CONTEXT
On November 5, Donald Trump made an astonishing comeback to the pinnacle of American politics by winning the U.S. Presidential race against the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump’s victory was largely predicted by the polls, experts’ analysis, and even stock market trends before the election night. However, Trump was capable of not only winning the White House through the electoral college system but also winning the popular vote, a rare achievement for a Republican candidate since Bush v. Gore’s election in 2000. Trump also flipped the Blue Wall states, along with some Democrat feuds, such as Miami-Dade County in Florida, which consistently voted blue since 1988.        

Trump’s triumph extended over some congressional races, where the GOP is now positioned to have the majority in both chambers, the House and the Senate, as well as the majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court who identify themselves under the conservative ideology and were appointed by Republican presidents. This is a novelty with the most recent precedent from 2007, during the presidency of George W. Bush.         

During the campaign, Trump has been vocal and promised to introduce during his second term highly expected measures regarding a variety of topics, including immigration.    

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

• Political Landscape: Trump’s victory also extended to congressional races, with the GOP securing majorities in both chambers and the Supreme Court.         
  
• Immigration Policy: Trump’s second term is expected to bring significant changes to immigration, including asylum procedures, refugee intake, and work visa programs.  
  
• Asylum Policy: Anticipate the return of expedited process asylum for recent applicants, restitution of fees, policies to prevent irregular crossings, and heavier restrictions for eligibility.     
  
• Deportation Priorities: Trump’s administration priorities will aim at restricting encounters at the southern border, potentially leading to a slight increase in deportations compared to the first presidency.      
  
• Temporary Protected Status (TPS): Trump has expressed disagreement with TPS and vowed to suppress the procedure for certain countries, potentially limiting the number of beneficiaries.    
  
• TPS Designation Pause: Not a new situation, with the most recent precedent being during the Obama Administration.   
  
• STEM Student Pathway: Trump’s administration might offer a pathway to permanent resident status for STEM graduates, potentially requiring Congressional action.   
  
• Immigration Opportunities: The United States remains a country of opportunities for immigrants, with rising immigrant visa applications across various categories.   
  
• Immigration Options for STEM Students: Consider immigrant visas like PERM or NIW, or explore Student visa variants like CPT related to STEM studies.   
  
• Personal Immigration Procedures: Regularly update evidence, track case processing times, and explore other pathways like family petitions or employment-based petitions.
  
• Eligibility for Other Visas: Extraordinary-ability individuals and green card holders should check eligibility for O Visas, EB-2 NIW, or naturalization.

             

ASYLUM
Trump’s first presidency during the period 2016-2020 heavily focused on the protectionism doctrine over the local labor market from immigrant labor and was predominantly focused on significant changes in personal immigration procedures. Most of them were processed via Executive Orders and included changes in the asylum process to favor newcomers over others with pending applications from several years. Trump’s vision limited the number of refugees that may come to the country and implemented restrictions on some work visa-related procedures, such as the H1B visa, mostly during the COVID pandemic.          

We anticipate the return of expedited process asylum for recent applicants, the restitution of fees for the applicants, and policies such as Stay in Mexico to prevent irregular crossings, and the introduction of heavier restrictions for eligibility.     

DEPORTATIONS 
Surprisingly, during Trump’s first presidency, even when Trump made tough adjustments and remarks about the deportation scheme, his number of initiated deportations was just half that of his predecessor, President Obama. One of the flagship priorities of Trump’s campaign is to recover the sense of an organized and secured southern border, where Biden’s administration had almost 8 million documented illegal crossings to the country. 

Accordingly, we conclude that Trump’s administration priorities will aim at restricting these encounters (considering that under his presidency, these encounters totalized roughly 2.5 million documented illegal crossings). The number of deportations, however, may be slightly up from his first presidency.            

TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS 
Trump, in the past and during his campaign, has expressed his disagreement with other immigration benefits such as the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and has vowed to suppress the procedure from nationals of certain countries such as Haiti. There are currently 16 countries in which nationals in the U.S. are eligible for TPS. Most of them have experienced some internal or external armed conflict or have vulnerable economic conditions.          
         
Designations and redesignations are usually for an 18-month period, which is the maximum amount of time allowed until more favorable conditions can be proved in those countries. In the vast majority, we might expect that a new administration insists that the redesignations will be, in fact, extended, but no new periods of redesignation will be issued in some cases. That means that newcomers cannot apply to be under previous designations. Thus, the effect will limit the number of beneficiaries.   

TPS’s beneficiaries must be aware that pausing a designation is nothing new and is a very tangible situation. The most recent precedent was during the Obama Administration when three countries’ redesignations were eliminated (with an effective date materializing in 2017 during Trump’s first presidency). It is advisable to consider other immigration options        
                  

STUDENTS ON VISA     
Trump has hinted during the campaign that his administration may consider offering a pathway to permanent resident status to students who graduate in STEM programs within the U.S. The term ‘STEM’ is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics careers that are often associated with degrees in Finance, Engineering, Natural Sciences, and Information Technologies. More recently, some scholars and advocates have considered Marketing students as other components of the STEM programs due to the vast amount of data analysis the industry is requiring.          

To do so, an Executive Order may not be sufficient to grant the issue of hundreds of thousands of green cards to students, according to federal data, that every year come to the U.S. legally to study STEM-related fields in American universities. Consequently, we might expect that Congress, now ruled by the Republicans, has to implement a new Act or reform and amend the INA to the extent of creating a new category of eligible candidates and applicants and authorizing sufficient funding to prevent backlogs in the other green card categories of beneficiaries.  

SOME SILVER LININGS
The United States is still a country of opportunities for immigrants.    Immigrant visa applications are rising in basically all categories of eligibility.         

• Some beneficiaries of TPS with STEM studies and advanced degrees may consider if they can be eligible for other immigration procedures such as immigrant visas like PERM or NIW. Acceptance rates for these procedures are considerably higher than other immigration procedures, and these immigrant visas are firm pathways toward eventual U.S. citizenship.
  
  
• People in transit may consider exploring Student visa variants (particularly CPT) options related to STEM studies. Under these categories, they may be able to study and work in the U.S., preventing interruption of studies for lack of funding.  
  
  
• People with personal immigration procedures must regularly update the evidence related to the case, keep track of the case processing times, and prioritize other immigration pathways, if any, such as family petitions or employment-based petitions such as PERM or other sponsored situations.                  
  
• Extraordinary-ability people such as artists, researchers, academics, or high-demand occupations such as commercial airplane pilots can check if they are eligible for procedures such as O Visas or EB-2 NIW.        
  
• If you are a green card holder, you might check if you already can apply for naturalization. Naturalizations are at record-speed processing times nowadays.        
  
• Certain foreign nationals may be eligible to apply for a Treaty Investors Visa (E-2) requiring only that the investment amount is rationally related to the commercial activity to be developed within the U.S. in comparison with the $1M dollar requirement for the EB-5 program.