President Trump, who campaigned to become a law-and-order president, took steps Wednesday to side with a majority of Americans who told pollsters before the election that they favored increased deportations of unauthorized immigrants.

While issuing a pair of executive orders and foreshadowing more to come, the president said the government controls its borders, will build a wall, will deport undocumented migrants, and will “protect the lives of the American people.”

During an event at the Department of Homeland Security, Trump said his administration would vigorously enforce existing laws to reverse the Obama administration’s immigration policies and to build a wall at the southern U.S. border with Mexico, while deporting unauthorized immigrants living in the United States.

The president did not mention the so-called DREAMers – those people living in the United States who were illegally brought into the country as children. His spokesman said Trump’s executive orders did not address the beneficiaries of President Obama’s enforcement waiver program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Obama’s 2012 program, protecting from deportation an estimated 800,000 undocumented people who grew up in the United States, remains in limbo.

Voters and the courts are more sympathetic to the plight of undocumented adults who are American in every way except for the paperwork that would allow them to remain in the United States while working and adhering to a pathway to citizenship or legal status.

Trump did not mention Congress or any future immigration legislation during his remarks. In the DHS audience, Trump turned – as he did during his campaign – to “angel moms,” mothers of Americans he said were killed by migrants who entered the United State illegally.

“There is no place for politics” when it comes to issues of “public safety,” the president added, speaking from a prepared speech and reading from teleprompters.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who met privately with Trump this week, reacted in a brief statement: “This is about keeping Americans safe. We are committed to working with the administration to stop the influx of illegal immigration along the southern border, protect our homeland, and uphold the rule of law. I applaud President Trump for keeping his promise to make this a national priority."

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus condemned Trump’s instructions to the executive branch as offensive to Latinos everywhere, and a political nod to the president’s predominantly white, conservative base.

“Trump’s executive actions are more about sending a signal to his voters that the new president will act on fears of Muslims and Latinos rather than put forward actual, thoughtful security policy,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., told reporters.

Trump’s actions, which cheered many who voted for him in November, remain a concern for others, including some Republicans, who worry that enforcement alone without a legislative overhaul of the immigration system could alienate younger voters, rebuke the rising percentage America’s non-Caucasian population, and discriminate against refugees and those seeking visas based on their religion or nationality – or on vague suspicions about potential terrorism.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, commissioned a report following the 2012 presidential election in which the recommendations included a more welcoming stance toward Hispanics and people of color if Republicans sought to be a national party.

“We must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform,” the report said. “If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only. We also believe that comprehensive immigration reform is consistent with Republican economic policies that promote job growth and opportunity for all.”

Four years later, now serving Trump in the West Wing, Priebus and other Trump advisers pushed immigration reform with Congress into the future and emphasized the president’s unilateral powers to instruct the federal government, and through Washington’s purse strings, states and cities, to enforce existing laws.

“People are surprised to hear that we do not need new laws. We will work within the existing system and framework,” Trump said. “We are going to restore the rule of law in the United States.”

Voto Latino, a pro-immigration group representing the interests of Latino millennials in the United States, called Trump’s actions “extreme.”

“Adding Border Patrol agents, building an ineffective wall, ending sanctuary cities, and upping immigration enforcement will only create deportation chaos that terrorizes American communities,” said Voto Latino President and CEO Maria Teresa Kumar in a statement.

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) said the administration’s wall represents “a message of mistrust and hostility,” noting that Mexican immigration to the United States is currently “at net zero.”

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the president plans more executive actions this week. The Associated Press reported that a draft executive order it obtained indicated Trump could suspend for 30 days the issuance of visas to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, and halt the acceptance of Syrian refugees for 120 days. The president, concerned about potential lone wolf terrorist attacks in the homeland, said during the campaign that he would create an immigration and refugee-acceptance program that included “extreme vetting.”

Anticipating such executive action, Muslim Advocates Executive Director Farhana Khera said the restrictions on Muslims would exacerbate “the most bigoted stereotypes of Muslims and Islam perpetuated by anti-Muslim hate groups.”

Trump, who will meet with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Tuesday, defended his campaign promise to build a wall along the border with the United States’ southern neighbor.

“I believe the steps we will take starting right now will improve the safety in both of our countries,” Trump said. “Going to be very, very good for Mexico. A nation without borders is not a nation.”

The president said his immigration policies plus the wall, and what he called “economic cooperation,” would improve U.S.-Mexico relations. “I think our relationship with Mexico is going to get better,” he said.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox challenged the administration’s actions via Twitter: “Sean Spicer, I’ve said this to @realDonaldTrump and now I’ll tell you: Mexico is not going to pay for that f***ing wall.”

The president said the resources to construct the wall initially will be reprogrammed from existing appropriations, but he ordered a 180-day study to determine what is required. Independent estimates have placed the price tag to build a wall along the common 2,000-mile border at $15 billion to $20 billion. Trump’s spokesman said Mexico will pay for the structure “one way or another.”

The president’s actions go beyond public safety and also rely on his administration’s interpretations of national security, permitting him, for instance, to sidestep his executive order issued separately this week, which froze federal hiring and salaries in all departments other than the Pentagon. On Wednesday, Trump ordered the DHS to hire up to 10,000 additional immigration officers and 5,000 border patrol agents. His order to freeze federal hiring included an exemption for “any positions … necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities.”

The president titled his two immigration executive actions “border security and immigration enforcement improvements,” and “enhancing public safety in the interior of the United States.”