Pillar #3 of Project 2025 seeks to bolster our national security by reinforcing U.S. sovereignty, tightening immigration controls, and safeguarding American resources from global threats- all in ways conservatives want. The authors of Project 2025 would say this approach is rooted in a vision of America as a strong, self-sufficient nation that defends its interests aggressively on both the global and domestic stages.

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

So far, so good. Who doesn’t like prioritizing domestic interests, and who doesn’t favor having a strong, self-sufficient nation?

Now, let’s see what the Project’s conservative authors believe it should look like in practice to see whether the details are as attractive as the theory might be.

What It Means

This third pillar of Project 2025 emphasizes a strong national defense, strict immigration controls, and protecting American resources from global threats (however, the conservative authors define those).

Each of these elements ties directly to the core goals of the pillar:

• Reinforcing U.S. Sovereignty: This involves asserting national authority and limiting external influences on domestic policies, ensuring that Americans make decisions affecting Americans.
• Tightening Immigration Controls: This focuses on securing the nation’s borders, preventing illegal immigration, and protecting the country’s resources and jobs from being impacted by foreign nationals.
• Safeguarding American Resources: This entails protecting the nation’s natural and economic resources from global competition or exploitation, ensuring they benefit U.S. citizens first and foremost.

Again, we can say, “So far, so good.” But now, let’s see whether the details of how they propose to better meet these goals are as attractive as the theory and the slogans.

Concrete Examples: What Does Defending These Three Things Look Like For Project 2025?

Here’s what some of that might look like.

POLICY: Measures to Stem the Immigration Tide

You knew this would be a key part of Project 2025, right? Remember, Trump’s key advisor on immigration policy, Stephen Miller (the guy who insists Trump won his first debate against Kamala Harris), is a key contributor to the policy proposals in this area for Project 2025. So, much of what they propose will echo things Miller proposed to the president during his administration.

First, a summary. To secure our nation’s borders and protect the country’s jobs and resources from being impacted by foreign nationals (read: immigrants and migrants), the Project calls for a bunch of things like expanding the capacity of detention facilities for immigrants, eliminating protections for unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers, and changing the policies governing where ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) can enforce immigration law with respect to deporting undocumented people in these areas.

Some will say those kinds of measures are needed and welcome — immigration’s a big problem, and we must do something to get it under control. Let’s explain what this kind of “vast immigration crackdown” might mean in more detail to see what it would look like in real life.

1. Expanding the Capacity of Detention Facilities for Immigrants

This means increasing the number and size of facilities where immigrants are held. Our entire ICE system currently has between 30,000 and 40,000 beds. At any time, you’ll find the occupiers of those detention facilities to be a mix of undocumented immigrants who are awaiting deportation hearings, asylum seekers being held while their cases are processed, and immigrants with criminal records who are facing deportation after having served out their sentences in a U.S. jail. Depending on the complexities of their situation, they’ll stay anywhere between a few weeks to several months.

Project 2025 proposes building new facilities and expanding existing ones, allowing the U.S. to detain more people for processing instead of turning them out into the country while they await their hearings, which often happens now.

Expanding our detention and processing infrastructure is a necessity on which virtually everyone familiar with the boots-on-the-ground situation at the border agrees. Any time you hear about migrants being released into or even transported to US cities, it’s because we simply don’t have the capacity to hold people for processing. We also don’t have enough immigration judges to have the hearings in a timely manner.  Any kind of solution to the border problem, whether it comes from Project 2025 proposals or not, will involve a substantial pouring of resources into building more holding facilities and hiring more judges and border patrol agents.

2. Eliminating Protections for Unaccompanied Minors and Asylum Seekers

Currently, unaccompanied minors and asylum seekers are granted certain legal protections by US law. They cannot be immediately deported and have the right to a hearing on their case. And this would seem to make sense – most reasonable people would agree that if a child wanders across the border alone from Mexico, it would be both in the child’s best interest and a reasonable moral good overall for the border patrol not to pick them up and drop them back into Mexico immediately.

Project 2025 would propose eliminating these protections.  In practice, that would mean both unaccompanied minors and legal asylum seekers could be deported more quickly or even be denied the chance to seek asylum in the first place.

3. Changing Policies Governing Where ICE Can Enforce Immigration Law

If you’re in a school, a hospital, or a church, ICE currently is restricted from enforcing immigration laws in those sensitive places. Project 2025 proposes doing away with those limitations. And that’s something the new Republican president could easily do through an executive directive.

That would create scenarios where a Christian migrant could be taken away when ICE agents burst in as they are worshiping in a church. Or take migrant children away through raids to schools. Or, a migrant breaks their leg and has to go to the hospital. ICE comes in and takes them away. 

Someone might be unconvinced by those possibilities or even push back, saying they are extreme possibilities that only serve to inflame and worry people. But we should remember that if the next president is Donald Trump, it is well known that he directed aides and staff to research what it would take to make a number of unusual proposals a reality.

President Trump suggested allowing the border patrol to shoot people attempting to climb sections of the wall – shoot them in the leg or below the waist. That was one policy suggestion.

In March 2019, President Trump instructed aides for the Department of Homeland Security to develop a cost analysis on a proposal to dig a moat thousands of miles long and stock it with alligators and snakes.

He also directed aids to look into the logistics of electrifying border fences and using razor-sharp spikes.

Those were all policy suggestions by President Trump. They might be considered unrealistic, except for former President Trump’s previous serious ideas.

Considering the attention given by Trump to ideas like those, it doesn’t seem unrealistic at all for a second-term president Trump to make a much simpler change to the regulations governing ICE agents and allow them to raid schools and hospitals and drag suspected undocumented people out of church services (I say suspected because there have been more than a few cases of legal us residents being mistakenly detained by ICE).

It’s up to you to consider these potential results and decide for yourself if they are really what you want to see.

4. Elimination of T and U Visas (“Because Victimization Should Not Be A Basis For An Immigration Benefit”)

Because Pillar #3 explicitly concerns borders, its policy proposals are likely to be heavy on immigration. One suggestion that could result is the elimination of “T” and “U” visas, which are humanitarian visas designed for victims of human trafficking (T visa) and victims of certain crimes (U visa) who assist law enforcement in investigations or prosecutions.

The T and U visas are special categories of visas in the U.S. immigration system designed to protect victims of human trafficking and certain crimes. The T visa is specifically for victims of human trafficking, offering protection to those who have been exploited for labor or sex work and who assist law enforcement in the prosecution of traffickers. The U visa, on the other hand, is aimed at victims of a broader range of crimes, including domestic violence, sexual assault, and other severe criminal activity, and similarly requires cooperation with law enforcement.

Each year, approximately 5,000 T visas and 10,000 U visas are available, with a large portion of recipients being women and children who have suffered significant abuse or exploitation. Project 2025 advocates for doing away with these. Editorially speaking, that seems kind of curious. But they have their reasons.

 There’s the concern over “fraud and abuse,” as in the claim that individuals who are not genuine victims of human trafficking or serious crimes may falsely claim victimhood to exploit these visas as a means of gaining legal residency in the U.S.

Some contend that the T/U visa programs have been overextended beyond their original intent, thus becoming loopholes in the broader immigration system.

Others say eliminating these 15,000 visas should be part of the broader tightening and control of our borders. They view this proposal as part of a shift in emphasis away from providing humanitarian protections and toward strengthening our border enforcement and increasing our deportations. Indeed, this last one fits into the undercurrent that argues the U.S. should pull back from being so involved in easing global humanitarian crises and focus on domestic priorities instead.

There are counterarguments. Eliminating these visas would undermine U.S. leadership in combating human trafficking and crime. It would discourage victims of trafficking and serious crimes from coming forward and cooperating with law enforcement, undermining efforts to prosecute offenders. Additionally, it could lead to increased vulnerability for trafficking victims, as they may face deportation rather than the safety and legal recourse currently offered by these visas. Many victims who rely on these visas are women and children. Without the legal protection that comes with a T or U visa, they could face deportation back to dangerous situations or be forced into further exploitation.

The US has long taken a leadership role in combating human trafficking and supporting victims of crime. Falling in line with this Project 2025 proposal to do away with these visas would force the hard question of whether we really put our money where our mouth is as far as being a world leader in these important areas.

POLICY: Stop Funding the United Nations Population Fund

From a conservative perspective, contributions to international organizations that interfere with conservative American values or policy priorities, particularly on issues related to life, family, and national sovereignty, should stop, including funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The UNFPA is criticized by some conservative groups for its perceived support for reproductive health services that include access to abortion, even though the Fund itself states it does not directly fund abortions.

For those unfamiliar with it, the UNFPA is an international agency focused on global reproductive health and population issues. It provides vital support to countries in areas such as family planning, maternal and child health, reproductive rights, and gender-based violence prevention. The organization plays a crucial role in promoting safe childbirth, improving access to contraceptives, and reducing maternal mortality rates. It is also one of the international agencies that addresses humanitarian needs during crises, such as providing reproductive health services in conflict zones and refugee camps.

The UNFPA has an annual budget of about $650 million, with the U.S. providing about 5% (approximately $30 million). There are some competing arguments here—the Project would say, “It’s only 5%; they won’t miss it,” while supporters of the UNFPA might counter with, “$30 million is almost literally a fraction of a drop in the bucket for the US, so why do we need to stop funding?”

All right, so let’s discuss what that looks like a little more and then weigh that against the conservative arguments for defunding it.

Many conservatives in the U.S. argue for defunding the UNFPA for two reasons. #1 is allegations that it indirectly supports or is complicit in promoting abortions, especially in countries with policies that allow forced abortions or sterilizations, such as China with its One Child Policy.  We should state, however, that the UNFPA has always denied involvement in such practices. But the allegations persist, nonetheless. (Since when have many of us let conflicting facts get in the way of a good conspiracy?). Reason # 2 is a globalism argument claiming that supporting an international fund like that is another step towards the globalism of which many continue being afraid.

Still, $30 million is $30 million. What good is supposedly being done with our 5% contribution that Project 2025 thinks worth eliminating?

We said earlier that the United Nations Population Fund provides essential services like maternal health care, family planning, and support for safe childbirth to reduce maternal and infant mortality and promote reproductive health. Put a pin in that last one. It runs these programs in regions that face high rates of maternal and infant mortality due to insufficient healthcare infrastructure. These areas include sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Asia, Latin America, and war-torn or conflict-ridden regions, all areas with poor access to healthcare, especially reproductive health services, and that benefit from the programs the most.

Still, we need to look more closely at the “reproductive health care” bit because many people likely think of “reproductive health care” as code words for just one thing – abortion.

But is that true?

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The next installment in the deep dive continues the discussion on Pillar #3, including the potentially far-reaching 1873 Comstock Act and how it could impact every citizen, NATO and international engagement, and substantial changes to the VA healthcare system.

To go to the beginning of the Project 2025 deep dive, go here: What is Project 2025? And Why Should You Care?

Image: Pamela Reynoso

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