As President-elect Donald Trump enters office, he is set to enact harsh policies to make their lives more difficult for immigrants. He has promised to build a border wall along the southern U.S. border, deport millions of “criminal” immigrants, enforce “extreme” vetting of Muslim immigrants, and expand the use of privately-operated immigration detention centers.
In setting his policies, Trump may look to past Obama policies for some inspiration. Some immigration-restrictionists have characterized the current Obama administration as being generous to immigrants, but the administration has also cracked down and harshly penalized immigrants seeking a better life in the United States.
Here are 5 immigration practices under President Obama that may help shape Trump’s harsh immigration policies moving forward:
1. Eliminating the “wet foot/dry foot” policy towards Cuba
The White House announced Thursday that it would repeal the so-called “wet foot/dry foot” U.S. immigration policy to allow migrants fleeing from Cuba and reaching U.S. soil to automatically stay and gain legal status.
“Effective immediately, Cuban nationals who attempt to enter the United States illegally and do not qualify for humanitarian relief will be subject to removal, consistent with U.S. law and enforcement priorities,” President Barack Obama said in a White House statement Thursday.
The repeal would allow U.S. immigration officials to treat Cuban immigrants “the same way we treat migrants from other countries,” the statement explained, leaving them subject to deportation proceedings. Previously, Cuban nationals who qualified for humanitarian relief and reached U.S. soil were granted parole to stay in the country. Those intercepted at sea were returned to Cuba.
Since the United States normalized relationships with Cuba in 2014, U.S. border agents have seen a sharp rise in the number of Cubans seeking humanitarian relief coming across the southern U.S.-Mexico border. More than 118,000 Cubans have surrendered at ports of entry on the border since 2012, the Associated Press reported, in anticipation of such a repeal.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson explained on a press call Thursday evening that the administration had not informed Congress beforehand because it didn’t want to trigger a “mass exodus” of Cubans. Roughly 40,000 Cubans were granted parole in the 2015 fiscal year, up to 54,000 in the 2016 fiscal year.
Enacted by then-President Bill Clinton in 1995, the “wet foot/dry foot” policy was meant to help post-revolution Cuban dissidents seeking political asylum. But as the White House administration officials said, the balance has since “tilted” towards people who left for more traditional reasons like economic opportunities, but were still able to gain benefits under the policy.
The policy repeal is significant because it rolls back one of the more generous immigration provisions enforced by the Obama administration. The administration is currently justifying it by saying that Cubans would be able to maintain its youth population. But some congressional lawmakers have argued that the death of Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro in November 2016 did not usher in an end to oppression in the country.
“It’s important that Cuba continue to have a young, dynamic population that are clearly serving as agents of change and becoming entrepreneurs, and being more connected to the rest of the world,” Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said on the call.
2. Eliminating the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program
Cuba has been sending conscripted medical brigades to foreign countries as a show of “soft power” since 1973, estimating that these “exports of services” cost about $8 billion annually. In return, countries like Venezuela import roughly 98,000 barrels of oil to Cuba every day.
This services-for-oil trade deal hasn’t sat well with the poorly-paid Cuban medical personnel, who have defected and sought parole in the United States under the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program. Enacted by executive authority under the Bush administration by Cuban exile Emilio González, who ran the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency between 2006 and 2008, this program allowed Cuban health care professionals conscripted by the government to work abroad to seek parole in the United States. The program was also eliminated Thursday.
At least 1,574 Cuban medical professionals have sought refugee status between 2006 and 2011. Medical professionals are still allowed to apply for asylum at U.S. embassies abroad.
The end to granting parole to medical professionals could allow Cuba to retain its “best and brightest” medical personnel in the country. But it could also hurt the United States, which is facing a shortage of 46,100 to 90,400 physicians by 2025.
Still, as a New York Times editorial board pointed out in 2014, “American immigration policy should give priority to the world’s neediest refugees and persecuted people. It should not be used to exacerbate the brain drain of an adversarial nation at a time when improved relations between the two countries are a worthwhile, realistic goal.”
3. Maintaining a program targeting Muslim immigrants
In December 2016, DHS Secretary Johnson announced that the agency would dismantle the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) program, a Bush-era registry to track immigrants from majority-Muslim countries.
Under NSEERS, more than 83,000 men over the age of 16 with visas from 25 countries — 24 of which were majority-Muslim and Arab — had to register with the government. No terrorist convictions came out of the policy, but roughly 13,000 people were placed in deportation proceedings as a result.
The Obama administration’s continuation of the program — it was in use until 2011, but the framework remained in place until last month — could help lay out a vision for Trump, who has suggested bringing back some version of the NSEERS program. Details have yet to be sussed out, but Rex Tillerson, Trump’s Secretary of State nominee, said that he wouldn’t rule out plans for a Muslim registry.
4. Resuming the deportation of Haitian immigrants
In November 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) resumed the deportation of Haitian immigrants one month after Hurricane Matthew devastated the country. Just two months prior, the U.S. government also resumed the deportation of immigrants affected by the 2010 7.0 magnitude earthquake that killed upwards of 316,000 people and caused major damage to the capital of Port Au Prince.
The country continues to be on the mend, but outbreaks of cholera — a waterborne disease — has persisted. The cholera epidemic has killed 9,400 Haitians, infecting more than 800,000 people since October 2010. The country also faced outbreaks of cholera after Hurricane Matthew hit, with more than 200 suspected cases detected as thousands lacked access to fresh water.
The effect of the almost-immediate resumption of deportation of Haitians after Hurricane Matthew could have the undue impact of influencing the expediency of future deportations to other countries. In turn, that could add to the increase in the number of people who die after they have been deported, like people deported back to Central America.
Moving forward, a Trump administration immigration policy promise includes the proposal to “ensure that other countries take their people back when we order them deported.” Currently there are 23 “racalcitrant” countries that have refused to take back its citizens, including the fragile state of Somalia which has delayed its elections three times in part due to insecurity because of the al-Shabaab militants.
5. Continuing the use of private prison contractors
In December 2016, the Homeland Security Advisory Council rolled out a long-term proposal to eliminate immigration detention centers after the Obama administration set out an ambitious plan to phase out the use of privately operated prisons. In the meantime, the council recommended a continuation of detention practices, including those operated by private prison companies, but with more oversight by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
That proposal followed a DHS announcement in November to “acquire” more detention space to hold an increase of immigrants detained at the southern U.S. border. The GEO Group, one of the largest private prison companies, has since opened up a 780-bed detention center in Folkston, Georgia under a five-year contract with the ICE agency.
The delay over privately-operated immigration detention centers could help fulfill President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to detain and deport millions of immigrants during his presidency. The president-elect has advocated expanding prison privatization, a proposal that would likely extend to the immigrant population.
“By the way, with prisons I do think we can do a lot of privatizations and private prisons,” Trump said at a townhall in March. “It seems to work a lot better.”