What Trump's MAGA allies have planned for immigration in Project 2025

• Trump repeatedly claimed during his campaign that he knew nothing about the right-wing policy map, despite the fact that the Heritage Foundation-backed plan was written by his close allies and supported by his top advisers.

The other side: "The American public, even amidst the election results, opposes the Trump agenda of mass deportation, separation of families, and his promises to 'un-document' and deport some with current legal status," Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of America's Voice, told Axios.

• The immigrant reform group is "still determining how we can help protect and support these immigrants," Cardenas said.
• Yadira Sanchez, executive director of advocacy group Poder Latinx, echoed the point that most voters remain against mass deportations.
• "We cannot accept that it is the only solution to immigration, nor would it be closing the border, because family separations — which will impact close to 20 million families of mixed status- will affect the country as we know it," Sanchez said.

Zoom in: Project 2025 directs U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to stop administratively closing out pending immigration cases, which under certain conditions has been an avenue to pause a person's removal from the U.S. based on a judge's order.

• The authors of Project 2025 accused the Biden administration of closing out tens of thousands of pending immigration cases that were slated for expedited removal processings or hearing.
• "This misguided action constituted an egregious example of lawlessness that allowed thousands of illegal aliens and other immigration violators to go free in the United States," the plan states.

Project 2025 directs ICE to take into custody undocumented immigrants with records for felonies, crimes of violence, DUIs, previous removals along with "any other crime that is considered a national security or public safety threat as defined under current laws."

• That's already the law, said Angela Kelley, senior advisor at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
• If a foreign national is arrested for a crime, their legal status is checked and a hold can be placed on their ability to be released, she explained.

The plan calls for the elimination of T and U visas, which provide legal status to victims of certain criminal activities who have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse, and to victims of human trafficking who assist law enforcement in their investigations.

• The outline also states that ICE should halt its "current cozy deference" for educational institution and work with the Department of State to "eliminate or significantly reduce the number of visas issued to foreign students from enemy nations."

Repealing Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designations is also a demand in Project 2025. That would impact nearly 1.2 million people who are either receiving or eligible for TPS.

Flashback: Trump said on the campaign trial that he would revoke the TPS immigration status of Haitian immigrants who are living legally in the U.S.

• "In my opinion, it's not legal. It's not legal for anybody to do," he said last month.

Between the lines: TPS is a federal program that allows migrants from some countries to legally live in the U.S. for a certain period when the conditions in their home country are unsafe.

• Trump's first administration paused TPS for some 400,000 migrants, but after years-long litigation, the Biden administration extended the program for all countries. A move to end TPS protections would likely meet another set of legal challenges.

Zoom out: Trump on Thursday reiterated that making the border "strong and powerful" remains one of his first priorities upon taking office, and said his administration will have "no choice" but to carry out mass deportation.

• "It's not a question of a price tag. It's not — really, we have no choice," he told NBC News when asked about the cost of his plan.
• "When people have killed and murdered, when drug lords have destroyed countries, and now they're going to go back to those countries because they're not staying here. There is no price tag."
• That's long been Trump's rhetoric on immigration, and he campaigned in 2016 on a promise to "build the wall."
• Stephen Miller, a longtime Trump adviser credited with shaping his immigration policies, claimed on X this week without evidence that undocumented immigrants "are raping and murdering American children," in a plea to "all the men of America" to vote and "end the invasion once and for all."

More from Axios:

• Inside Trump's plans to deport millions from the U.S.
• Trump's gains with Latinos echo anti-immigrant sentiment of the past
• Federal judge strikes down Biden program for undocumented immigrants