President Donald Trump’s immigration policies are as much about redefining American identity as about kicking immigrants out of the country, said David Donatti, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
Rounding up, detaining and deporting unauthorized immigrants while revoking asylum and temporary legal protections for others is a way to control “what it means to be an American and, more importantly, what it means to be excluded from American belonging,” Donatti said on a recent episode of the “Baker Briefing” podcast hosted by the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order denying citizenship to American-born children of immigrants has the same purpose, he added. “It says, well, being born here isn’t enough. The president can define administratively whether a baby can be deported or whether a baby is entitled to American citizenship.”
David Donatti
Other enforcement actions confirm Trump’s desire to edge out Congress and exercise sole power over all matters related to immigration, Donatti added.
One example was the recent revocation and temporary restoration of legal status for more than 1,220 international students at U.S. colleges and universities, a signal the administration wants the final word on who enters the country and why.
Legally challenged attempts to cancel deportation protections for immigrants from high-risk nations like Afghanistan, Ukraine and Haiti send the same message.
“We are seeing people who have Temporary Protected Status, who have pending asylum applications, being deprived of those statuses and subject to arrest, detention and deportation,” Donatti said.
Trump’s invocation of the Enemy Aliens Act of 1798 is yet another reach for unchecked power, he added. The law grants a president nearly unlimited authority to arrest, detain and deport foreign-born people without access to due process.
The act previously was used only in times of declared military conflict — the War of 1812, World War I and World War II. The Trump administration’s rationale is that the U.S. is being invaded by undocumented immigrants and international gangs.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the Trump administration must provide detainees notice of deportation and the opportunity to challenge their removal from the U.S.
These and other policies also illuminate Trump’s overarching goal of attaining total authority even beyond immigration, Donatti said. “It’s about defining what is American and what’s not and … it’s about aggrandizing executive power. And I fully see that across the board, and immigration is the test case. I think that’s a unique aspect of this iteration of the Trump administration.”
David Satterfield
Another iteration of that grab for total power came in the Department of Government Efficiency’s March 17 takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent nonprofit established by congressional charter, said podcast host David Satterfield, director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston.
According to a report by Nonprofit Quarterly, DOGE personnel seized the institute’s headquarters, fired its board and staff and ended its operations: “This unprecedented use of presidential power against an independent nonprofit has raised significant concerns — especially among organizations receiving federal funds or whose missions might conflict with the administration’s ideological agenda.”
In a February executive action, President Trump identified the institute, the Presidio Trust, the Inter-American Foundation and the U.S. African Development Foundation as entities to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law” and staffs minimized as much as possible.
A federal judge ruled DOGE can remain in the institute’s facilities as litigation filed against the takeover proceeds. In the meantime, Trump directed the General Services Administration to sell the institute’s property.
“As the lawsuits filed to challenge the administration’s actions unfold and uncertainty deepens, the USIP takeover is raising urgent concerns across the nonprofit sector about legal protections, preparedness, and the limits of executive authority,” Nonprofit Quarterly reported.
Satterfield said the move is designed to determine how far the administration can act unilaterally before being challenged by other branches of government. “These are a sequence of steps that don’t make sense, not even from a retribution or vengeance or ideological standpoint, but do pose a challenge to see whether the Congress or the courts will say no.”
But even winning in court against the administration does not necessarily help the peace institute because it already has been dismantled, Satterfield said.
“Which means you may win your case after litigation, but having won it, there will be nothing for you to win. The entity, whatever it is, will be gone. You can sue for damages, but you no longer will be able to restore what has been lost. This is a complex situation of which immigration, important as it is, is but one piece.”