Trump announces his 2024 presidential bid

LEGAL LENS

Trump can’t outrun his legal troubles

Trump faces a mounting series of legal challenges from Florida to New York. Among the fastest moving are the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents, and the investigation by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani T. Willis into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The investigation into the documents found at Mar-a-Lago has moved quietly forward in recent weeks, with federal prosecutors reportedly offering top Trump national security adviser Kash Patel immunity in exchange for his grand jury testimony.

None of these investigations have yet resulted in formal charges against the former president. In May, Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo that reiterated long-standing Justice Department policies that limit prosecutorial activity during election season. “Simply put,” Garland wrote, “partisan politics must play no role in the decisions of federal investigators or prosecutors regarding any investigations or criminal charges.”

Trump has a well-documented history trying to cast himself as a victim of politically motivated “witch hunt” attacks any time he has been under investigation. Experts see that same strategy likely playing a role in the timing of Trump’s announcement of his plans for 2024. He would be able to claim any attempted federal prosecution is coming at the hands of a Justice Department reporting to a likely general election rival, President Joe Biden. However, experts say Trump’s announcement would be unlikely to alter prosecutorial decisions at the state or federal level.

— Steve Reilly

POLICY LENS

Biden’s and Trump’s immigration policies aren’t all that different

Trump kicked off his campaign pushing his strength on immigration. “Hundreds of thousands of pounds of deadly drugs including very lethal fentanyl are flooding across the now open and totally porous southern border,” Trump said.

But despite widespread criticism from Trump and much of the right about today’s “failing” immigration system, on the whole immigration policy under the Biden administration is only incrementally different from five years ago.

Biden inherited the same set of tools as Trump, and though Biden moved away from some Trump-era policies — like the travel ban on people from Muslim-majority countries — he has continued using many of the same approaches to immigration as the last administration.

Biden has continued using the controversial Title 42 policy established by the Trump administration during the pandemic, which allows the U.S. government to expel hundreds of thousands of migrants from the country each year because of coronavirus-related health concerns. Last year, the Biden administration flew thousands of Haitian migrants seeking asylum in the United States back to Haiti. Migrants who are not kicked out of the country have to wait three to five years to receive a hearing that determines whether they can claim asylum, and it can take months before they have the proper paperwork to seek work.

Biden is constrained in what he can do on immigration by federal law and tight funding for agencies like U.S. Customs and Border Protection. He has made some changes to the immigration system, for example stopping a program created by the Trump administration that sent migrants who had crossed the border back to Mexico to await their immigration hearings.

Biden also halted construction of the border wall that was emblematic of Trump’s immigration policy — though he has not stopped it entirely. Recently, the administration decided to close gaps in the wall in high-traffic areas near Yuma, Arizona.

— Maggie Severns