Immigration Impact

April 17, 2019 – The Trump administration has agreed to reverse course and begin the process of reuniting 2,700 children living in Central America with their parents in the United States. The decision comes as part of a lawsuit that challenged the termination of the Central American Minors (CAM) program. This program allowed parents legally […]

March 21, 2019 – Immigrants with even minor, dated criminal convictions will now be placed in mandatory detention without the possibility of a bond hearing—even if they have already served their time and been previously released. The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Nielsen v. Preap this week. A majority of the Court ruled […]

March 18, 2019 – Many of the country’s top immigration agencies operate in secret. This lack of transparency in how immigration laws are implemented, administered, and enforced has the potential to devastate the lives of millions of immigrants and their families. Fortunately, there is a powerful tool—the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)—that ensures government agencies […]

March 5, 2019 – Nothing is more delicate or worthy of comprehensive care than a newborn. Yet, over the past several weeks, detention watchdogs and public health experts have noticed an alarming uptick in the number of infants—some as young as five months old—being held in prison-like detention facilities run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On-the-ground staff in […]

Feb. 26, 2019 – The Trump administration’s policy of turning back asylum seekers has been devastating, as vulnerable people are repeatedly denied access to the asylum process at ports of entry (POEs) along the U.S.-Mexico border. Now, Members of Congress, states, organizations, and law professors are standing up to the administration by supporting a lawsuit […]

Feb. 21, 2019 – A FOIA request has forced the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to produce its comprehensive plan for reducing the immigration court backlog. Though partially redacted, the aim of the October 2017 “Strategic Caseload Reduction Plan” is clear—to fundamentally alter the immigration court system under the guise of creating efficiencies. EOIR […]

Feb. 13, 2019 – On Monday evening in El Paso, Texas, two very different images of the U.S.-Mexico border emerged. President Trump held a rally to make the case for his border wall again, repeating his usual talking points on the supposed dangers lurking in the region. Just a block away, former Democratic Representative from […]

Feb. 6, 2019 – Speaking before Congress and the nation Tuesday evening, President Trump once again promised bipartisanship and instead delivered division. When it came to immigration, the president neither offered an olive branch nor acknowledged the devastating effects of his administration’s actions to date. Rather than offer solutions to the actual problems facing immigrants […]

Jan. 31 2019 – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) drastically expanded its network of immigration jails in the last month by a startling 7 percent. ICE now holds about 48,000 individuals in its jails and private prisons, even though Congress has only appropriated funds for them to detain 40,500 individuals on any given day. How […]

Jan. 22, 2019 – President Trump went in front of the public on Saturday and claimed he was going to propose a “compromise” to end the ongoing government shutdown. Instead of offering a bipartisan bill that would protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients from deportation, the 1300-page bill […]

Jan. 9, 2019 – As the Trump administration continues to strip away due process in immigration courts, the recent creation of two “Immigration Adjudication Centers” is cause for concern. The two new facilities are called “Centers,” not “courts,” despite being places where judges decide whether to issue orders of deportation. The Centers came out of […]

Dec. 26, 2018 – 2018 proved that the only thing you can predict about the Trump administration’s immigration policy is it’s unpredictable. On Wednesday, two separate court decisions dealt blows to the Trump administration’s efforts to deter asylum seekers. On Thursday, the administration announced an unprecedented new plan to force asylum seekers to remain in […]

Dec. 12, 2018 – On Monday night, the 60–day comment period for the Trump administration’s proposed public charge regulation drew to a close. More than 210,000 comments were submitted, with the majority of publicly available comments opposing the rule. Comments on the proposed regulation, which has the potential to drastically slash legal immigration, will now […]

Nov. 15, 2018 – The Trump administration’s move to deport more people from the United States has come into sharp focus again as it targets some of the most vulnerable immigrants with its Notice to Appear (NTA) policy. The new policy, announced in June 2018, had already dramatically altered the role of U.S. Citizenship and […]

Nov. 5, 2018 – Latino voters are more engaged in the 2018 midterm elections than in years past. Enthusiasm towards voting is higher and Latinos have already contributed to record turnout in some states. Yet this interest and excitement towards voting has the potential to be hampered in some areas facing voter suppression. These difficulties […]

November 2, 2018 – On Monday night, President Trump told reporters that he intended to end birthright citizenship and claimed that he could do so with an executive order. Birthright citizenship comes from the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that “Any person born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the […]