Donald Trump’s return to the White House will dominate U.S. immigration policy in 2025. Below are the issues to watch.
H-1B Visas And International Students Under Trump Immigration Policy
Observers await the first executive orders for more clues on H-1B visa policy in a second Trump administration. Donald Trump’s first term saw record-high H-1B denial rates and Requests for Evidence until a legal settlement in 2020 ended what judges said were unlawful policies.
One difference in the second term is Donald Trump owes his victory in 2024, at least in part, to Elon Musk and other tech supporters who favor admitting more high-skilled foreign nationals and oppose government overregulation of businesses. In FY 2024, Musk’s Tesla had 742 approved H-1B petitions for initial employment, doubling its FY 2023 total of 328. The company emerged as 16th among employers for approvals of H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2024 after never being in the top 25.
On December 28, 2024, Elon Musk defended himself against trolls and critics on X.com for his support of H-1B visas. X user Steven Mackey baited Musk by posting: “Stop trying to optimize something that shouldn’t exist. Let’s optimize H-1B.” (Musk has used the “optimize” line before.) Musk responded: “The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B.” To emphasize his point, he added part of a line from a movie: “Take a big step back and F–K YOURSELF in the face. I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.”
On the same day, Donald Trump told the New York Post in an interview: “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them. I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
Trump also told campaign donors on a podcast in June 2024 that he favored allowing international students who graduate from U.S. universities to obtain green cards without numerical limits. Observers will watch whether Stephen Miller, who returns to the White House, overrides the sentiments expressed by Musk and Trump and attempts to implement the same H-1B restrictions that courts blocked or which the Trump team failed to implement for other reasons in the first term.
The Biden administration helped close one easy avenue to restrict H-1B visas by publishing a rule that takes effect before Inauguration Day. Failing to publish the final rule would have opened the door for the Trump administration to use the comments in the proposed rule to issue a regulation that inserted its priorities over those of Biden’s team. While employers did not like all parts of the regulation, it was more tech-friendly and pro-immigration than H-1B policies during Donald Trump’s first term.
Sen. Grassley (R-IA), the incoming Judiciary Committee chair, suggested he might talk to Sen. Durbin (D-IL) about increasing the number of “engineers and the professional-type people that are trying to get into the United States,” according to Politico. It is difficult to evaluate such a statement since Grassley blocked the most promising opportunity in years for employers and high-skilled immigrants when he opposed including in the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act an exemption from employment-based green cards for many individuals with a Ph.D. or master’s degree in science and engineering fields. Grassley and Durbin have introduced many bills to restrict H-1B visas.
Employers will watch what happens in other immigration areas. The Biden administration issued favorable guidance that increased approvals for O-1A visas and allowed more employment-based immigrants to qualify as individuals with extraordinary abilities. In December 2024, the State Department made it easier for many scientists and others to remain in the United States on J-1 visas. Restricting the ability of the spouses of H-1B visa holders to work in the United States was a first-term Trump administration target. The fate of domestic visa renewal also rests with incoming Trump officials.
International student policy remains intertwined with high-skilled immigration. During Donald Trump’s first term, the Trump administration placed a rule to restrict Optional Practical Training on the regulatory agenda, but it did not publish the regulation. Rather than end OPT or STEM OPT, Trump officials could burden OPT with requirements that make it untenable for students and employers, which was the model with H-1B visas.
The Trump administration proposed restricting international students in several ways. A court blocked Trump officials from enacting policies on “unlawful presence” for students who fall out of immigration status. The Department of Homeland Security also published a proposed rule to limit study in the United States to a fixed admission period, which could have forced many international students to leave the United States.
After Stephen Miller argued for banning Chinese students from the United States, Trump officials narrowed the approach. The Biden administration maintained the visa restrictions against Chinese graduate students in science and technology fields who once attended universities with a connection to the Chinese military—even if there is no evidence the individual students presented a security concern. Trump officials could enact a broader ban on Chinese students in a second term.
DACA, Mass Deportation And The End Of Temporary Protected Status
Donald Trump’s pledge to initiate a mass deportation of individuals and families without legal status could define his second-term immigration policy. The administration’s plans to end the current priority on people with criminal backgrounds will allow it to pursue anyone in the United States unlawfully with equal intensity. If officials hope to achieve the highest number of deportations possible to claim success, targeting those easiest to find will be the natural bureaucratic tendency.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement may focus during the first two years on the approximately three million people whose legal status the Trump administration plans to remove. Ironically, these individuals won’t be in the United States illegally until after Trump officials end their protection from deportation. Why will this group be a priority? ICE officials may believe they will be the easiest to find.
Over one million people have Temporary Protected Status that will expire in 2025 or 2026, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Trump administration may succeed in ending TPS earlier for several countries, including Haiti. Ending TPS or humanitarian parole for Afghans and Ukrainians would be controversial. Convincing the Venezuelan government to take back deported individuals will be challenging, and the situation in countries such as Haiti remains dangerous for returnees.
Economic studies have concluded that previous efforts to bar or deport immigrants from the United States have harmed U.S. workers and the economy. Such research did not cause Donald Trump to change his views or rhetoric on immigrants during the campaign.
The U.S. Supreme Court will likely rule on DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in 2025, which could end the program. Donald Trump said in a December 2024 interview with NBC that he was open to dealing with Democrats on legislation to protect Dreamers (i.e., young people without legal status brought to America by their parents). However, when he was president, White House Adviser Stephen Miller and allies in the Senate attached measures to legislation that Democrats considered poison pills, dooming any chance to help even a portion of Dreamers.
Significant challenges would exist for any Dreamer legislation in 2025. Opinions differ on which individuals to help: Only the approximately 535,000 DACA recipients living in the United States or hundreds of thousands of additional individuals who could not gain access to DACA over the past several years for legal or other reasons? Another complication: Immigration opponents would likely attempt to leverage protection for Dreamers to gain reductions in legal immigration, changes to asylum eligibility or enact other measures.
Massive Spending On Immigration Enforcement And U.S. Mexico-Border Management
Republicans plan to pass a bill that would dwarf previous budgets by spending up to $120 billion on immigration enforcement. “It would go toward wall and border agents but also build out infrastructure at Immigration and Customs Enforcement for Trump’s deportation efforts,” reports Axios. If House and Senate Republicans are unified, which remains a significant question, the bill could pass on “reconciliation” if it focuses on spending and does not include substantive policy measures. Democrats would be unable to filibuster the bill in the Senate.
“Government spending on immigration enforcement has been ineffective in reducing illegal immigration,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “Research shows an overall lack of a correlation between illegal entry and the number of Border Patrol agents and immigration enforcement spending.”
To pass the bill, Republican lawmakers will likely claim a crisis exists, although illegal entry is lower today than when Donald Trump left office in January 2021. History shows work visas and other legal pathways have been more effective in reducing illegal immigration.
The incoming Trump administration must rely on the Mexican government’s help on the border. Analysts credit Mexico’s assistance, combined with Biden’s use of legal pathways and an executive order on asylum, for lowering illegal immigration levels. Despite this, Donald Trump threatened to impose high tariffs on goods from Mexico if the Mexican government did not do what its president said—and experts agree—it has been doing.
“You may not be aware that Mexico has developed a comprehensive policy to assist migrants from different parts of the world who cross our territory en route to the southern border of the United States,” wrote Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in a letter to Trump. “As a result, and according to data from your country’s Customs and Border Protection, encounters at the Mexico–United States border have decreased by 75% between December 2023 and November 2024. Moreover, half of those who arrive do so through a legally scheduled appointment under the United States’ CBP One program.”
The Mexican government cooperated with the Biden administration, in part because U.S. government officials allowed 30,000 individuals from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti to enter the United States monthly and obtain work authorization. That encouraged the Mexican government to accept a similar number of expelled persons from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti. Trump said he will end the humanitarian parole programs and no longer allow migrants to use the CBP One app to schedule appointments at the border. Mexico will decide whether to continue cooperating with the U.S. government at the same level.
Lowering Refugee Admissions: Another Form Of Immigration Restriction
During Donald Trump’s first term, press reports indicate White House Adviser Stephen Miller was chiefly responsible for reducing refugee admissions to historically low levels. George Mason University economics professor Michael Clemens, in a study for the Center for Global Development, concluded, “Today there are roughly 295,000 refugees ‘missing’ from the U.S. population due to the 86% reduction in refugee resettlement starting in 2017—those who would be present now if refugee admissions during 2017–2021 had stayed at their 2016 levels.” He estimated those “missing refugees” cost the overall U.S. economy over $9.1 billion each year and lowered government revenues by $2 billion a year.
The Biden administration rebuilt the refugee resettlement process, admitting over 100,000 refugees in FY 2024. Religious and human rights groups expect Stephen Miller, once back in the White House, will resume his efforts to prevent refugees from arriving in the United States, including suspending refugee resettlement programs on the first day.
A New Immigration Travel Ban And Executive Order On Birthright Citizenship
Donald Trump has pledged to issue an executive order to end birthright citizenship. Legal scholars argue a constitutional amendment would be needed to deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil and that there is no evidence people come to America unlawfully because of birthright citizenship.
Attempts to end birthright citizenship may result in legal confusion similar to the travel ban in the first term against people from primarily Muslim nations. Donald Trump has promised to bring back that travel ban in some form, which would prevent many individuals from joining U.S. relatives or employers in America. Attempting to end birthright citizenship could place the burden on U.S. citizen parents to prove their child was born to a legal resident. Analysts note it may be one more reminder that immigration restrictions are often restrictions on Americans.