Trump Using Every Tool Available to Keep Immigration Promises
Which has triggered countless legal challenges — but that’s not slowing the president down
By Andrew R. Arthur on March 20, 2025
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump made a number of immigration promises: that he would “close the border”; launch a “mass deportation program”; and remove migrant criminals and gang members. As president, he’s quickly moved to keep those promises and is using every tool at his disposal — including a number that have been rarely utilized in the past. In this age of “lawfare”, it’s not much of a surprise that he is receiving pushback in the courts, but it does not appear to be slowing his agenda.
“Foreign Policy” Ground of Removal. The Washington Post reports that ICE agents arrested Badar Khan Suri, an Indian national and fellow at Georgetown University, in Northern Virginia on March 17, apparently charging him under the “foreign policy” ground of deportability at section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the INA.
If that sounds familiar, it’s the same removal ground DHS used to detain Mahmoud Khalil, a Syrian-born Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student.
As section 237(a)(4)(C) states: “An alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”
On March 19, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin tweeted:
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