Securing Our Borders

The order directs the Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to construct physical barriers and deploy personnel along the southern border. It requires the Department of Homeland Security to end catch-and-release through new detention guidance or proposed regulations, shut down the CBP One entry application, and terminate categorical parole programs including the Cuba-Haiti-Nicaragua-Venezuela program. The Secretary of Homeland Security — coordinating with the State Department and Attorney General — must resume Migrant Protection Protocols, requiring migrants to wait in Mexico pending removal proceedings, as soon as practicable. The Attorney General and the Department of Homeland Security must also fulfill DNA collection requirements for detained migrants, supplement border personnel using specific INA authorities, and prioritize prosecution of smuggling and trafficking offenses.

All directives must be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. The order does not itself change any statute or create enforceable rights; its only fixed deadline is a 14-day window for multiple cabinet secretaries to submit additional border-security recommendations to the President.

Migrants seeking entry to the United States, particularly those who relied on the CBP One application or the Cuba-Haiti-Nicaragua-Venezuela parole program; asylum seekers subject to reinstated Migrant Protection Protocols; and federal, state, and local law enforcement officers involved in border security and immigration enforcement.

People who used CBP One appointments or the CHNV parole pathway lose access to those entry routes. Migrants apprehended at the border face detention rather than release pending hearings, and those subject to reinstated Migrant Protection Protocols must await removal proceedings outside the United States rather than inside it.

Multiple cabinet secretaries act on parallel tracks: Defense and Homeland Security build barriers and deploy personnel; the Attorney General and Homeland Security handle detention policy and prosecutions; State negotiates international agreements. The Department of Homeland Security bears the largest operational load. All directives use "take all appropriate action" language, leaving timing to agency discretion; the only hard deadline is the 14-day window for cabinet recommendations. Implementation depends on congressional appropriations for barrier construction and detention facility capacity.