Biden policies spurred Trump's 'quick and drastic' moves to bolster border security, expert says

"What Biden did, I'd say, is the primary cause of the open borders and the millions he led in, including the bad actors who came along with them," Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital. "It requires quick and drastic steps to stop the flow and find those people and get them out of the country."

According to Ries, many of Trump's early actions on immigration were aimed at returning to the policies of his first administration. Others, Ries said, were a direct reaction to policies implemented during the previous administration.

"Ending mass parole, ending the CBP mobile one application," Ries used as an example, two policies implemented under Biden that Trump quickly ended upon reentering the White House.

Ries also noted that Trump took the step of requiring all aliens to register, something allowed under current immigration statutes that will likely help with enforcement.

Ries also mentioned that Trump could still work to clear the backlog of immigration cases at the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, where over 13 million combined cases are pending.

"Getting those down to a manageable level year after year, and I had proposed in a report I put out in December that if the backlog gets too high, pausing intake of applications until the backlog gets down to a manageable level."

But Ries also noted there are limitations to what Trump can do through executive action, arguing that Congress will need to "step in" on some issues.