WASHINGTON — President Trump’s first budget offers up dramatic policy shifts and hundreds of millions of dollars to clamp down on undocumented immigrants living in the United States, denying them tax credits, jobs and haven while funding a deportation force and flights home for those being removed.
The proposals, part of the $4.1 trillion blueprint the White House released Tuesday, offer the clearest indication yet of how Mr. Trump, who campaigned on a promise to build a southern border wall to keep immigrants from illegally entering the United States and hunt down and banish those who are already here, intends to carry out his crackdown. In a budget marked by steep cuts to social safety net programs, it is one of the few areas besides the military where the president proposes to increase funding.
. . .
Mr. Trump’s budget also seeks to enhance programs that aim to ensure that undocumented immigrants cannot get jobs. It requests $131 million to support the expansion of E-Verify, an online system at the Department of Homeland Security that enables employers to check for the workplace eligibility of new hires by matching information contained in various government databases. About 670,000 employers use the system, which is voluntary. The Trump administration wants to make the system mandatory for employers, and Republicans in Congress have introduced legislation to do so.
“Turning off the jobs magnet will deter folks from coming to the United States,” said Chris Chmielenski, director of content and activism for NumbersUSA, a group that supports significant reductions in immigration. “If they couldn’t work in the U.S., many of them wouldn’t come.”
