IU Prof on the pace of change in new Trump administrationIU Political Science professor Dr. Vanessa Cruz Nichols joins Daybreak on Inauguration Day INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The first hours of the Trump administration are poised to bring changes at a rapid rate, if the new president gets to work immediately on the promises he issued during the campaign and since his election. Dr. Vanessa Cruz Nichols, a political science professor at Indiana University, joined WISH-TV’s Daybreak for perspective on a pace that could be dizzying. We started the conversation with the return to an uncontested transfer of power in the White House. “That’s huge,” she says. “In the weeks leading up to the inauguration, you can see the two parties — the former President and…the incoming President — working together on important issues like that of the ceasefire in Gaza. And President Biden has talked about being at the Inauguration today, which has now been moved indoors. And that’s a big deal to have a former president hand over the baton; we didn’t see that in 2020.” On the topic of foreign policy, Cruz-Nichols anticipates a smoother path for Trump compared to his first term. “There have been a lot of conversations about how the Allies and world leaders have changed from Trump’s first administration to his now second administration, and they’re doing this embrace of populist leaders. So he won’t receive as much pushback from other global players.” Cruz-Nichols also weighed in on the immigration moves that several major cities are preparing to see. “Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver — they’re all on high alert because they’ve been targeted as cities that will experience a high level of arrests or raids,” Cruz-Nichols told viewers, pointing out that other administrations have used similar methods. “And that has been a really important part of the infrastructure within our immigration system for a long time now, and particularly under President Obama, he was known as ‘Deporter-in-Chief.’ There was a system in place through secure communities to deputize local police and to first target people with high criminal offenses. And then it trickles down, unfortunately, to people with traffic misdemeanors. But yes, there will be a lot of changes, executive actions on closing down the border, on reinstalling the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and declaring a national emergency so as to get some different type of emergency funding at the U.S.-Mexico border.” For more insight from Dr. Vanessa Cruz-Nichols, watch the video above.