The Trump administration is seeking to all but eliminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a humanitarian safeguard for U.S.-resident noncitizens whose home countries were too dangerous or unstable for return. While critics say the term "temporary" has been stretched beyond recognition, TPS has become a mainstay. This article examines the history and use of TPS, the debate over its future, and holders of the status.
Birth tourism is at the center of the Trump administration’s legal argument to end the guarantee of birthright citizenship. Estimates suggest the practice is quite rare, and a range of government actions, including enforcement operations on "maternity hotels," has sought to eradicate it. This article examines birth tourism to the United States, offering a look at trends, policy responses, and its role in the legal fight over ending birthright citizenship.
Federal judges have provided significant opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies during its second term. The courts have halted or slowed a number of administration initiatives, including invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out deportations and seeking to end birthright citizenship. This continues a trend of the judicial branch increasingly becoming the policymakers of last resort as presidents turn to executive action in the face of congressional inaction.
The ramp-up of federal immigration enforcement during the second Trump term has prompted sharp responses from state and local governments, with some limiting cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or barring agents' wearing of masks or the establishment of immigrant detention facilities. At the same time, some Republican-led jurisdictions have embraced policies to encourage cooperation with ICE. This article traces the rise of "sanctuary" policies and divergent trends.
U.S. immigration policy, practice, and enforcement changed dramatically over the first year of President Donald Trump's second term, touching most corners of the immigration system. The government has cracked down on unauthorized immigration in the U.S. interior and at the border, expanded scrutiny of immigrants of all legal statuses, and erected barriers for would-be arrivals. This article provides a sweeping overview of the changes that have taken place and assesses their impacts.
E-Verify has been heralded as a key way to control unauthorized immigration to the United States, but federal efforts to expand the system stalled. There has been movement at the state level over the past decade, though, and there are signs it may rise in prominence again. This article details the history and challenges of E-Verify, and its limited uptake.
The number of people in U.S. immigrant detention has grown sharply under President Donald Trump and will likely continue to rise in coming months. The rapid ramp-up has relied on an array of nontraditional facilities as well as private prisons, and has been accompanied by allegations of harsh treatment and rising deaths. This article traces the growth and evolution of the world's largest immigration detention system.
The Trump administration has expanded its use of expedited removal in unprecedented ways, transforming what previously had been a somewhat limited authority into a potent tool to assist with its mass deportations drive. This article traces how the administration has sought to expand the reach of the nearly 30-year-old fast-track power beyond the border.
U.S. immigration enforcement is undergoing a marked transformation, as state and local law enforcement authorities—once largely on the sidelines—have become central partners to the Trump administration. State and local participation is growing in size and scope, including the signing of hundreds of 287(g) deputization agreements, opening of Florida's Alligator Alcatraz, and Texas's multibillion-dollar Operation Lone Star.
The Trump administration has launched an ambitious campaign to encourage “self-deportation” as a complement to its muscular immigration enforcement operations. While a somewhat similar U.S. attempt in 2008 was considered a failure and international "pay-to-go" programs have occurred on a smaller scale than envisioned by Trump officials, the administration is hoping it can now succeed through an unmatched combination of carrots and sticks, as this article details.
In its bid to ramp up deportations, the Trump administration is granting ICE access to a swath of government databases that were previously off limits for immigration enforcement, including sensitive tax and Social Security records. This article details the growing digital arsenal of government and commercial databases that ICE can tap to identify and arrest removable noncitizens, and how this unprecedented data sharing has its roots in the post-9/11 era.
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has issued a flurry of actions that represent the most sweeping immigration policy changes in decades, reshaping enforcement, border security, legal immigration, humanitarian protection, and foreign policy. This article provides an overview of the myriad changes in the first 100 days of the second Trump term and assesses the challenges ahead.
The Trump administration is tapping ancient war-time and national security laws, including the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and 1940 Alien Registration Act, in unprecedented ways for general immigration enforcement. This article examines how the administration is deploying these archaic authorities, previously used for actions including World War II internments and the Cold War-era campaign against communists.
In making immigration enforcement its top priority, the Trump administration has bent a broad swath of the federal government to the mission of arresting, deporting, and barring the entry of noncitizens who lack legal status or have been convicted of crimes. The changes represent an unprecedented retooling and remaking of the vast U.S. deportation machinery, as this article details.
Within hours of his second inauguration, President Donald Trump moved to dramatically reshape U.S. immigration enforcement and policy. The changes set the stage for mass deportations, all but foreclose access to asylum at the border, and seek to create “shock and awe” that will reverberate around the country. This article examines the early-day policies, possible impacts, and likely headwinds.
The Biden administration took significantly more executive actions on immigration than its predecessors, including during Donald Trump's first term, although it has been unable to escape criticism for its response to record irregular arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border. The border overshadowed administration steps to modernize the legal immigration system and rebuild refugee resettlement, as this analysis of Biden's track record explains.
More refugees were resettled in the United States in fiscal year (FY) 2024 than any year since FY 1994, marking a rapid turnaround from record-low refugee resettlement just three years earlier. The system was rebuilt by investing in people and processes, streamlining operations, and being willing to experiment. This article explains the sea change in resettlement admissions and puts it in context.
A quiet political realignment has taken place in the United States. As unauthorized crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border have reached record levels in recent years, Democrats have begun to embrace restrictions at the border that they once reviled, including limits to asylum and expansion of the border wall. This article examines the pivot and how it might affect future U.S. immigration politics and policy.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and other migrants have gone directly from the U.S.-Mexico border to New York, Chicago, Denver, and other interior cities, hastening what had previously been a much more gradual process. As arrivals have slowed, the situation has stabilized, and cities have managed to find a new normal. This article explains how cities coped initially and examines the longer-term challenges that remain.
The Biden administration is on pace to carry out as many deportations as the Trump administration, although an overwhelming number have come in the form of voluntary returns at the border, rather than removals of unauthorized immigrants from the U.S. interior. This shift has echoes of earlier eras and comes as a response to record numbers of unauthorized border arrivals.
The Immigration Act of 1924 shaped the U.S. population over the course of the 20th century, greatly restricting immigration and ensuring that arriving immigrants were mostly from Northern and Western Europe. The century-old law was one of the most restrictive in U.S. history and helped create the framework for key provisions of the U.S. immigration system that remain in place a century later. This article analyzes the effect and legacy of the 1924 law.
Once an obscure section of U.S. law, Title 42 was used to expel unauthorized migrants reaching U.S. borders nearly 3 million times from March 2020 to May 2023. Despite idealized depictions of its impact by some politicians, the order was largely ineffective in deterring irregular migration. Instead, it represented a dramatic break with decades of law providing protection to asylum seekers, as this article details.
The U.S. immigration enforcement system increasingly depends on other countries to help halt irregular movements through the Americas and accept the return of unauthorized migrants. Foreign governments play a crucial and yet underappreciated role in migration management, and can either aid or frustrate U.S. border-control aims, as this article explores.
Rising tensions between Texas and the federal government have sparked fears of a constitutional crisis after the state deployed its National Guard to prevent the U.S. Border Patrol from conducting operations in a city park in Eagle Pass, with Texas Governor Greg Abbott saying the “invasion” of migrants triggered the need for action. This article provides an overview of the standoff and the larger context of current and past state-federal tensions over immigration enforcement.
In three years, President Joe Biden has surpassed the number of immigration-focused executive actions taken by the Trump administration throughout its entire four-year term, making his the most active U.S. presidency ever on immigration. Yet the Biden administration has been repeatedly accused of inaction at the U.S.-Mexico border, where record levels of migrant encounters have occurred. This article reviews the Biden track record on immigration.
