Trump’s justifications for the latest travel ban aren’t supported by the data on immigration and terrorism

  The Trump administration, on June 4, announced travel restrictions targeting 19 countries in Africa and Asia, including many of the world’s poorest nations. All travel is banned from 12 of these countries, with partial restrictions on travel from the rest.

  The presidential proclamation, entitled “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” is aimed at “countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from those countries.”

Deporting millions of immigrants would shock the US economy, increasing housing, food and other prices

  One of President Donald Trump’s major promises during the 2024 presidential campaign was to launch mass deportations of immigrants living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

  The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has said that, since January 2025, it is detaining and planning to deport 600 to 1,100 immigrants a day. That marks an increase from the average 282 immigration arrests that happened each day in September 2024 under the Biden administration.

The mask comes off Alabama’s immigration bills

  Pity the poor state lawmaker.

  They work hard on a law to punish Alabamians showing kindness to the vulnerable — normal, everyday stuff in the Alabama Legislature — and inadvertently revive the Fugitive Slave Act.

  Wednesdays, am I right?

  Republican Sen. Wes Kitchens of Arab said he didn’t intend SB 53 to reflect the language of that infamous antebellum law, which authorized kidnapping and threatened fines and imprisonment to those who helped enslaved people flee to freedom.

Who will we thank next year? Those who fought

  Anticipatory obedience, a term we will all be familiar with by Jan. 20, describes how major figures and institutions appease an authoritarian before he takes power.

  It’s hard to maintain a straight posture against threats and coercion, particularly if you think no one else will stand with you.

  So they bow and scrape, hoping it will spare them pain or punishment. They pull punches. They accommodate. They hope to maintain what used to be normal life.

Warped terminology on open borders

  Seeing the large number of immigrants illegally entering the United States, proponents of immigration controls decry what they label the “open border” between the United States and Mexico.

  I live in Virginia. I sometimes enter Maryland by crossing the bridge that spans the Potomac River, which forms part of the border between the two states. There is no border-control station at which Maryland officials require me to stop and be subjected to questions and have my vehicle searched. There are also no border patrol agents patrolling the border to ensure that no one is entering Maryland illegally. 

Immigrants do work that might not otherwise get done – bolstering the US economy

  Although Congress is failing to pass laws to restrict the number of migrants arriving in the U.S., a majority of Americans – about 6 in 10 – believe there’s an immigration crisis along the Mexico-U.S. border. Politicians who want fewer people to move here often cast those arriving without prior authorization as a burden on the economy.

  As an economist who has researched immigration and employment, I’m confident that economic trends and research findings contradict those arguments.

3 myths about immigration in America

  The U.S. is – and long has been – a pluralistic society that contains large immigrant communities.

  Yet migration is an actively debated but poorly understood topic, and much of the conventional thinking and political rhetoric about migration are based on myths rather than facts.

  For these reasons, migration policies and strategies for easing acculturation – which refers to the psychological process of assimilating to a new culture – usually end up being ineffective.

Ron DeSantis and “waste, fraud, and abuse”

  Republicans and conservatives are still celebrating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s immigration antic with respect to his shipping and dumping immigrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. They are convinced that what DeSantis did was a brilliant political move because it supposedly exposed the hypocrisy of rich, elite progressives/liberals/Democrats who say they favor immigrants but then won’t take them into their homes to live.

Immigrants are only 3.5% of people worldwide – and their negative impact is often exaggerated, in the U.S. and around the world

  Ernesto Castañeda is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at American University and the Director of the Immigration Lab. Castañeda explains why immigration is an important force counteracting population decline in the U.S. and why that matters to the economy and America’s global power. Below are highlights from an interview with The Conversation. Answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Why immigration relief matters

  Immigration relief is long overdue for the 10.4 million undocumented immigrants living and working across the United States. Over the past two years, undocumented immigrants have worked through a deadly pandemic to sustain the industries and services that the country relies on. They have risked their safety and the stability of their families as they faced substantial barriers to accessing health care and relief programs as front-line workers. It is therefore critical that the Biden administration and Congress work to create a pathway to citizenship and protections for these and other undocumented immigrants as they work to aid the country’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Humane policies, not harmful propaganda, will improve quality of life for everyone

  Let’s focus on human rights, not hate.

  The national conversation on immigration has suffered in recent months, hijacked by lies and misinformation about families seeking protection on our shores.

  It’s a tired tactic that ignores our moral and legal obligations toward people fleeing danger. We cannot allow those with large platforms to so carelessly mislead the public on policies that directly impact citizens’ and non-citizens’ safety and livelihoods.

Refugees don’t undermine the US economy – they energize it

  The Trump administration announced in September plans to cut the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States to the lowest level in 40 years. This year’s cap of 18,000 admissions is well below the average annual limit of about 95,000 refugees in the years before the Trump administration.

  This drastic cut typifies the Trump administration’s overall anti-immigration stance, reflected in a series of executive orders aimed at reducing undocumented and legal migration channels in the past four years.

After another death, will ICE finally atone for its actions?

  Roylan Hernandez-Diaz, an asylum-seeker from Cuba, was found dead in his cell on Oct. 16 at Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana.

  He had been trapped in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody since May while his immigration case was pending.

  He is now the second person to die in ICE custody during the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1. Last year, eight people died in ICE detention, including a man who hanged himself after being taken off suicide watch. Under President Trump’s watch, 24 people have died.

What we know about DACA recipients in the United States

  Two years ago, the Trump administration announced an end to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), leaving hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants in the dark. Despite President Donald Trump’s promise that he had “great heart” when it came to Dreamers, DACA recipients and their families face an uncertain future. Congress remains unable to enact permanent protections for them, and the U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to hear arguments in November to determine whether the administration’s rescission effort was unlawful.

The Declaration of Independence applies to immigrants

  Now that the Fourth of July celebrations are over, it’s worth asking whether a particular phrase enunciated in the Declaration of Independence is true or false.

  The phrase in question? “The pursuit of happiness.” The Declaration states that the pursuit of happiness is a natural, God-given right, one with which all people are endowed. Not just American citizens. Everyone. Everyone in the world is endowed with the natural, God-given right to pursue happiness.

Five revelations from children in border patrol facilities

  In the past year, at least seven migrant children—Mariee Juárez (age 18 months), Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez (age 2), Jakelin Caal Maquín (age 7), Felipe Alonzo Gómez (age 8), Darlyn Valle (age 10), Juan de León Gutiérrez (age 16), and Carlos Hernández Vásquez (age 16)—have died after being taken into custody by the U.S. Border Patrol.

  As their families confront the grief of losing a child, it is important not to mistake these deaths for isolated tragedies. Recent accounts demonstrate that these events are symptoms of a broader agenda that victimizes families. Detention centers, a visible consequence of this agenda, are not just bad for children; they are deliberately run in cruel, dangerous ways.

Trump’s citizenship question

  The Constitution requires the federal government to conduct a count of all of the people living in the United States every 10 years.

  The census determines each state’s number of federal representatives and the amount of money states and localities receive for infrastructure, health care, social safety nets, and other federal programs. It also influences where district lines are drawn for federal representation.

  The census has undercounted marginalized groups since it began. The Constitution outlines that: “Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned … according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other persons.”

Why won't conservatives take responsibility?

  One of the conservative movement’s favorite mantras is “With freedom comes responsibility.” Given such, a question naturally arises: Why won’t conservatives take responsibility for their actions and beliefs?

  Consider the current brouhaha over the Central American citizens who are trying to enter the United States to seek refugee status. They are fleeing their countries in an attempt to save their lives from violence and tyranny.

President Trump is stoking white nationalism, exploiting racist fear

  In the days since he was implicated as a co-conspirator in a federal crime, the president – with the help of his allies in the right-wing press – has fallen back on his most basic political strategy: stoking racial resentment and fear.

  He has not only shamelessly exploited a horrible tragedy in Iowa but tweeted out his intention to put the full force of the U.S. State Department behind a white nationalist conspiracy theory.

Charles C. Haynes: “Welcoming the stranger” in the Age of Trump

  On Feb. 8, a group of Latino men were leaving an overnight hypothermia shelter at Rising Hope Mission Church in Alexandria, Va., when they were surrounded by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, arrested and taken away in vans.

  The church’s pastor, Kerry Kincannon, worries that ICE is now targeting churches, abandoning long-standing ICE guidelines that treat houses of worship, hospitals and schools as “sensitive areas” to be avoided when rounding up people for deportation.