By Cecilia Esterline

Key takeaways - The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is the policy playbook for a second Trump administration, and its impacts on immigration would be far more complex and destructive than previously reported. It isn’t simply a refresh of first-term ideas, dusted off and ready to be re-implemented. Rather, it reflects a meticulously orchestrated, comprehensive plan to drive immigration levels to unprecedented lows and increase the fed eral government’s power to the states’ detriment. These proposals circumvent Congress and the courts and are specifically engineered to dismantle the foundations of our immigration system. The most troubling proposals include plans to: • Block federal financial aid for up to two-thirds of all American college students if their state permits certain immigrant groups, including Dreamers with legal status, to access in-state tuition. • Terminate the legal status of 500,000 Dreamers by eliminating staff time for reviewing and process ing renewal applications. • Use backlog numbers to trigger the automatic suspension of application intake for large categories of legal immigration. • Suspend updates to the annual eligible country lists for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas, thereby excluding most populations from filling critical gaps in the agricultural, construction, hospi tality, and forestry sectors. • Bar U.S. citizens from qualifying for federal housing subsidies if they live with anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident. • Force states to share driver’s licenses and taxpayer identification information with federal authorities or risk critical funding. These proposals, along with the others discussed herein, mark a significant divergence from traditional conservative immigration priorities like promoting merit-based immigration, fostering assimilation, and enhancing interior enforcement. Instead, they are designed to cripple the existing immigration system without regard for the extraordinarily harmful effects on the health and wealth of our country. They would weaken our nation’s prosperity and security and undermine the vitality of our workforce, with far-reaching consequences for future generations of Americans. 

Washington, DC:  Niskanen Center , 2024. 17p