For decades before Donald J. Trump declared on June 16, 2015 “the U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems,” the failed establishment of both political parties had betrayed the American people. Corrupt politicians served their corporate interests by pushing unlimited amnesty for illegal aliens and legal immigration that kills the jobs and wages of lawful U.S. workers. Trump became the lone voice fearlessly campaigning on securing the open border, ending the threats posed to the homeland by a dysfunctional system, and vowing U.S. immigration policy would no longer serve the needs of wealthy donors and powerful politicians. Donald Trump’s America First message appealed to millions of patriots who had been on the sidelines for many election cycles. Trump crushed a deep bench of primary opponents and won the nomination with 14 million votes, the most in the history of the Republican Party.

Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in November 2016 not by moderating his core beliefs, but by further exposing the broken immigration system that had served the needs of special interests at the expense of middle class families and innocent children. For once, a presidential candidate prioritized the well-being of the American people over the needs of people living in the U.S. illegally. Trump exposed Democrat sanctuary city policies that released violent criminals into our communities, rejected the globalist view of importing millions of unvetted refugees from terrorist hotbeds, and condemned the corporate lobbyists for uncontrolled low- skilled immigration that destroys all aspects of American life. Trump began fighting for the American people long before winning the presidency in a meeting with President Enrique Peña Nieto. Trump’s strong leadership and skillful deal-making in Mexico City was a preview of the bold diplomacy he used to achieve generational breakthroughs that secured the border and kept America safe during his presidency.

When President Donald J. Trump took the oath of office on January 20, 2017, he inherited a failed immigration and border security system as a result of the open borders and mass immigration policies of the Obama Administration. Before the Obama Administration, illegal aliens apprehended at the border were typically single, adult males from Mexico—a population that U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities are designed to detain and are easy to deport. The Obama Administration upended the system by implementing policies that incentivized family units and unaccompanied alien children, mainly from the Northern Triangle, to show up at the border. These populations are extremely difficult to remove and the Obama Administration’s refusal to detain them fueled higher levels of illegal immigration from around the world. At the same time that the immigration court system was being overwhelmed by these fraudulent asylum claims, the Obama Administration started welcoming record high numbers of refugees from around the world with no regard for their ability to learn English, assimilate into American society, and financially support themselves. As Obama opened the floodgates to refugees and asylum fraudsters, his administration further crippled the economic opportunities of American workers by cutting standards and interviews for legal immigration benefits, issuing visas to temporary workers and immigrant workers through a rubberstamp approval process devoid of vetting or applying eligibility criteria. Additionally, the Obama Administration cheapened the meaning of U.S. Citizenship and brazenly attempted to create new welfare- dependent Democrat voters by cutting corners and rubberstamping a record number of naturalizations.

As President, Donald J. Trump mobilized every resource of the federal government to reverse the destructive open borders policies of his lawless predecessors and implement the first-ever immigration system that served the best interests of America and its workers. President Trump’s visionary national interest immigration policy delivered on his campaign promise to secure the border. President Trump executed a multi-layered approach of regulatory and policy reform that enforced the law and ensured that only qualified immigrants who did not threaten the homeland would receive merit-based visas and would be allowed into American communities.

President Trump implemented over 1,000 distinct policies that overhauled the U.S. immigration system. President Trump overcame activist district court judges who tried to interfere with his ability to quickly implement his immigration policies. He rejected the corrupt deep state bureaucrats who attempted to defy the will of the American people by delaying, impeding, and obstructing the policymaking efforts of his administration.

President Donald J. Trump prevailed in the face of government upheaval, successfully implementing the strongest and most robust border security measures ever put into place. He utilized previously untapped or ignored authority to seal the border and fully control who and what entered the United States, and reformed the immigration system to put the American people first. What follows is a description of the most groundbreaking reforms ushered in by President Donald J. Trump to establish the most secure southern border in our nation’s history, keep the American people safe from the threats posed by foreign terrorists and criminal actors, protect and promote American workers so they are not harmed by cheap foreign labor, and fully enforce U.S. immigration law to inject long overdue accountability into the system.