Strengthen border integrity and create a clear pathway to citizenship for longstanding U.S. residents lacking documentation
A nation built by immigrants cannot turn its back on them. Yet today, millions live in fear—families torn apart, workers exploited, and dreams deferred by a system designed for exclusion, not opportunity. Immigrants are not a threat; they are the foundation of America’s strength.
Immigrants are not strangers; they are neighbors, workers, innovators, and contributors. They build businesses, fuel economies, and enrich communities. A broken system harms not only them but the nation as a whole.
Legal pathways for longstanding residents unlock enormous economic potential by allowing immigrants to start businesses, buy homes, and fully participate in the economy. In 2022, undocumented workers contributed nearly $100 billion to federal, state, and local taxes. Immigrants have shaped America’s past and future by founding companies like Google and Uber, winning over a third of U.S. science Nobel Prizes, filing nearly a quarter of all patents, and performing essential jobs with unmatched dedication and grit.
Communities thrive when immigrants are empowered, families are protected, and all residents have the security to work, innovate, and contribute to our nation. No one should live in the shadows when they seek only safety and opportunity. We must end mass detention and deportation efforts, cease violent ICE raids that violate habeas corpus, reunite separated families, protect asylum seekers, and create fair, efficient processes for legal immigration and residency, all while ensuring our border is secured.
Project 2029 is proposing a transformational immigration platform that will accomplish the following objectives:
Improving migration safety, the asylum process, and border security. Key actions include:
Bolstering Customs and Border Patrol’s Office of Field Operations
Coordinating with Mexico and refugee aid organizations to increase shelter capacity on Mexico’s side of the border to reduce U.S. strain.
Coordinating with Mexico to increase security and intelligence sharing around ports of entry to eliminate the presence of cartels
Standardizing practices and procedures for migrant transport, release, and assistance between all relevant stakeholders
Leveraging prosecutorial discretion to administratively close or dismiss removal proceedings for long-time residents while focusing on high-threat cases.
2. Reforming ICE tactics through executive action. Critical actions include imposing an ICE hiring freeze and halting recruitment initiatives, offering early retirements or buyouts to ICE agents to downsize the agency, canceling contracts with private detention centers, eliminating 287(g) agreements to prevent future cooperation between ICE and local law enforcement, prohibiting workplace and community raids near sensitive locations except in narrowly defined situations, banning masks and face coverings on ICE agents, and requiring them to wear name tags, badge numbers, and agency affiliation at all times.
3. Creating pathways to legal residency and citizenship. These pathways include bolstering existing DACA protections for Dreamers, expanding the use of parole in place (PIP) to allow longstanding undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. without legal status to lawfully remain, and strongly urging Congress to modernize the outdated immigration registry cutoff date, which currently limits green card eligibility to individuals who have continuously resided in the U.S. since before 1972.
4. Restoring and expanding the Interagency Task Force on the Reunification of Families to reunify families separated due to deportation efforts.
5. Rescinding the Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, which authorizes federal authorities to detain and deport Venezuelan nationals without trial, and restoring habeas corpus and due process of law.
Dismantling surveillance infrastructure that enables mass deportation. This includes barring data-sharing agreements between the ICE and any agency collecting personal or administrative data, including the IRS.
Ending the use of private immigration detention facilities. Currently, around 90% of all ICE detainees are held in privately contracted facilities. This results in a system in which the incarceration of migrants directly enriches private corporations. Our immigration system must prioritize fairness over greed and justice over profit. As the Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General found in 2016, privately operated criminal detention facilities have been linked to substandard levels of safety and security.
Creating an Immigrant Bill of Rights that ends the criminalization of Immigrants in America, guarantees Fifth Amendment due process & Miranda rights for everyone present in the U.S., and creates a sense of belonging for immigrants.
