• People want to donate diapers and toys to children at Border Patrol facilities in Texas. They’re being turned away.

    The substandard living conditions in Border Patrol facilities holding migrant children have been described in great detail over the past few weeks. Last week, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice argued in court that the government shouldn’t be required to give migrant children inside Border Patrol detention facilities toothbrushes, soap, towels, wipes, diapers, blankets, or showers. A Border Patrol official told a Texas state lawmaker that the agency doesn’t accept donations for facilities where children are reportedly being held in substandard conditions.

     

  • Does Europe need migrants?

    A European Commission-IIASA flagship report has found that an increase in the EU population aged 65+ is certain – regardless of higher fertility or migration. However, raising labor force participation (particularly for women) and improved education of natives and migrants have the power to nullify aging-related worries.

  • Private prisons have a political role in corrections issues in the U.S.

    Private prisons hold more than 120,000 inmates, about 8 percent of all prisoners, for 29 states and the federal government. The two largest private prison companies also operate more than 13,000 beds for immigrant detention. Private prisons play a political role in immigration and incarceration issues in the United States and the industry may face obstacles as well as opportunities in the current political landscape, new research finds.

  • New U.S. visa rules may push foreigners to censor their social-media posts

    Foreigners who decry American imperialism while seeking to relax on Miami’s sandy beaches or play poker at Las Vegas’s casinos may seek to soften their tone on Twitter. The reason? The U.S. State Department is now demanding visa applicants provide their social-media profiles on nearly two dozen platforms, including Facebook and Twitter.

  • Can Trump's threat of mass deportation of undocumented aliens be implemented?

    On Monday, President Trump tweeted that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States” next week. Can this really happen? How soon? And what would that look like?

  • Is cutting Central American aid going to help stop the flow of migrants?

    The United States is now stepping up its pressure on the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to take steps to curtail the migration of their own citizens by constricting U.S. aid. About $370 million in aid money for the three countries included in the 2018 budget will be spent on other projects, the State Department said on 17 June. Like many experts, I argue that slashing aid is counterproductive because foreign assistance can address the root causes of migration, such as violence and poverty.

  • Worldwide displacement tops 70 million

    The number of people fleeing war, persecution and conflict exceeded 70 million in 2018. This is the highest level that UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has seen in its almost 70 years. The UN Refugee Agencysays that the number of people displaced – 70.8 million — is double the level of 20 years ago.

  • Lawmakers raise alarm over CBP’s use of facial recognition tech on American citizens

    Lawmakers last week sent a letter to acting DHS secretary, sounding the alarm over reports that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is using facial recognition technology to scan American citizens — raising concerns over privacy and potential misuse of the American people’s biometric data.

  • Report: DHS agents heading to Guatemala

    The United States is reportedly sending dozens of Department of Homeland (DHS) security agents and investigators to Guatemala to help stem the flow of unauthorized migration from Central America to the U.S. Anonymous U.S. officials with knowledge of the situation said DHS personnel will advise Guatemalan police and migration authorities on how to halt human smuggling.

  • Death threats and disease drive more Venezuelans to flee

    There are currently some 3.7 million refugees and migrants from Venezuela worldwide, the vast majority in Latin America and the Caribbean. Given the worsening political, economic, human rights and humanitarian situation in Venezuela, the UN Refugee Agency, now considers that the majority of those fleeing the country are in need of international refugee protection.

  • Israelis rush to aid Venezuelan refugees in Colombia

    Israeli NGO begins relief distributions in Colombia as thousands escape worsening conditions across the border daily.

  • The “smarter” wall: how drones, sensors, and AI are patrolling the border

    In an era of increasingly polarized politics, there are few issues as divisive as President Trump’s proposal to build a physical wall across part of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border. Shirin Ghaffary writes in Vox that there is another kind of border wall increasingly being talked about — one that proponents pitch as being less costly, less disruptive, and less politically controversial than a physical barrier: a so-called “smart wall.”

  • Administration’s immigration plan prioritizes skills, merit over family

    President Donald Trump is scheduled to announce his long-awaited proposal on immigration Thursday, a plan that aims to move the immigration approval process away from family-ties and humanitarian needs. Administration official said the plan will bolster border security and create a merit-based system, insisting that it is a “competitiveness issue.”

  • New research on immigration, terrorism, and ideology

    In the 43 years between 1975 and 2017, terrorists — foreign-born, native-born, and unknown – killed 3,518 Americans on U.S. soil (this includes the 9/11 attacks). During the same period, about 800,000 Americans were killed in homicides. Overall, the chance of being murdered by a foreign-born terrorist between 1975 and 2017 was about 1 in 3.8 million per year. The author of a new report says that the main lesson from the report is that there are very few terrorists of any ideology or origin who pose a threat to Americans on U.S. soil, and even fewer who manage to murder Americans. “The ideology, frequency, deadliness, and origins of terrorists are fascinating,” the author says, but these numbers are so small that it is difficult “to be overwhelmed by fear.”

  • Three new ways for Congress to legalize illegal immigrants

    A critical element of any future immigration reform will be the legalization of illegal immigrants. Previous immigration reform proposals have failed, largely because policymakers disagreed over whether and how to legalize illegal immigrants. Alex Nowrasteh and David Bier write in a Cato Institute policy brief that future immigration reform proposals must be different from previous proposals if there is any hope of them becoming law. Past legalization reforms introduced by members of Congress were too similar to one another. They all failed. Our proposals provide three new means for legalizing illegal immigrants that will overcome some of the main political objections in the past: 1) Legalizing immigrants through a tiered system, whereby illegal immigrants can choose to either be legalized quickly and cheaply without the ability to gain citizenship in the future or begin a lengthier and expensive path toward citizenship; 2) Rolling legalization by allowing long-term illegal immigrant residents to legalize their status on an ongoing basis without an application cutoff date; and 3) Slowing chain immigration by limiting legalized immigrants’ ability to sponsor family members from overseas for lawful permanent residency (LPR) or green cards.