The Trump administration recently announced that undocumented immigrants aged 14 and older must register with the federal government or face criminal prosecution. The requirement relies on the long-dormant Alien Registration Act of 1940, which provided the framework for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

President Donald Trump seems determined to revive and magnify the horrors of America’s past. But his immigration actions, while extreme, are not unprecedented. Many of the underlying laws are years-old bipartisan initiatives.

Challenging Trump’s agenda regarding immigration is a moral imperative, and doing so requires an understanding of how both parties are complicit. As law students in 2023, we traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border to volunteer near one of the busiest land border crossings in the world. There we witnessed some of the unforgivable effects of the U.S. government’s systematic dehumanization of immigrants, well before Trump’s election to a second term.

At his inauguration in 2021, former President Joe Biden promised to create “a welcoming and inclusive vision for immigration,” but did no such thing. His administration continued the pattern of slashing immigrants’ rights while contributing to the destabilization of their home countries. In violation of U.S. and international law, he dismantled the immigration system until the notoriously inaccessible CBP One app was the only remaining way to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The consequences were dire. In Tijuana, we met two women who’d fled persecution in China and Senegal and couldn’t access CBP One or secure an appointment. We also met a woman who was misinformed by a stranger (likely maliciously) that she should return to the border crossing at 4:00 a.m. with her children for an appointment, which we advised against. Thousands of people seeking asylum were forced to spend undue time in transit cities, risking misinformation, identity-based violence, kidnapping and rape.

Trump, on returning to office, eliminated CBP One and replaced it with CBP Home, a self-deportation app. In doing so, he has essentially ended meaningful access to asylum at the southern border. Now, thousands of migrants must endure dangers at the border, risk entry without inspection or return to conditions they’d risked their lives to flee.

In Tijuana, we saw the persistence of those fleeing extreme violence facilitated by decades of predatory U.S. policy. Indelible in our minds is the story of a man who fled Haiti and traversed the treacherous Darién Gap with his wife, who died in the attempt. Pointing to a corner of her organization’s community space, a nonprofit director told us the man would sit there for hours every day, expressionless and mourning his wife.

Many of Trump’s most egregious actions stem from measures from previous administrations, including the Clinton-era Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. The Obama administration massively expanded family detention (a precursor to family separation, the brainchild of a Trump official appointed under Obama). And while the first Trump administration’s family separation was particularly horrific, the Biden administration and other past administrations also separated children from accompanying adults who were not their legal guardians.

In context, it’s no surprise that Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal progressives celebrate, also signed the now-reanimated Alien Registration Act. In a welcome step, congressional lawmakers have now introduced a bill to repeal it. But representatives’ actions only go as far as constituents demand. History suggests that neither party will protect immigrants unless voters leave no choice.

We urge readers to pressure lawmakers, advocate for pro-immigrant policies and organize around pro-immigrant candidates to show that the persecution of immigrants cannot be normalized. Community members can also volunteer with local organizations assisting migrants, including by getting trained for Know-Your-Rights work. Lastly, we encourage learning local laws around recording ICE interactions, to protect our neighbors during ICE encounters.

The illegality and danger of the Trump administration’s actions cannot be overstated. But countering his actions can’t mean returning to what came before, because the system has been broken for decades.

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Deeraiya Islam and Namratha Somayajula are recent graduates of Columbia Law School, and now work in New York City on legal matters including immigration. This column was produced for Progressive Perspectives, a project of The Progressive magazine, and distributed by Tribune News Service.

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