Trump Has Pledged to Deport Some Legal Immigrants. Could He Do That?

After promising mass deportations of illegal immigrants, former President Donald Trump is now vowing to come for those admitted into the United States under programs established to protect migrants from certain countries.
Trump has said he would force the million-plus people who arrived under Humanitarian Parole, or were allowed to stay in the U.S. through Temporary Protected Status (TPS), to leave if he wins a second term.
“Get ready to leave because you’re going to be going out real fast,” the Republican presidential candidate told Fox News last week.
At a recent rally, Trump vowed to deport certain migrants in the country legally. “Get ’em the hell out!” he said to cheers and chants of “send them back.”
Experts and lawmakers are skeptical of his ability to do such a thing, just as they have been of the mass deportation promise laid out in the GOP’s 2024 platform.
“In general, deportation is for people who lack immigration status,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School, told Newsweek.
“People here on parole or temporary protected status have a status, so they shouldn’t be put into deportation proceedings unless a separate ground of deportability (e.g., a criminal conviction) applies to them.”
Trump and his running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, have said throughout their campaign that the Biden-Harris administration is flying illegal immigrants in, bypassing the southwest border.
Then the baseless claims of Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, began circulating, throwing the program that brought many of those migrants to the city into the national spotlight.
“If Kamala Harris waves a wand, illegally, and says these people are now here legally, I’m still going to call them illegal aliens,” Vance said on Sept. 18. “An illegal action by Kamala Harris does not make an alien legal. That is not how this works.”
While the programs are both legal under U.S. immigration law, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an immigration law professor at Ohio State University, told Newsweek that Americans should take Trump and Vance at their word, and that they would end both Humanitarian Parole and TPS.
“That said, I think they are underestimating, at least in their campaign rhetoric, how easy it will be to end those initiatives, and how easy it would be to forcibly remove all of the people who are in the United States,” Hernández said.
“Despite the fact that I think that there will be some legal and some logistical obstacles to realizing the promises that Trump and Vance are making, that does not mean that their efforts to do so would not come at a huge emotional, psychological, and practical cost to the people who they are targeting.”
The way in which many of the estimated 12,000 to 15,000 Haitian nationals arrived in Springfield was though a humanitarian parole Advanced Travel Authorization (ATA) program known currently as CHNV.
The title refers to the nationalities which can currently benefit from ATA: Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans. The Department of Homeland Security is authorized to allow up to 30,000 migrants from these countries, total, into the country each month.
The idea behind the discretionary program was to divert those who would have otherwise likely headed to the southwest border, where they may have attempted an illegal entry or been held up waiting for an appointment with border patrol.
Applicants for ATA must have a sponsor within the U.S., pass security checks, warrant a “favorable exercise of discretion,” and meet other eligibility criteria set out by DHS.
Only once their application has been approved can a noncitizen from one of these four countries make their way into the U.S. through an airport or a port of entry along a land border.
New arrivals are generally unable to work and have to apply for permission from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). Parole usually lasts around two years and is not automatically extended.
As of Aug. 31, 2024, nearly 530,000 people from these four nations had been admitted under CHNV.
CHNV is legally enabled by the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act. Smilar programs are also available for eligible nationals from Afghanistan and Ukraine.
“TPS is a is a specific initiative, a specific law that Congress enacted that has been applied by Republican presidents, Democratic presidents, and at the moment is currently available to citizens of over a dozen countries from around the world,” Hernández said.
TPS covers immigrants who have already arrived in the U.S. from countries which may be in the throes of an ongoing armed conflict, environment disaster, or other temporary conditions which make it unsafe for those nationals to return to.
Currently, 16 countries are included on the list, including Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Also included are Afghanistan, Burma, El Salvador, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.
Those who benefit from TPS cannot be removed by immigration authorities. They are granted work permits and may be permitted to travel in and out of the U.S.
Not everyone from those countries is automatically eligible. If they have been convicted of a felony or two misdemeanors, or found inadmissible on other grounds, then USCIS would deny their application.
Like with Humanitarian Parole programs, strict criteria apply to those seeking TPS, including having been continuously in the U.S. since the date assigned to each country by DHS.
As of March 31, around 863,000 people were in the U.S. under TPS, including 200,000 from Haiti, 344,000 from Venezuela and 180,300 from El Salvador.
TPS was codified into law under the Immigration Act of 1990. The Secretary of Homeland Security, currently Alejandro Nicolas Mayorkas, has authority to determine the nationalities eligible.
The secretary must reassess each country every 18 months, with Haiti’s status most recently extended in June 2024.
The GOP believes it could, arguing that the Biden-Harris administration has misused both TPS and Humanitarian Parole to the detriment of national security.
“Failed border czar Kamala Harris’ reversal of President Trump’s immigration policies has created an unprecedented immigration, humanitarian, and national security crisis on our southern border and has led to highest rates of human trafficking on record,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told Newsweek in an emailed statement.
“President Trump will restore his effective immigration policies, implement brand new crackdowns that will send shockwaves to all the world’s criminal smugglers, and marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals, drug dealers, and human traffickers in American history.”
Under CHNV rules, U.S. authorities do have the power to deport or remove those who break the strict rules applicants are supposed to adhere to.
The left-leaning American Immigration Council states that up to 30,000 migrants from these four countries can be deported back to Mexico if they illegally crossed into Panama, Mexico or the U.S. after the start date for their respective countries, or if they are encountered at sea trying to get into the U.S.
Under that current agreement, for example, it would take at least 46 months, nearly the entirety of a second Trump term, to deport all of those in the U.S. under these two programs who have met all the requirements.
“If Senator Vance has a problem with the way in which the Biden administration is interpreting immigration law, then he ought to take it up with either his colleagues in Congress, or with folks in in in the White House,” Hernández said.
“But to target individual people who have done exactly what the United States government asks them is, I think, taking things a step too far and misdirecting his anger. If he’s upset, he should be upset with the administration and not be tarring the people who have, in good faith, complied with directives issued by the United States government.”
Immigration and border security played a critical role during Trump’s first term in the White House.
During that time, he fought to end TPS for those from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan. A court blocked those efforts in late 2018, but a federal appeals court overturned that decision nearly two years later.
The uncertainty during that time left thousands of protected migrants already in the U.S. wondering whether they would face deportation or other legal action against them.
Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García, Democrat from Illinois, told Newsweek in a statement that the same uncertainty now hangs over those families again.
“Deporting TPS holders would be devastating for millions of people who have called the United States home, sometimes for decades,” García said. “Trump’s threats of massive deportations triggers widespread fear and anxiety about sudden raids, and family separations. It would disrupt the lives of full communities as immigrants would be afraid of going about their daily life.”
The congressman also argued that removing thousands of immigrants would severely impact the U.S. economy, eliminating some $8 billion in spending power.
Rep. García and Prof. Hernández both argued that ending TPS and Humanitarian Parole would only lead to another rise in illegal crossings at the southwest border.
“Narrowing legal immigration pathways and increasing deportations will not stop migrants from crossing the border – it only reduces their avenues to do so safely and increases their reliance on human traffickers who endanger and exploit desperate migrants.” García said.
“Instead, we must create a fair and humane asylum system that welcomes people who come to the U.S. seeking safety, security, and a better life.”
Vice President Harris laid out a tougher stance on immigration when she visited the border on Friday, vowing to secure it while also looking at ways to fix the U.S. immigration system and keeping immigrant and mixed-status families together.
The Democratic candidate has hung her immigration policy on the failed Bipartisan Border Bill, which she says would address many of the current problems.
Newsweek reached out to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security for comment via email Monday morning.