In a step that has stirred significant public discussion, President Donald Trump has rolled out an array of executive orders allowing federal agencies a broader scope in arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants.
Notably, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the U.S. Marshals Service have now obtained powers similar to those of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) when it comes to immigration enforcement.
This initiative seeks to lessen the workload of ICE agents and dramatically boost the frequency of immigration-related arrests across the country.
The administration has specified ambitious targets, directing ICE to arrest between 1,200 and 1,500 people every day.
President Donald Trump returned to office last month with a major show of force on immigration, issuing numerous orders and directives to dramatically increase enforcement.
They’ve sparked glee from his supporters, condemnation from his opponents, fear from immigrant communities amid nationwide raids — and also plenty of false alarms.
The flurry of new policies — some pushing long-held legal boundaries — are part of a “shock and awe” strategy meant to amplify the promises of a military-assisted mass deportation, experts said. Among the administration’s goals is for fearful immigrants to “voluntarily depart.”
“The big issue is this basically full-court press (from the administration) on immigration enforcement and the fear it’s generated,” said UC Davis immigration law professor Kevin Johnson. “(The fear) probably is the biggest impact of all.”
The uncertainty over immigrants’ futures has led communities to question whether workers should continue to show up to businesses, children to school and patients to doctors’ offices — and whether there will be economic disruptions and school funding consequences as a result.
Many immigrants are staying home. Others have little choice but to continue their routines.
In Kern County, an immigrant citrus picker who spoke on the condition that her name not be used because she fears deportation said like many of her coworkers, she stayed home for a day in the wake of a Border Patrol operation last month — conducted before Trump took office — that seemed to target farmworkers.
But she has bills to pay, so she’s continued going to work and sending her child to daycare. Rumors of immigration authority sightings have also continued to spread, including one that prompted the contractor she works for to keep her crew in the orange grove at the end of a recent workday. The contractor didn’t release them to go home until checking that the roads were clear, she said.
“Everybody goes out with fear,” she said. “But one has needs. And my needs are bigger than the fear.”
Trump’s actions have the potential to drastically remake the immigration landscape. Here’s what’s changed so far and how California is responding.
Targeting birthright citizenship
One of Trump’s first-day executive orders sought to end the century-plus-old practice of granting citizenship to all children born on U.S. soil even if their parents are undocumented. Courts have affirmed the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship since 1898, in the case of a San Francisco man whose parents were from China.
Two federal judges, responding to separate lawsuits, quickly halted the order.
A third lawsuit, brought by 18 states including California and the city of San Francisco, was heard in a Massachusetts federal court last Friday. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office says the executive order would strip citizenship rights from about 24,500 children who are born in California each year.
Expanding ICE’s reach
The administration has directed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to expand use of a process called “expedited removal”: deportations that are allowed to bypass immigration courts, where a judge would normally decide the merit of allowing someone to stay in the country. In the past, immigrants without legal status and who do not make an asylum claim can be placed in this process if they’re arrested within 14 days of entering the country, and within 100 miles of the border.
That already covered most of California. The new order expands the process to the entire country, and to immigrants arrested within two years of entering.
“That could have a huge effect” on the number of people authorities can arrest and put in the fast-tracked deportation process far from the border, said UCLA law professor Ahilan Arulanantham.
Immigration courts have a longstanding backlog that in late 2024 rose to 3.5 million cases.
Other Trump actions could also dramatically increase those cases:
He revoked a policy prohibiting agents from making arrests in “sensitive locations” such as churches, schools and hospitals;
And he signed the Laken Riley Act, a GOP bill that had some Democratic support, directing ICE to detain and deport immigrants who are charged — not just convicted — with certain crimes.
Experts say much of how this is carried out still depends on how much Congress is willing to allow ICE to spend. The agency, which operates on about $9 billion a year, estimates it needs $27 billion to carry out the Laken Riley Act, NPR has reported.
The reach of ICE’s recent activity is also unclear. The agency in the last week of January posted daily arrest numbers on the social media platform X, showing nationwide an average of about 800 arrests a day. That’s far higher than daily arrests during the Biden administration, which averaged about 300 in 2024, according to ICE.
