry for their appointments only to be turned away.

In this week's episode of Border Report Live, host Daniel Marin and Border Report correspondents Julian Resendiz, Salvador Rivera and Sandra Sanchez, examine how communities along the border are responding to Trump's actions.

On Wednesday, El Paso city officials, including the mayor and chief of police called an impromptu news conference following numerous media requests regarding migrant concerns and the president's executive order. They said they would assists federal law enforcement if needed but would not volunteer municipal officers for immigration enforcement.

"The El Paso Police Department does not enforce immigration laws,” El Paso Police Department Chief Peter Pacillas said.

El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson told reporters that he disagreed with the decision to send troops to the border. Instead, he reiterated the city's standing as one of the safest in the country despite its location on the U.S-Mexico border.

“We will follow all laws, especially federal law and state law," he said. "I want everyone to know in El Paso you are in a safe community. I want you to be able to go about your day-to-day routine.

Communities are also adjusting to a new directive from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allows agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to enter schools, churches and hospitals, which were considered "sensitive areas" and off-limits under the Biden administration. The Catholic Diocese of El Paso planned a news conference Thursday afternoon to address some of those concerns.

On Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning in San Diego, the threats of mass deportations appeared to materialize when buses filled with migrant workers arrived at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and the groups of mostly men were escorted to Mexico.

It is unclear if the migrants were deported as part of Trump's crackdown or from where they were apprehended, but officials told Border Report that many deportations are routine operations that occur daily all along the border.

Still, U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, tweeted on Tuesday that nationwide, ICE had arrested 308 individuals and went to jails and ordered that an additional 300 be released to the agency.

With CBP One abolished, the number of encounters at ports of entry have also dropped dramatically. Sources tell NewsNation's Ali Bradley that from January 2023, when CBP One asylum appointments began, to Sunday, the day before Trump took office, the U.S. was averaging about 1,572 daily migrant encounters. On Monday and Tuesday, the number fell to 463 and then took a nosedive to 44 on Wednesday.

At ports of entry, CBP officers have been conducting what the agency calls "hardening exercises," which require the temporary closure of bridges, but what officials are also saying something that CBP does regularly.

At the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville, Texas, officers could be seen marching in riot gear on Tuesday.

Below is a list compiled by the Associated Press of some of the immigration-related executive orders that Trump signed on Monday:

The CBP One app disappears

The online lottery system gave appointments to 1,450 people a day at eight border crossings to enter on “parole,” which Joe Biden used more than any president.

It was a critical piece of the Biden administration’s border strategy to create new immigration pathways while cracking down on people who enter illegally.

Supporters say it brought order to a chaotic border. Critics say it was magnet for more people to come.

By midday Monday, it was gone.

Migrants who had scored coveted appointments weeks ago found them canceled.

That includes Melanie Mendoza, 21, and her boyfriend. She said they left Venezuela over a year ago, spending more than $4,000 and traveling for a month, including walking for three days.

“We don’t know what we are going to do,” she said in Tijuana, Mexico, just on the other side of the border from San Diego.

Mexico agrees to take back migrants

The Trump administration is reinstating its “Remain in Mexico” policy, which forced 70,000 asylum-seekers in his first term to wait there for hearings in U.S. immigration court.

Mexico, a country integral to any American effort to limit illegal immigration, indicated Monday that it is prepared to receive asylum-seekers while emphasizing that there should be an online application allowing them to schedule appointments at the U.S. border.

Immigration advocates say the policy put migrants at extreme risk.

“This is déjà vu of the darkest kind,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge. She said policies like “Remain in Mexico” have exacerbated conditions at the border while doing little to address reasons migrants leave home in the first place.

Aiming to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship

Anyone born in the United States automatically becomes a citizen, including children born to someone in the country illegally or in the U.S. on a tourist or student visa. It’s a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War to assure citizenship for all, including Black people.

Trump’s executive order suggests that the amendment has been wrongly interpreted, and it would go into effect in 30 days — meaning it would not be retroactive.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups immediately sued, calling it “a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values.” Trump said he thought he had “very good grounds” for the order.

Migrants fear promised mass deportations

Trump is moving to realize his pledge of mass deportations of at least 11 million people in the country illegally.

One order restores efforts to pursue everyone in the country illegally, moving away from the Biden administration’s more narrow deportation criteria. He also wants negotiations with state and local governments to deputize police to enforce immigration laws.

As in his first term, Trump also wants to end federal grants to “sanctuary” jurisdictions — states and cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Rocio, a 43-year-old single mother from Mexico who lives in South Florida, said she’s worried about her 13-year-old son. His father was deported when the boy was an infant, and he’s afraid the same thing could now happen to her.

Rocio, who asked to be identified only by her first name over fears about being detained, said she worries about driving without a license but needs to work to survive.

“We have to be very careful,” she said.

Erlinda, a single mother from El Salvador who arrived in 2013, has signed over legal rights to her U.S.-born children, ages 10 and 8, to Nora Sandigo, who has volunteered to be the guardian for more than 2,000 children in 15 years, including at least 30 since December.

“I am afraid for my children, that they will live the terror of not seeing their mother for a day, for a month, for a year,” said Erlinda, 45, who asked to be identified by first name only due to fears of being detained.

A bigger military role in border security

Trump ordered the government, with Defense Department assistance, to “finish” construction of the border wall and send troops to the border. He did not say how many would go — leaving it up to the defense secretary — or what their exact role would be.

His executive orders suggested the military would help the Department of Homeland Security with “detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistics services.” Trump directed the defense secretary to come up with a plan to “seal the borders” and repel “unlawful mass migration.”

Both Trump and Biden have sent troops to the border before.

Historically, they have been used to back up Border Patrol agents, who are responsible for securing the nearly 2,000-mile border, and not in ways that put them in direct contact with migrants.

Critics say using troops this way signals that migrants are a threat.

Cartels as foreign terrorist organizations

A Trump order paves the way for criminal organizations such as Tren de Aragua or MS-13 to be named “foreign terrorist organizations.” MS-13 is a transnational gang that originated in Los Angeles and gained a grip on much of Central America. Tren de Aragua is a Venezuelan street gang that has become a menace on American soil.

“The Cartels functionally control, through a campaign of assassination, terror, rape, and brute force nearly all illegal traffic across the southern border of the United States,” the order reads.

Trump is also raising the possibility of invoking a wartime power act for the first time since World War II to deport gang members who are deemed members of a foreign terrorist organization.

Pausing permission for refugees

Trump also is indefinitely suspending refugee resettlement. For decades, the program has allowed hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution worldwide to come to the United States.

Trump also suspended the refugee program in his first term, and after reinstating it, slashed the numbers of refugees admitted. Under Biden, the program was rebuilt to a three-decade high.

The refugee program is the type of legal immigration that the Trump administration says it's for, said Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, one of 10 resettlement agencies helping refugees start new lives in the U.S.

The first Trump administration said it needed more vetting. This time, it says immigration is straining American communities, Hetfield said.

“This is a complaint that I have heard nobody raise,” he said. “It’s going to be devastating for people who followed the rules and are waiting to get out of danger.”

What else is Trump planning?

The incoming administration also ordered an end to releasing migrants in the U.S. while they await immigration court hearings, a practice known as “catch-and-release,” but officials didn’t say how they would pay for the enormous costs associated with detention.

Trump plans to “end asylum,” presumably going beyond what Biden has done to severely restrict it. It is unclear what the incoming administration will do with people from countries that don’t take back their citizens, such as Nicaragua and Venezuela.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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