Worries about the effects of immigration are prevalent in politics across Europe and the U.S. In the U.K., for instance, concerns over immigration dominate much of the Brexit debate. For many, immigrants are seen as a source of competition for jobs and access to public services (irrespective of whether this is true or not). Peter Howley writes in The Conversation that despite the intuitive appeal of this argument, empirical evidence to support it is lacking. The explanation for the negative perception of immigration is rather found in subjective well-being, and the effects of immigration on subjective well-being were found to be more negative and more notable in certain subgroups. These groups include relatively older people (those over 60), those with low household incomes, and/or the unemployed. “The main concern with these findings is that if – despite positive economic benefits– immigration is associated with adverse effects on the subjective well-being of certain groups in society, then this makes the challenge of integration more difficult,” Howley writes.

Migrant children who were separated from their parents by U.S. agents at the U.S.-Mexican border last year suffered significant distress, feelings of abandonment and other serious mental health issues, the inspector general’s office at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a disturbing report released Wednesday.

Media outlets reported this week that an international student at Harvard University was deported back to Lebanon after border agents in Boston searched his electronic devices and confronted him about his friends’ social media posts. EFF argues that these allegations raise serious concerns about whether the government is following its own policies regarding border searches of electronic devices, and the constitutionality of these searches and of social media surveillance by the government.

The United States is not the only country using deportation to deal with a large number of undocumented illegal immigrants. A new book details nearly twenty years of similar deportation campaigns against undocumented migrant communities by another nation — Israel.

Last year, Stephanie Leutert traveled to the Guatemalan highlands to visit the towns that were sending the most people per capita to the United States. She was curious about why Guatemalans were leaving their communities and what factors contributed to these decisions. In each town, she never found a single answer but, rather, various overlapping reasons that included a changing climate, low wages, few opportunities for employment, a desire for family reunification, distrust in political leaders and a lack of safety, among others. Yet there was one unexpected theme that she kept hearing about in the highlands: a changing coffee sector and low international coffee prices.

Negative Population Growth (NPG), a non-profit organization advocating a gradual reduction in the U.S.(and the world’s) population, has released a research paper that examines the current asylum crisis by taking a look back at U.S. policies and where the nation stands now. The report states: “Our border is out of control, and asylum abuse is the reason. Due to a huge number of bogus asylum claims, a process designed to provide refuge to the oppressed has become an enabler for out-of-control illegal immigration… Asylum was designed to protect individuals fleeing persecution, not those fleeing poverty. Until this distinction is firmly entrenched in legal practice, our national sovereignty will be at risk.”

A federal appeals court’s on Friday allowed the Trump administration partially to begin and reject asylum seekers at some parts of the U.S. The administration’s rule would reject asylum of migrants who passed through a third country but failed to apply for asylum in that country. The rule does not apply to Mexican seekers of asylum. The ruling from the ninth U.S. circuit court of appeals limited a lower court’s order against Donald Trump’s policy to California and Arizona. Under the ruling, U.S. district judge Jon Tigar’s 24 July 2019 order will not apply to New Mexico or Texas. The new rule would deny asylum to those migrants who have traveled through a country considered by the United States to be “safe,” and where the migrant should have, therefore, applied for asylum before continuing the journey to the United States.

Foreign-born Ph.D. graduates with science and engineering degrees from American universities apply to and receive offers for technology startup jobs at the same rate as U.S. citizens, but are only half as likely to actually work at fledgling companies, a study finds.

All over the world, immigration has become a source of social and political conflict. But what are the roots of antipathy toward immigrants, and how might conflict between immigrant and native populations be dampened? New research finds that religion may matter more than ethnicity in how immigrants are treated, even if they comply with local social norms.