By: Anjali Narayanan

Published: March 13, 2026

In July 2023, the Heritage Foundation released a near 900-page blueprint, commonly known as “Project 2025,” outlining a comprehensive plan to restructure the federal executive branch.[1] Project 2025 calls for structural, statutory, and constitutional transformations across nearly every area of federal policy.[2] Presented as a governing agenda for the next conservative administration, this document drew criticism from multiple social groups.[3] Nowhere is this agenda more far-reaching than in immigration law. The Project 2025 blueprint demands the consolidation of agencies, the expansion of executive authority, and the overhaul of existing asylum frameworks.[4] Humanitarian protections like “temporary protected status” (TPS), protection visas, and birthright citizenship are now on the chopping block.[5] The immigration chapter of Project 2025, authored by former Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli, proposes reclassifying U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) employees as national-security personnel, ending the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) grant programs, and “removing all unions in the [DHS] for national security purposes.”[6]

Project 2025 exposes the ongoing legal conundrums regarding executive authority, statutory protections for immigrants, and the constitutional parameters of citizenship. This can be examined in two principal areas: (1) TPS revocation, using the 2023 termination of Venezuela’s TPS designation as a case study, and (2) the failed attempt to challenge birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment. Collectively, these initiatives illustrate the overreach of executive power and the undermining of statutory obligations and judicial oversight with regard to U.S. immigration law under the current presidential administration.

Temporary Protected Status

Project 2025 states, “USCIS should make it clear that where no court jurisdiction exists, it will not honor court decisions that seek to undermine regulatory and subregulatory [sic] efforts.”[7] In the same breath, the agenda disregards humanitarian protections by outlining the plan to eliminate TPS.[8] The TPS program allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to grant (1) temporary protection from removal and (2) work authorization to nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions.[9] These designations are reviewed periodically and are subsequentially extended or terminated based on specific country conditions.[10]

In 2021, Alejandro Mayorkas, then Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), designated Venezuela for Temporary Protected Statute (TPS) and later redesignated it in 2023, extending the program through October 2026 and ensuring continued protection for Venezuelan nationals living in the United States.[11] Shortly after taking office, however, current DHS Secretary Kristi Noem vacated Mayorkas’ 2023 extension, citing statutory ambiguity and the “consolidation of overlapping designations.[12] This reversal is unprecedented in TPS history.[13] In February 2025, Noem formally terminated the 2023 designation, arguing that continued protection was “contrary to the national interest,” citing vague security, migration, and economic concerns.[14]

This prompted immediate litigation. In NTPSA v. Noem, Judge Edward Chen of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California issued a temporary injunction blocking the TPS termination, describing the Secretary’s actions as “unprecedented” and “predicated on negative stereotypes” about Venezuelan migrants.[15] He found that ending TPS would cause irreparable harm to hundreds of thousands of status holders, disrupt families and communities, and impose significant economic costs; meanwhile,  the government identified no countervailing harm.[16] The Ninth Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling.[17] However, on October 3, 2025, the Supreme Court issued a brief, unsigned order staying Judge Chen’s decision, allowing the administration to proceed with the TPS termination.[18] Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson criticized the Court’s use of its emergency docket, arguing that such intervention was unwarranted absent a clear governmental necessity.[19]

The Venezuela TPS litigation illustrates how executive power and judicial deference can recalibrate constitutional and statutory boundaries in immigration law. The Supreme Court’s reliance on its emergency docket to reinstate executive actions—despite lower court findings of statutory violations—signals a procedural shift that prioritizes executive discretion over ordinary judicial review.[20] Justice Jackson’s critique that such intervention “misuses the emergency docket” underscores growing concern that expedited review is eroding the judiciary’s checking function.[21] Here, Kristi Noem effectively asserted unilateral discretion over protections established by Congress through the Immigration Act of 1990—protections the lower courts tried to uphold. Viewed in the context of Project 2025, these developments raise broader questions about separation of powers by demonstrating how the executive branch can test the limits of statutory authority while the courts struggle or refuse to enforce legal constraints.

Birthright Citizenship

Since January 2025, the executive branch has implemented several Project 2025 immigration proposals through executive orders (“E.O.”). E.O. 14159, Protecting the American People Against Invasion, directs DHS to prioritize enforcement of immigration laws, expand detention, coordinate with state and local authorities, and restrict federal benefits for unauthorized immigrants.[22] Other E.O.s expand military support for border enforcement, target “sanctuary jurisdictions,” suspend refugee admissions, and impose visa sanctions on non-cooperating countries.[23] These actions align with Project 2025 intentions and verbiage verbatim.[24]

The most brash effort came on February 20, 2025 with E.O. 14160, Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship.[25] This order denies birthright citizenship to children born in the U.S. if both parents are undocumented, or if one parent is unlawfully present and the other is neither a citizen nor permanent resident.[26] This E.O. directly implements Project 2025’s citizenship proposal, which turns away from family-based immigration practices which excludes children of noncitizens.[27]

This interpretation conflicts with over a century of case precedent. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Supreme Court held that a child born in the U.S. to foreign parents “permanently domiciled” here is a U.S. citizen by birth, grounded in jus soli, or “right of the soil,” which grants citizenship to a person born within the territory of a state.[28] Similarly, Plyler v. Doe held that undocumented immigrants are “within the jurisdiction” of the United States.[29] No prior administration has attempted to alter this birthright citizenship guarantee through unilateral executive action.[30] Many judges enjoined the executive order, often citing conflicts with the Fourteenth Amendment.[31] The petitions for certiorari follow in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June 27, 2025, decision restricting the use of nationwide injunctions, which had previously barred the Trump administration from enforcing its order ending birthright citizenship.[32] If granted, the Supreme Court would likely hear arguments in 2026.[33]

The citizenship order illustrates how Project 2025’s legal theories are operationalized through executive action, seeking to redefine fundamental rights by reinterpretation rather than legislative or judicial amendment. These unilateral orders strain not only the judiciary’s willingness to intervene, but also the durability of constitutional guarantees that have defined U.S. citizenship for over a century.

Conclusion

Project 2025 signals a dramatic shift in the federal government’s approach to immigration, using executive action to implement policies that would reshape protections for immigrants and redefine fundamental rights. The TPS litigation highlights the tension between broad executive discretion and statutory and humanitarian limits, while proposed restrictions on birthright citizenship raise constitutional questions. For legal observers and those entering the immigration field, the key question is whether these actions will recalibrate the balance between the executive, Congress, and the judiciary—or whether courts will uphold longstanding statutory and constitutional protections. For hundreds of thousands of affected immigrants, the stakes are immediate: work authorization, protection from deportation, and the ability to build stable lives in the United States hang in the balance.

 

 

[1] Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, Heritage Foundation

(Paul Dans and Steven Groves, eds., 2023) [hereinafter Project 2025 blueprint], https://static.heritage.org/project2025/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf.

[2] See Spencer Chretien, Project 2025, Heritage Foundation (Jan. 31, 2013), https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/project-2025 (describing the four pillars of Project 2025: (1) outlining a vision of conservative success at each federal agency, (2) launching an online personnel database that would allow conservatives to “place themselves in contention for roles in the next administration,” (3) establishing a Presidential Administration Academy to “turn future conservative political appointees into experts in governmental effectiveness,” and (4) creating the “Playbook,” which will contain implementation plans for all the policy ideas expressed in Project 2025).

[3] See, e.g., Project 2025, Explained, ACLU (2025), https://www.aclu.org/project-2025-explained; The People’s Guide to Project 2025, Democracy Forward (2025), https://democracyforward.org/the-peoples-guide-to-project-2025/; Jesselyn McCurdy, Project 2025: What’s At Stake for Civil Rights, The Leadership Conf. on Civ. and Hum. Rts. (2025), https://civilrights.org/project2025/; and Michael Sozan & Ben Olinsky, Project 2025 Would Destroy the U.S. System of Checks and Balances and Create an Imperial Presidency,  Ctr. for Am. Progress, (Oct. 1, 2024), https://www.americanprogress.org/article/project-2025-would-destroy-the-u-s-system-of-checks-and-balances-and-create-an-imperial-presidency/.

[4] See Project 2025 blueprint, supra note 1 at 133 (proposing merging Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, US Customs and Immigration Services, the Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the Department of Justice’s Executive Office for Immigration Review and Office of Immigration Litigation into a standalone, Cabinet-level border and immigration agency with over 100,000 employees, making it the third-largest federal department by staff).

[5] See id. at 141-45 (quoting “USCIS resources have been misappropriated to focus more on creating and expanding large-scale parole and temporary status programs that violate the law and are otherwise contrary to congressional intent instead of focusing on a more secure and efficient process for those who are seeking benefits. The ever-increasing number of applications filed has made it difficult to vet applications adequately for eligibility, fraud, and specific national security and public safety problems.”); see also Barbara v. Trump, No. 25-cv-244 (D.N.H. June 10, 2025) (cert granted, No. 25-365) (challenging Trump’s E.O. 14160 as violative of the birthright citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment).

[6] Id. at 147.

[7] Id. at 146.

[8] See id. at 145 (recommending that Congress repeal TPS designations to “narrow statutory eligibility to work in the United States and mitigate unfair employment competition for U.S. citizens).

[9] 8 U.S.C. § 1254(a).

[10] 8 U.S.C. § 1254(b)(3)(B).

[11] See USCIS, Extension of the 2023 Designation of Venezuela for Temporary Protective Status, 90 FR 5961 (Jan.17, 2025).

[12] Amy Howe, Supreme Court allows Trump to remove protected status from Venezuelan nationals, SCOTUSblog (Oct. 3, 2025, 18:45 ET), https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/10/supreme-court-allows-trump-to-remove-protected-status-from-venezuelan-nationals/

[13] See Nat’l TPS All. v. Noem, 773 F.Supp.3d 807, 819 (N.D. Cal. 2025) (quoting “This is the first time – in TPS’s thirty-five-year history – that an extension of a TPS designation has ever been vacated.”).

[14] Id.

[15] See Howe, supra note 12 (discussing how Judge Edward Chen of the district court temporarily prohibited Noem from ending the TPS designation and its extension).

[16] See Nat’l TPS All. V. Noem, 773 F.Supp.3d at 815.

[17] See Nat’l TPS All. v. Noem, 150 F.4th 1000, 1029 (9th Cir. 2025) (holding that that it had jurisdiction to review the Secretary’s termination of Venezuelan TPS under the APA, that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that the Secretary exceeded her statutory authority, and that the district court properly granted a nationwide postponement to prevent irreparable harm consistent with the TPS statute’s purpose of providing stability and protection to beneficiaries.).

[18] See Howe, supra note 12 (noting that there is no official opinion from the Supreme Court drafted at the time of this blog).

[19] Id.

[20] Andrew Chung, U.S. Supreme Court Lets Trump Strip Temporary Status from Venezuelan Migrants, Reuters (Oct. 3, 2025 at 18:39 ET), https://www.reuters.com/world/us-supreme-court-lets-trump-strip-temporary-status-venezuelan-migrants-2025-10-03/.

[21] Id.

[22] Protecting the American People Against Invasion, Exec. Order No. 14159, 90. F.R. 8443 (Jan. 20, 2025) https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/29/2025-02006/protecting-the-american-people-against-invasion.

[23] See, e.g., Securing Our Borders; Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border, Exec. Order No. 14165, 90 F.R. 8467 (2025); Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats, Exec. Order No. 14161, 90 F.R. 8451 (2025); Protecting the American People Against Invasion, Exec. Order No. 14159, 90 F.R. 8443 (2025); Realigning the United States Refugee Admission Program,  Exec. Order No. 14163, 90  F.R. 8459 (2025); and Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens, Exec. Order No. 14287, 90 F.R. 18761  (2025) (defining “sanctuary jurisdictions” as states and local jurisdictions that “obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws” and saying that they would be subject to consequences).

[24] Liset Cruz et.al., 37 Ways Project 2025 Has Shown Up in Trump’s Executive Orders, Politico, (Feb. 5, 2025 at 5:00 ET), https://www.politico.com/interactives/2025/trump-executive-orders-project-2025/.

[25] Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship, Exec. Order No. 14160, 90 F.R. 8449 (Jan. 20, 2025).

[26] Id.

[27] Priscilla Alvarez and Tierney Sneed, Inside the Trump team’s plans to try to end birthright citizenship, CNN (December 22, 2024), https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22/politics/birthright-citizenship-trumps-plan-end.

[28] United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649, 687 (1898).

[29] Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210 (1982).

[30] Nina Totenburg, A once-fringe theory on birthright citizenship comes to the Supreme Court, NPR (May 15, 2025), https://www.npr.org/2025/05/15/nx-s1-5395840/birthright-citizenship-supreme-court.

[31]See, e.g., Trump v. Casa Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025) (noting that the courts had each imposed nationwide injunctions halting the implementation of the Trump administration’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship).

[32] Amy Howe, Supreme Court sides with Trump Administration on Nationwide Injunctions in Birthright Citizenship, SCOTUSblog, (Jun. 27, 2025), https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/06/supreme-court-sides-with-trump-administration-on-nationwide-injunctions-in-birthright-citizenship-case/.

[33] Amy Howe, Trump urges Supreme Court to decide whether to end birthright citizenship, SCOTUSblog (Sep. 26, 2025), https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/trump-urges-supreme-court-to-decide-whether-to-end-birthright-citizenship/.