• How can the federal government reunify kids with deported parents? First step: Find them.

    Some 400 parents were sent back to their native countries without their children. As an official with the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency put it, “we don’t keep track of individuals once they’ve been deported to foreign countries.”

  • Immigrant infants too young to talk called into court to defend themselves

    The Trump administration has summoned at least seventy infants to immigration court for their own deportation proceedings since 1 October 2017, according to Justice Department data. These are children who are unable to speak and still learning when it’s day versus night. The number of infants under age 1 involved has been rising — up threefold from 24 infants in the fiscal year that ended last 30 September, and 46 infants the year before.

  • An immigrant workforce leads to innovation: Study

    New federal restrictions on the temporary H-1B visa, which allows high-skilled foreign workers to be employed by U.S. companies, have increased debate on the economic impacts of the program, but little is known about its effect on product innovation—until now. New research shows that hiring high-skilled workers from abroad may have a meaningful impact on the birth of new products and phasing out of older ones, with implications on both firm profits and consumer welfare.

  • Private prison companies are influencing immigration policy

    Groundbreaking study finds increased support for punitive immigration legislation in districts with privately owned or managed ICE detention facilities. Researchers explain that in recent years, as overall crime rates have dropped nationwide, more and more private prison companies have turned to a new money-making scheme: Partnering with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to detain immigrants in facilities across the country. The researchers also ask: As the scope of private imprisonment grows, is the industry’s influence on politics growing as well?

  • Facing a Tuesday deadline to reunite about 100 migrant toddlers with their parents, feds say they've reunited 2

    The court-imposed deadline is only a day away for the federal government to reunite the families of about 100 migrant children under the age of 5 who were separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. But a lawyer for the government said in court Monday that only two children of that “tender age” have been reunited so far.

  • Children have been separated from their families for generations – why Trump’s policy was different

    The Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their families was officially ended on 20 June – but putting this policy into a wider historical context of state-sanctioned policies of child separation helps to understand why some aspects of it were remarkably distinctive – and caused such international outrage. Compared to historical welfare interventions, the Trump child-separation policy was distinct because of its sheer scale, and because the policy lacked any moral claim that the separations were for the good of the child. Judged in the historical context of previous child-separation policies, the administration’s policy proved short-lived because its exceptional scale and brutality lacked sufficient moral legitimacy in American public opinion to outweigh the powerful images of children’s suffering circulated in the media. For those children who have already been separated from parents – uncertain how they will be reunified – this will come as little consolation.

  • Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador decisively wins Mexico’s presidency

    Leftist firebrand Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has won Mexico’s presidential election with more than 50 percent of the vote. Mexican voters decisively backed Lopez Obrador in Sunday’s presidential election, giving him 53 percent of the vote. Lopez Obrador, in addition to presenting himself as the anti-establishment candidate on domestic issues, also benefitted from presenting himself as the one candidate willing to stand up to President Trump, whose policies toward – and rhetoric about – Mexico have deeply angered Mexican voters.

  • Mexico’s next president likely to defy Trump on immigration

    President Donald Trump has long blamed Mexico for the flow of Central Americans seeking to enter the United States’ southern border, claiming that migrants just cross Mexico like they’re “walking through Central Park.” In truth, since 2014, Mexico has been aggressively pursuing its Southern Border Program to deter migration across Mexico’s border with Guatemala. Most Mexicans now view this policy as an effort to enforce U.S. immigration policy. Mexico’s four presidential candidates argued over many issues, from corruption to the economy, but they all agreed on this: Mexico can no longer maintain its policy of helping enforce U.S. immigration laws.

  • Immigrant toddlers ordered to appear in court alone

    As the White House faces court orders to reunite families separated at the border, immigrant children as young as 3 are being ordered into court for their own deportation proceedings, according to attorneys in Texas, California and Washington, D.C. Requiring unaccompanied minors to go through deportation alone is not a new practice. But in the wake of the Trump administration’s controversial family separation policy, more young children — including toddlers — are being affected than in the past.

  • Extreme stress in childhood is toxic to your DNA

    The real danger of separating children from parents is not the psychological stress – it’s the biological time bomb. The screaming and crying, the anguish and desolation is gut-wrenching. But the fallout pales in comparison to the less visible long-term effects that are more sinister and dangerous.

  • How immigration court works

    Can the U.S. attorney general unilaterally overturn an immigration-court court case? Yes, because, as I teach my surprised law students, immigration judges are not part of the judicial branch. They are attorneys in the Department of Justice. That means normal assumptions about judicial independence and freedom from political influence do not apply in immigration proceedings.

  • Trump wants to prosecute all illegal border crossings without splitting up families. That will be a challenge.

    When President Donald Trump on Wednesday backed down from an immigration policy that separated migrant families, he pledged to continue his “zero tolerance” approach: Parents would still be prosecuted for illegally crossing the border, but their families wouldn’t be split up. But legal and logistical challenges will make it exceedingly difficult for his administration to accomplish both goals. To do so, federal agencies need to find space for thousands of children and adults as they await criminal and civil immigration proceedings. And another federal agency must find a way to do so without running afoul of the law.

  • Asylum seekers are not a “burden” for European economies: Study

    Does the arrival of asylum seekers lead to a deterioration in the economic performance and public finances of the European countries that host them? The answer is no, according to economists who have estimated a dynamic statistical model based on thirty years of data from fifteen countries in Western Europe. On the contrary, the economic impact tends to be positive as a proportion of the asylum seekers become permanent residents.

  • What's happening at the border? Here's what we know about immigrant children being separated from their families

    The attention of the nation has turned to Texas and its border with Mexico after the Trump administration enacted the “zero tolerance” policy, resulting, so far, in about 2,000 children being separated from their parents at the border. Here’s what we know.

  • Trump and Sessions can end immigrant family separations without Congress’ help

    Only Congress can provide the comprehensive immigration reform that would address the fundamental problems plaguing the American immigration system, including the statuses of undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. However, current immigration laws give the executive branch considerable discretion in deciding which immigrants to detain and release from custody. President Donald Trump has at his disposal a variety of alternatives – other than separating families – that would promote his stated goal of deterring migration from Central America. Those alternatives could avoid violating international human rights norms.