Securitized Migration Under Donald Trump: A Study Of U.S. Migration 2024 - 2025

Abstract

This study examines the securitization of migration under Donald Trump’s administration and how migration governance in the United States was restructured through security-oriented practices. In the context of rising populism and nationalist politics, migration has been increasingly framed not as a humanitarian or administrative issue but as a source of disorder threatening territorial integrity, sovereignty, and national identity. This research employs Philippe Bourbeau’s securitized migration framework, which conceptualizes securitization as an ordering process operating through institutional indicators and the security nexus rather than an isolated speech act. The study argues that migration securitization under Donald Trump represents a sustained and institutionalized governance strategy produced through the interaction of policy statements, issue saliency, legal codification, and coercive enforcement practices. Using qualitative document analysis of speeches, executive action, and policy documents across Trump’s first presidency (2017-2021) and renewed political period (2024-2025), this study finds that migration has been normalized as a permanent security concern. Institutional framing constructed migration as disorder, while interdiction and detention materialized securitization into everyday governance practices, transforming U.S. migration governance into a durable security regime characterized by exclusion, deterrence, and coercive control.