• Study: Rethink Immigration Policy for STEM Doctorates

    A streamlined process for awarding green cards to international STEM doctoral students graduating from U.S. universities could benefit American innovation and competitiveness, including leveling the field for startups eager to attract such highly skilled workers, according to a new study.

  • Joe Biden to Pause Border Wall Construction, Issue Protections for DACA Recipients, Roll Back Other Trump Immigration Policies

    On the same afternoon he’s sworn in as the nation’s 46th president, Joe Biden will take multiple executive actions that will undo several of former President Trump’s immigration policies, his transition team announced Wednesday. The incoming president also plans to send a comprehensive immigration reform plan to Congress after he takes office.

  • Analyzing Forensic Signatures of Nuclear Materials to Prevent Smuggling

    A scientific exercise scenario involved seized nuclear materials for which law enforcement requested nuclear forensic analysis to help discern whether the process histories of the two seized materials were consistent with one another and related to similar materials seized previously by authorities. The exercise was part of an international nuclear forensic drill in support of a simulated nuclear smuggling investigation.

  • U.S. Immigration Policy Changes Expected Under Biden

    The incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden could swiftly reverse an array of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, many of which remain among the most contentious initiatives of his administration.

  • Policy Approaches to Climate Migration: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean

    As climate change has gained more attention and governments have developed policies to reduce carbon emissions and manage increasing environmental risks, climate migration—the movement of people primarily due to changes in the environment that result from climate change—has become a key issue for research and policy.

  • Foreign Students Look Forward to Visa Stability

    International students in the U.S. whose studies and immigration status have undergone changes during President Donald Trump’s administration say they hope their stays will stabilize with President-elect Joe Biden.

  • Attitudes of Mexicans in Mexico toward the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

    A Data Intelligentsia survey explores the attitudes of Mexicans in Mexico on key issues pertaining to immigration, migration, and border security, and the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. The highlights: Survey respondents support robust border security; want the United States to adopt a more compassionate approach to the deportation of undocumented immigrants; and believe, by considerable margins, that Joe Biden would do a better job than Donald Trump on a range of issues.

  • Trump and Biden Ignore How the War on Drugs Fuels Violence in Latin America

    Increasingly, people are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to escape a cycle of violence to which the United States continues to contribute. Immigration is just the tip of the iceberg. Murder rates in Latin America have skyrocketed since the 1980s and are still among the highest in the world. This is because Latin America became the battleground for the war on drugs.

  • U.S. to Consider Overhauling Asylum System

    In an interview with the Associated Press last week, Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, said that if Donald Trump wins a second term, the administration  would use agreements with Central American governments — the “Asylum Cooperative Agreements” — as models to get countries around the world, possibly in Africa and Asia, to field asylum claims from people seeking refuge in the United States. The two principles undergirding the projected asylum policy — the First Country of Asylum principle the Safe Third Country principle – form the basis for the Dublin Regulation which governs EU asylum policy.

  • White Americans Support Both Strict Immigration Policies and Dream Act

    White Americans support strict immigration policies while at the same time favor the DREAM Act that would grant legal status to some immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, a contradiction linked to racial resentment and the belief that equality already exists, according to a new study.

  • Parents of 545 Migrant Children Separated from Their Families Cannot Be Found

    A court-appointed steering committee has been working to locate the families of about 2,700 children separated by DHS’ Zero Tolerance border policy, which separated children and toddlers from their parents. The policy was overturned in court in mid-2018, but the parents of many of the children have been deported to Guatemala and Honduras, leaving the children behind. The parents of 545 children are yet to be found.

  • Proposed Student Visa Policy Could Hinder U.S. Competitiveness

    In an effort to crack down on international students and scholars who overstay their visas, the administration is seeking to implement a new set of rules that would make it more difficult for them to remain in the U.S. One of the rules requires foreign students to leave the United States after two or four years, regardless of whether they have completed they degree or research work. The rule comes with a steep price tag. It would also undermine America’s interest in attracting talent from abroad and, ironically, it would do little to actually curtail the problem of visa overstays that it purports to solve.

  • Climate Change Triggers Migration

    Environmental hazards affect populations worldwide and can drive migration under specific conditions, especially in middle-income and agricultural countries. According to a new study, changes in temperature levels, increased rainfall variability, and rapid-onset disasters such as tropical storms play an important role in this regard.

  • U.S. Revokes Visas of 1,000 Chinese Students Considered “High Risk”

    The U.S. says it has revoked the visas of more than 1,000 Chinese citizens considered “high risk” to U.S. security because of alleged ties with the Chinese military. The Trump administration has charged that Chinese students have come to the United States to steal intellectual property to advance China’s economic and military sectors.  

  • Steve Bannon Charged with Defrauding Donors to “We Build the Wall” Campaign

    Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former top political adviser, was charged today (Thursday) in New York with defrauding donors in a scheme related to an initiative called “We Build the Wall,” an online crowdfunding effort which collected more than $25 million from citizens who wished to help Trump’s border wall project for the U.S.-Mexico border. “As alleged, the defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction,” Audrey Strauss, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan, said in statement Thursday.