As President Trump prepares for his second term in 2025, his administration is set to implement sweeping policy changes that mark a dramatic departure from the Biden era across multiple sectors. The agenda, heavily influenced by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint, outlines significant shifts in immigration enforcement, environmental regulation rollbacks, and extensive tax reforms that could fundamentally reshape federal governance for years to come.

Key Takeaways

• The administration plans to implement a mass deportation program through executive actions, potentially involving National Guard units and internment camps for processing.
• Environmental regulations face significant rollbacks, including a formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and narrowing of clean water protections.
• Proposed tax changes would make the 21% corporate tax rate permanent while eliminating taxes on tips and Social Security benefits.
• A new travel ban could target over 40 countries, dramatically expanding from the seven nations in the 2017 version.
• The combined cost of these tax policies could add between $5-11 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade.

Immigration Reform: Project 2025’s Hardline Approach

The Trump administration’s second-term immigration agenda represents perhaps the most significant overhaul of the American immigration system in generations. Building on his first term’s restrictive policies, Trump 2.0 aims to drastically reduce both legal and illegal immigration through a series of executive actions that bypass traditional congressional approval processes.

Project 2025, the comprehensive conservative policy blueprint developed by the Heritage Foundation, provides the roadmap for these changes. The plan proposes automatically suspending legal immigration applications when agency backlogs exceed capacity and blocking federal financial aid for two-thirds of U.S. college students in states that offer in-state tuition to Dreamers – a move that could affect over 500,000 individuals according to the Niskanen Center.

One of the most controversial aspects involves the proposed $1.7 trillion in tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China to fund enhanced border security measures. This approach mirrors Trump’s first-term focus on making other countries “pay for the wall,” but at a dramatically increased scale.

Stephen Miller, a key architect of Trump’s immigration policies, has proposed deputizing National Guard units in Republican-led states to enforce immigration laws in Democratic-controlled states, alongside mass deportations processed through temporary internment facilities. This extraordinary expansion of federal immigration enforcement would also extend to:

• Expanded “expedited removal” authority to include undocumented immigrants anywhere in the U.S. who cannot prove two-year residency
• New 287(g) agreements empowering local police to enforce federal immigration laws
• Involving federal agencies like DEA and ATF in immigration enforcement activities
• Suspending updates to H-2A and H-2B visa country lists, effectively excluding workers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America

The Expanded Travel Ban: From 7 to 40+ Countries

In addition to domestic enforcement, the administration is preparing a dramatically expanded travel ban targeting over 40 countries, up significantly from the seven predominantly Muslim nations included in the 2017 version. The Global Immigration Blog reports this “Trump 2.0 Travel Ban” will likely face immediate legal challenges based on concerns about racial and religious profiling.

The practical effects would extend beyond the directly targeted nations, as administrative processing delays for visa applications from numerous countries are expected to surge. This represents a core component of the administration’s strategy to reduce overall immigration without requiring new legislation from Congress.

Legal experts from the New York City Bar Association note that these immigration changes are designed to be implemented within the first 100 days of the new administration, with many slated for immediate action through executive orders on Inauguration Day.

Environmental Deregulation: Reversing Climate Priorities

The Trump administration’s environmental agenda for 2025 is equally ambitious in its scope of regulatory rollbacks. According to environmental policy experts, the administration plans to formally withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and rescind approximately 80% of President Biden’s climate-focused executive orders on day one.

Among the most significant changes would be directing the EPA to review the 2009 greenhouse gas endangerment finding that provides the legal foundation for federal climate regulations. This technical-sounding directive could potentially unravel the legal basis for most federal climate policies.

Additional environmental policy shifts include:

• Staffing cuts at NOAA to reduce climate research capacity
• Elimination of EPA’s environmental justice offices
• Withholding $2.8 billion in FEMA disaster relief funds from states not complying with federal immigration policies
• Narrowing the “Waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) definition to exclude 60% of wetlands and ephemeral streams

This narrowed WOTUS definition aligns with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Sackett v. EPA and would allow expanded development and industrial activity in previously protected areas. Communities like Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” where 25% of U.S. petrochemical production occurs, would likely see reduced environmental protections as a result of these changes.

According to Sidley’s Environmental Energy Brief, these environmental rollbacks are being carefully crafted to withstand legal challenges based on lessons learned from the first Trump administration, where many deregulatory efforts were blocked or delayed in court.

Tax Reforms: TCJA Extensions and New Deductions

The Trump administration’s second-term tax agenda centers around making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) permanent while introducing new deductions and exemptions. The corporate tax rate would remain at 21% with a potential reduction to 15%, while the administration would push to extend individual TCJA provisions including expanded standard deductions.

According to analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, these tax extensions alone would cost approximately $4.6 trillion over ten years. Additional proposed tax changes include:

• Elimination of taxes on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security benefits
• Introduction of an auto loan interest deduction
• Repeal of the $10,000 SALT (state and local tax) deduction cap at a cost of $1.2 trillion
• Estate tax repeal for fortunes over $13.99 million

While these changes would reduce tax burdens for many Americans, Project 2025’s proposed two-bracket system (15%/30%) would raise taxes for households earning between $30,000 and $120,000 by approximately $3,000 annually while cutting taxes for top earners, according to analysis from the American Progress.

The SALT cap repeal is particularly noteworthy as it would primarily benefit high-income taxpayers in states with high local taxes – typically Democratic-leaning states – despite the administration’s otherwise conservative tax philosophy.

Economic Impact and Implementation Challenges

The combined effect of these policy changes would be far-reaching. Immigration restrictions are predicted to exacerbate labor shortages in key industries including agriculture, construction, and healthcare – sectors that have traditionally relied heavily on immigrant workers.

Environmental policy rollbacks would likely accelerate fossil fuel development while potentially increasing pollution in vulnerable communities. The economic impact of reduced climate research and disaster preparedness remains difficult to quantify but could be substantial in the face of increasingly sophisticated climate models predicting more frequent extreme weather events.

Perhaps the most quantifiable impact comes from the proposed tax changes, which analysts project would increase the federal deficit by $5-11 trillion over a decade and potentially raise the debt-to-GDP ratio to 132-149% by 2035, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Many of these initiatives face potential legal challenges, particularly around the extent of executive authority to implement Project 2025 proposals without congressional approval. The administration appears to be preparing for these legal battles by carefully structuring executive actions based on lessons learned from the first term.

Sources

Niskanen Center: Project 2025: Unveiling the Far Right’s Plan to Demolish Immigration
Docketwise: Trump 2025 Immigration Plan
Global Immigration Blog: New Trump 2.0 Travel Ban Expected to Target 40 Countries
Vinson & Elkins: ESG in 2025: What to Expect in Trump 2.0
Sidley: Top 5 Environmental Actions from President Trump’s First Day
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: Trump Tax Priorities Total $5-11 Trillion
American Progress: Project 2025’s Tax Plan Would Raise Taxes on the Middle Class