The order directs federal departments and agencies to identify federally funded programs providing financial benefits to migrants in the country illegally, according to a fact sheet on the order seen by Bloomberg News. The order also prohibits cities and states from using federal money for programs that could assist migrants and calls for improvements in verifying eligibility for benefits.
Undocumented individuals are already broadly ineligible for most government programs, including federal food assistance payments and welfare benefits. Still, the order highlights Trump’s focus on cracking down on illegal immigration and securing the US southern border — a defining issue for the president. Trump campaigned on a pledge to carry out the largest deportation in US history, seizing on voter anxiety over a border surge that taxed communities and stoked fears about crime.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who is the face of Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency — an effort to slash the size of the federal workforce and government spending — has assailed the Federal Emergency Management Agency for sending payments to New York City to house migrants, saying it defied the president’s immigration policies. FEMA terminated its chief financial officer and three other employees involved in the payments to New York City for migrant accommodations.
Many local governments and nonprofits receive federal reimbursements for feeding and housing migrants. Trump has called for abolishing FEMA and during the 2024 presidential campaign promoted unfounded claims that the agency had diverted disaster relief funds to house undocumented migrants. Trump has declared a national emergency at the southern border and directed the Pentagon to deploy additional resources to address the situation.
The administration has also ramped up deportations of undocumented migrants and attempted to end automatic birthright citizenship for children of people in the country illegally. That action has been halted by the courts as they address legal challenges. The president has also used the threat of tariffs to pressure Mexico and Canada to do more to secure the border, winning token concessions that led him to delay imposing import taxes on their products.
