What happens when a president promises mass deportations but the courts push back?

In this episode of Immigration Weekly, Rosanna breaks down the first six months of immigration policy under the Trump administration in 2025. From record-low border crossings and the return of the Remain in Mexico policy to the shutdown of the CBP One app, she unpacks what’s actually working – and what’s not. With a major Supreme Court ruling shifting power back to the executive branch, Rosanna explores how these changes are reshaping immigration law in real time.

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Transcript

Everyone’s talking about U.S. immigration law, but nobody really knows how it works. I’m Rosanna Berardi. I’m the daughter of an immigrant, a former immigration inspector at the border, university professor, and founder and managing partner of Berardi Immigration Law.

I’ve done nothing but U.S. immigration law for over 30 years, and it’s time to stop the misinformation on all sides. I’m going to tell you how it all works, the inside story. This is Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Berardi.

Border Security and Policy Shifts

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Immigration Weekly with your host, Rosanna Berardi. Hard to believe that we are six months in 2025. Wow.

I don’t know about you, but on one hand, the inauguration of President Trump seems like a lifetime ago, and on the other hand, wow, things have gone quickly. So today, we’re going to break down really what’s happened in the last six months. I guess the question is, what hasn’t happened from an immigration perspective?

This is an administration that has kept us busy, busy, busy in terms of policies, people having questions. So let’s break it down. Let’s talk about what has the administration done regarding immigration.

So we’re six months in. What do we have? Well, we have record low border crossings.

We have workplace raids. We have a lot more arrests, and we’ve got a Supreme Court decision that opens the door for the administration. So let’s get started.

So the big issue that this campaign largely ran on and was supported was securing our borders. The U.S. southern border, as well as the northern border, have been pretty porous in terms of people entering the United States without authorization. So the numbers of individuals entering the United States have decreased significantly.

So in March of 2025, there were only about 7,000 apprehensions at the southern border compared to March of 2024, where there was 137,000. Now, listen, I know about numbers. Numbers can be cooked.

Numbers can be worked in order to make an argument. But overall, whether this is a thousand percent accurate or not, it’s a staggering, staggering difference from the last administration. What is the message from this administration?

Don’t come to the U.S. border. And it’s largely worked. In addition to the number of apprehensions down, we also have the military at the border.

Not really talking about that, but there’s 10,000 active duty troops deployed at the border. There is basically a ban on asylum claims. The Trump administration also revived the Remain in Mexico policy, which Remain in Mexico is if you’re coming to the United States from Mexico, whether you’re born there or not, you can apply for asylum, but you need to wait in Mexico.

This was a controversial policy, but under the Trump administration, they brought that one back. And basically, it is making people wait outside of the United States without the benefits of living, working in the United States before they apply for asylum. And then another big one at the border, the Biden administration created this app called CBP One.

And it was a way of having individuals applying for asylum, go on the app, make an appointment, handle all of those logistics. Well, they shut that baby down. And they canceled 30,000 existing asylum appointments.

That’s a big one. Not sure what’s going to happen with those appointments, but that’s shut down. So in terms of zooming out at a 10,000 foot view of border security, we would say the Trump administration would call this a win.

The numbers are down, more military more control, more messaging to the whole world. And, you know, having people wait in Mexico creates a huge impact on what’s actually going on with respect to asylum and individuals. So we’ll see what happens on this one.

I think we’re going to continue to see these numbers drop. We don’t have, you know, thousands and thousands of people crossing the border like we did over the last four years. So border security, check that off.

Deportations, Due Process, and Workplace Enforcement

I’d probably say that’s a win on the administration’s half. Okay, so six months into the Trump administration regarding immigration, where are we with deportations? Remember, we heard it over and over again on the campaign trail.

The largest deportation effort in the history of America was promised to happen. Guess what? That’s been hard.

You know why? Two words, due process. People that are in the United States, whether they’re United States citizens, whether they’re here without status, are entitled to due process.

What does that mean? The fancy way of saying their day in court. You can’t just take people in the U.S. and say bye-bye. So on the campaign trail, when the administration was promising this mass deportation, most lawyers were like, not going to happen. The deportation removal proceedings in the United States are a disaster. There are so many people in a very clogged up system.

It can take anywhere up to three to five years to get a hearing in immigration court. Government, what are we doing? Put private sector into action here.

Call Jeff Bezos. He would fix this. If you’re not a fan of him, I’m really not either, but you put a private brain behind fixing the immigration court problem and this is done overnight.

But nonetheless, campaign promised 15 to 20 million deportations. A million per year was the goal. Really, really hard.

Reality, they’re averaging, they’re saying about 600 deportations a day. Not really on track. Why?

Well, the immigration court system’s a mess. Everyone is entitled to due process and we’re not moving people out the way that it appeared would happen. Now, the lawyers knew this was never going to happen.

What are we seeing that’s a little bit different? We’re seeing a lot more arrests. We’re seeing a lot more work site raids.

Remember Los Angeles, the whole tension in Los Angeles was that ICE was going after manufacturing facilities. They were raided with individuals who were working unlawfully. What’s going on with that?

Yeah, we’re arresting a lot more people, but those individuals have their day in court. So, yeah, we’ve heard a lot of noise. There’s a lot of fear.

There’s a lot of disruption. But the logistical challenges of mass deportations, not solved by this administration. Way easier to arrest people, to put them in detention facilities, to focus on their employers.

Hey, why are the employers getting a free pass? They know these folks are unlawful. What are they doing?

They should be just as responsible, in my humble opinion. We’re seeing some trickle down of this. Labor shortages in agriculture and hotels.

At one point during this aggressive pitch for deportation, the administration was contacted by the associations of restaurants, hotels, farms saying, hey, if you do this, we have no people. We have no people to do this. Hard argument in a country of 331 million people, but it’s an argument nonetheless.

We don’t have enough people that want to do this work. So, thumbs up or thumbs down? Did the administration really make and keep its promise about the mass deportation?

Supreme Court Ruling and the Outlook Ahead

I would say this is a loss on the Trump end, and it was going to be a loss from the beginning because of due process. Now, let’s flip to the United States Supreme Court. Super interesting.

There’s a lot going on here, folks, and we have two podcasts dedicated to the U.S. Supreme Court decision and issue on birthright citizenship. Remember, the court did not determine whether birthright citizenship was something that can be removed by the executive branch. More importantly, I will argue, for the rest of my life, it limited the impact of injunctions by federal district court judges.

Why is this important? Why do I keep talking about this? Well, you see, there’s about 700 federal district court judges, and every time the executive branch tried to do something under Obama, Biden, Trump, Bush, you name it, lawsuits were filed by one or two individuals in a district, maybe in like Oregon, and a federal district court judge said, nope, I don’t like this.

And that decision was blasted nationwide. So the entire executive attempt was frozen. The Supreme Court said no, no, no.

It was never the intent of the founding fathers to give the federal courts all this power. Why is this relevant? Definitely a win for the Trump administration in the last six months.

Why? Because this will preclude federal district court judges from squashing or stopping a lot of the executive branch’s wishlist, sanctuary cities, birthright citizenship, you name it, it’s there. So this is a big win for the Trump administration in the last six months.

Kind of a wonky decision. Courts have 30 days to do stuff. We’ll see what happens.

End of the day, the US Supreme Court said no more federal court judges and gave the power back to the executive branch. This is definitely a win for the Trump administration. So what do we have here?

In the last six months, immigration, holy Moses. I have been interviewed dozens of times by national, international media, talking about the changes that Trump made. Guess what?

I’m always talking about executive orders, hypotheticals, things that might happen. For the love of God, Congress, do something. Do your job.

Please create some area of law, some legislation, statute, something, proposed legislation that I could look at and comment and not live in the world of make pretend with the media. But nonetheless, for the Trump administration, what do we have? We have a big win on the US Supreme Court side.

It’ll give them a little bit more power than they’re used to in terms of federal district court judges. Mass deportation, eh, major logistical issues. Can’t see this one being solved.

And then border apprehensions, yeah, the numbers are way down at the border. And most people would call that a win. So what are the next six months going to look like?

I think we’re going to see a lot more executive orders. I also think we’re not going to see Congress do anything regarding immigration. And we’ll see this presidency.

Remember, we have the chief marketing officer of America as the president of the United States. This guy’s keeping immigration front and center. Every couple of weeks, it’s something new.

You know, the gold card for five million dollars. You know, detention facilities, rounding up people at factories. Immigration isn’t going away.

So, you know, in terms of the Trump administration, they’ve got some significant wins and maybe some things that still need some help. We’re going to watch this one. This is fascinating.

The pace to which immigration news is coming out, to me, is unprecedented in my 28 years. It’s been very challenging, to say the least, but we are here to bring you the facts, how it all works, how it all hangs together, so you can talk about this stuff beyond the sound bytes, beyond what you hear on TV and be the smartest person at your dinner table. Until next time, I’m Rosanna Barardi.

This was Immigration Weekly with Rosanna Barardi. Thanks for joining. Be sure to connect with me, Rosanna Barardi, on LinkedIn or go to our law firm at BarardiImmigrationLaw.com.

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