In just 130 days in office, President Trump has laid waste to much of the US’ and the worlds’ humanitarian arrangements and infrastructure.

He has effectively pulled up America’s welcome mat for the first time since the Statue of Liberty was raised in New York harbour as a beacon to the world’s “homeless, tempest-tossed huddled masses” seeking safety and opportunity.

Just after being sworn in, Trump signed an executive order ending the US refugee resettlement, which threw US visa-holding refugees waiting at foreign airports into limbo.

He also suspended the US’s asylum arrangements, causing chaos amongst asylum seekers who faced danger in their home countries.

Both programs were highly regarded around the world and part of the US’s soft diplomacy efforts.

Both moves are being challenged in court actions.

Trump has unleashed an army of federal agents to track down and summarily deport any foreign-looking US residents.

While most Americans support the removal of dangerous foreigners, so long as they receive a fair hearing, the move has seen law-abiding farm, construction and home care workers who are long-time residents tossed out of the country.

Trump has announced that Temporary protected Status will be revoked for more than 500,000 Cubans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans and Haitians

This means they will no longer be able to legally work in the US and could be deported. For years, foreigners have had access to legal admission in the US with Temporary Protected Status when their home countries have suffered natural disaster or political upheaval.

Most alarmingly, Trump announced the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for about 12,000 Afghans in the US – who are arguably the victims of a 20-year war started by US itself.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made the ridiculous claim that Afghanistan has “an improved security situation, and its stabilising economy no longer prevents them from returning to their home country”.

Trump has started to operationalise a plan to fine migrants who fail to leave the U.S. after a final deportation order, issuing notices to 4,500 migrants with penalties totalling more than $500 million.

It’s unclear how the Trump administration will collect the fines or seize property in lieu of them.

As many as four million legal migrants, most of them Hispanic, are under threat of deportation by the administration which is challenging the legality of their status.

In enacting its draconian immigration agenda, the Trump administration has been accused of human rights violations.

The NGO Human Rights (HRW) Watch says the administration unlawfully transferred Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to his home country, deported other immigrants to El Salvador under circumstances that amount to enforced disappearances and removed asylum seekers with various nationalities to Panama and Costa Rica in violation of international law.

The administration has also attacked rights to freedom of speech and assembly, HRW says, including by arbitrarily detaining and seeking to deport non-citizens because of their activism related to Palestine.

Trump has also targeted so-called “sanctuary cities” that have declined to co-operate with federal efforts to arrest undocumented immigrants.

Trump issued an order calling for the attorney general and secretary of homeland security to publish a list of cities and states failing to comply with federal immigration laws, warning that those who don’t comply could lose federal funding.

Trump has also unveiled a plan to charge asylum application fees for the first time in US history.

The plan would see fees implemented for work permits for a slew of applicants, including asylum-seekers with pending cases, parolees, immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, immigrants with deferred enforced departure, and any applicants looking to extend or renew their employment authorization status.

Venezuelans are particularly at risk from Trump’s policies.

Deportation for many Venezuelans, in many cases, will mean being sent back to a country ruled by a brutal dictatorship, or to detention in Salvadoran prisons.

Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans was originally granted during the Biden years because of the dire circumstances they were fleeing.

But Trump has adopted a hardline stance and hundreds of Venezuelans have been deported in recent months, many without due process.

Human rights advocates say most have no criminal records, no ties to gangs, and no realistic pathway to safety.

“Deportation, for many, is a sentence to further trauma, persecution, or even death,” said Human Rights Watch.

Despite all of Trump’s efforts to prevent refugees, asylees and other immigrants from reaching America’s protective shores, Trump has bypassed all of the time-tested vetting procedures to grant unfettered entry to nearly 60 white South Africans.

The decision was reportedly made without the months of vetting that most refugees are subject to.

Trump claimed these Afrikaners were fleeing a genocide in their country, but there is no evidence for this.

The new US administration has also wrought havoc globally.

The US has ended almost all USAID programs, which, at $US60 billion a year, accounted for about 30 per cent of all humanitarian funding across the world.

Humanitarian organisations around the world have been scrambling to find solutions and alternative funding since President Trump took office in January, pushing an anti-refugee and anti-migrant agenda and immediately freezing almost all US foreign aid funding.

Estimates by NGOs, UN agencies and former USAID officials say this act alone, which affects 10,000 individual programs, could lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, including untold numbers of children.