Immigration News Resources

Proposals to change the U.S. immigration system have received renewed attention under the Trump administration. Read key details about U.S. immigration programs.

The post Key facts about U.S. immigration policies and proposed changes appeared first on Pew Research Center.

President Trump announced his new plan for overhauling the legal immigration system on Thursday. The plan is short on details, but it rests on principles that the Trump administration has touted before. Specifically, the proposal emphasizes the desire to radically curtail family-based immigration while prioritizing certain attributes that are viewed as an expression of “merit.” […]

The post White House’s Misguided Immigration Reform Plan Is Set for Failure appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Amid growing calls for reforming the immigration court system, last week the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) sparked criticism when it put out a document “Myths vs. Facts About Immigration Proceedings.” The document, which claimed to bust 18 different “myths,” seemed intended to assuage concerns about the agency. Instead, it was met with widespread […]

The post Immigration Judges and Advocates Criticize Immigration Court System for ‘Propaganda’ appeared first on Immigration Impact.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is resuming its controversial “Remain in Mexico” policy. This policy requires asylum-seeking Central American migrants who arrive at our Southern border to return to Mexico to await their immigration court hearings in the United States. A federal judge in California had previously blocked the policy’s implementation until the court […]

The post Federal Court Allows Controversial ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy to Continue appeared first on Immigration Impact.

AILA Senior Counsel of Pro Bono Program Jocelyn Dyer highlights recent wins for transgender asylum seekers detained in Pearsall as part of the Immigration Justice Campaign and urges readers to get involved to help more detained immigrants get a fair day in court.

There are two pervasive trends taking hold in America today. One is deepening polarization and seemingly insurmountable political and cultural divides. And thanks to the rise in social media and the decline in membership in civic and faith groups, we are also becoming a nation of lonely-loners. Our country is plagued by too much individualism […]

The post Working Together Towards Shared Goals Can Help Heal America’s Deepest Divides appeared first on Immigration Impact.

More immigrants facing deportation are requesting “voluntary departure” from the United States instead of fighting their cases in court. Voluntary departure is a process though which certain immigrants who the government is trying to deport in immigration court leave the United States without receiving a removal order. The number of applications for voluntary departure in […]

The post More Immigrants Requesting to Return to Their Countries of Origin Under Threat of Deportation appeared first on Immigration Impact.

In this blog post, AILA Media Advocacy Committee Member Fiona McEntee reflects on NDA 2019 and the successful effort to have Congress hold USCIS accountable for crisis-level processing delays.

The Florida legislature recently passed SB 168 with the stated intent of ensuring that state officials and agencies fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities in enforcing immigration law. SB 168 could have far-reaching consequences in a state where one in five residents is an immigrant. SB 168 would prohibit any state/local entity or law enforcement […]

The post How Florida’s SB 168 Will Benefit the Private Prison Industry appeared first on Immigration Impact.

New York Magazine, this week, tells the story of a Trump-Loving Town and its Favorite Undocumented Immigrant. The story features Alex Garcia, a native of Honduras, who has built deep personal relationships with his working class, Trump-supporting neighbors who are now organizing to prevent his deportation. Alex moved to Poplar Bluff, Missouri (population 17,000) in […]

The post Trump-Supporting Missouri Town Mounts Campaign to Protect One of Its Own from Deportation appeared first on Immigration Impact.

  May 8, 2019 Undocumented immigrants have long faced barriers in accessing mortgages and government housing assistance due to their legal status.

AILA member John Manley explains why the citizenship of the new British royal baby is even a question, and highlights some of the complexities of U.S. immigration law.

Each new generation of immigrants to the United States has, in time, achieved a high degree of integration into U.S. society. Whether it was immigrants from southern and eastern Europe a century ago, or immigrants from Asia and Latin America today, newcomers eventually master English, settle into U.S. communities and workplaces, and contribute to the […]

The post How Has Immigration Changed in the Last 100 Years? appeared first on Immigration Impact.

AILA Executive Director Ben Johnson details recent misinformation from the president about the border, immigrants, and asylum seekers, and notes, “Sadly, the Trump administration’s border enforcement strategy remains largely unchanged even as the nature of the challenge has changed dramatically.”

May 7, 2019 On April 19, 2019, the New York Times reported that United Constitutional Patriots (UCP), a right-wing militia group, was detaining immigrants at the New Mexico-Mexico border.

A federal district court recently prevented U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from imposing a new policy that radically changed how the agency determines when a foreign student or exchange visitor is “unlawfully present” in the United States. “Unlawful presence” is a legal term used to describe any time spent in the United States after […]

The post Federal Court Stops USCIS Policy Harmful to Students and Exchange Visitors appeared first on Immigration Impact.

In a move designed to ratchet up pressure on Congress, last week the White House sent an emergency budget request to Congress asking for $4.5 billion of funding to deal with increased numbers of families arriving at the border. The money includes a request for funds that would permit Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to […]

The post White House Demands Additional $4.5 Billion for Border appeared first on Immigration Impact.

AILA Senior Legal Editor Rizwan Hassan highlights a visual artist and community educator, Michelle Angela Ortiz, who has brought attention to families detained in Berks, PA, writing "we must use whatever skills and talents we have at our disposal to battle the injustices we see."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has dramatically increased enforcement actions in and around state and local courthouses since 2017. As part of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda, ICE began using courthouses to conduct frequent civil immigration arrests. In practice, this means ICE agents—often unidentified and in plainclothes—have a greater presence in civil and […]

The post Local Officials in Massachusetts, New York Challenge ICE Courthouse Arrests appeared first on Immigration Impact.

Many South Africans are dissatisfied with the state of their democracy. Confidence in some civic institutions declined from 1990 to 2013.

The post In South Africa, racial divisions and pessimism about democracy loom over elections appeared first on Pew Research Center.