Experts Raise Concerns Over Project 2025’s Drastic Immigration Measures
“The recommendations in Project 2025 include highly controversial measures such as mass deportations and terminating legal status for Dreamers.”The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, has published regular iterations for almost 40 years of what they refer to as a “Mandate for Leadership,” a policy document that outlines their vision for the next conservative administration. Its most recent version, referred to as Project 2025, outlines a vision that aims to restore what it perceives as the core values of America. This comprehensive plan is designed to shape the potential second term of the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump. After all, according to the Niskanen Center, 64% of the recommendations of the previous plan were followed during Trump’s previous term.
However, the recommendations in Project 2025 include highly controversial measures such as mass deportations, terminating legal status for Dreamers, using backlog numbers to trigger automatic suspensions of application intake for legal immigration, as well as suspending updates to the eligible country lists for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas. These proposals raised multiple concerns among a panel of experts at an Ethnic Media Services press conference on June 14th. The panel was led by Cecilia Esterline, the Immigration Research Analyst at the Niskanen Center. She emphasized the expansive nature of the plan, which encompasses over 175 changes to immigration policy. Moreover, Esterline argues, despite having the support of members of the previous Trump administration like Christopher Miller, former acting Secretary of Defense, and Ken Cuccinelli, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the implementation of the plan risks tipping the balance of power between states and the federal government, ultimately threatening the security of the nation. In addition, these policies may not align with the desires of the American public for a secure, controlled, and effective immigration system. Esterline presented data from the Economic Innovation Group, which argued that three-quarters of American voters support increasing high-skilled immigration (HSI), with widespread approval across the entire political spectrum and in every presidential swing state. According to Esterline, the most troubling proposals within Project 2025 include blocking federal financial aid for a significant portion of American college students, terminating the legal status of 500,000 Dreamers, and suspending updates to the annual eligible country lists for critical worker visas. “These policies really abandon traditional conservative values, values like supporting business growth and development, decentralizing power away from the federal government, and decreasing bureaucratic hurdles. In fact, often these do the opposite,” she added. A similar sentiment was echoed by David J. Bier, the Associate Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute. He points out that many of the policies proposed in Project 2025 are predictable based on the actions of the first Trump administration. According to Bier, a second Trump term implies the reversal of Biden’s measures to facilitate legal immigration, such as the humanitarian parole program, and the return of an expanded version of Trump’s immigration policies. “All those proposals will come back and will be reimplemented, like the Muslim ban,” Bier stated. However, Bier also expressed some optimism regarding the justice system’s ability to challenge the administration’s policies, particularly regarding the claims of eliminating birthright citizenship that Trump has stated. “I don’t think birthright citizenship will be an immediate priority. He is trying to remove a lot of people with mass deportation, and that would add even more. In this case, I’m more confident in the court and less confident in the administration’s ability to follow through,” he said. For Zachary Mueller, the Senior Research Director for America’s Voice and America’s Voice Education Fund, the drastic immigration policy emphasizes the broader political implications of Project 2025. He warns of the threats posed by mass deportation, arguing that the targets of these policies may extend beyond recent arrivals and criminals, potentially impacting long-standing members of communities: “They aren’t going for recent arrivals and criminals. They will go after second-grade teachers with DACA or farm workers that keep the food on our table,” Mueller warned. |