• Chicago Migrant Spending Approaching $300 Million

    With the city’s spending on non-citizen migrants increasing, criticism of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and his handling of the ongoing crisis also grows. In the 11 months since Johnson took over at City Hall, data from the “New Arrivals Mission” website pegs such spending at nearly $300 million with more than 38,000 migrants having arrived in the city and around 9,700 still residing in city shelters.

  • What Headlines Don’t Tell You About Global Migration, and What Researchers Can

    More people than ever live outside the country of their birth—281,000,000 migrants. To put it in perspective, if migrants formed their own country, it would be the fourth most populous country in the world, after China, India, and the United States. But why did they leave their home? Where are they going? Do they plan to return? Can they? Where would they be most likely to thrive? Researchers are filling critical migration data gaps and studying how people are on the move in new and different ways.

  • What Biden Can Do After Another Failed Border Deal

    It’s no surprise that before any actual text of the bipartisan immigration bill became public, Trump and his Republican allies in the Senate said they would oppose the bill. Republican senators and the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board say that Trump believes an immigration deal would help Biden win re‐election. To get the politics right, Biden must get the policy right first. He should bet on policy, not politics, to neuter the apocalyptic border rhetoric. Allowing more immigrants to arrive legally will curb the chaos at the order – and it is the only chance to break out of a decade of failed immigration deals.

  • New York Appeals Court Strikes Down Law Allowing Non-Citizens to Vote

    The law, pushed through the Democratic-controlled Legislature last year, was expected to add another 800,000 new eligible voters in New York City, which has a population of nearly 8.5 million. “As there is no reference to noncitizens, and thus, an irrefutable inference applies that noncitizens were intended to be excluded from those individuals entitled to vote in elections,” the court said.

  • NYC to Launch Debit-Card Pilot Program for Migrants

    New York City announced it was launching what it described as a cost-saving pilot program to provide 500 migrant families with prepaid debit cards to buy food and baby supplies. The debit-cards will be loaded with an average of $12.52 per person, per day, for 28 days, and the city says the program will save $600,000 per month and $7.2 million annually relative to the current system of providing boxes with non-perishable food.

  • AfD’s Remigration Agenda: Germany’s Challenge of Far-Right Extremism

    In November 2023, the German populist, far-right AfD organized a covert meeting in Potsdam which featured the leader of the ethnonationalist Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner. The attendees, adherents of a conspiracy theory commonly known as the Great Replacement, which claims that there is a deliberate attempt to replace the white European population with migrants of color, debated ways forcefully to deport migrants who failed to assimilate, had non-German lineage, or demonstrated support for asylum seekers.

  • Democratic Governors Ask Congress for Immigration Aid to Reverse Years of “Inaction”

    Nine Democratic governors sent a letter to President Joe Biden and congressional leaders, requesting federal aid and urging changes to immigration law as their states take in an overwhelming number of asylum-seekers. The governors asked that Congress grant Biden’s request to include in a supplemental funding bill $4.4 billion for a federal migration strategy and $1.4 billion in aid to states and local governments dealing with an influx of migrants.

  • Some Cities See Migrants as a ‘Lifeline.’ Policy Could Follow, Experts Say.

    As congressional leaders wrestle with potential solutions as part of a larger spending agreement, a former top national immigration official offered a proposal: Fund basic help for migrants at the border and in destination cities, send them where they’re wanted and can get jobs, and make quick decisions on asylum to discourage mass entry.

     

  • The Southern Border Poses Terrorism Risks. Homegrown Threats Still Loom Larger.

    The fears of terrorists entering the U.S. illegally can never be completely dismissed, but to date they have been mostly hypothetical, as there is scant evidence that illegal immigrants have committed acts of terrorism in the United States. For now, the most serious terrorist danger still comes from lone-actor racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs), radicalized online here inside the United States, attacking soft targets using firearms.

  • Eritrea Stoking Conflicts Between Its Migrants Abroad

    The repressive regime of Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has forced many Eritreans to seek refuge abroad. Some commentators believe Afwerki is stoking conflict between Eritrean migrants and their host nations.

  • Florida Arrests Undocumented Migrant Under State’s New Law

    A Mexican citizen taken into custody for allegedly driving without U.S. papers and transporting undocumented people was one of the first people to be arrested under Florida’s controversial SB 1718, considered the most restrictive state law regarding migrants in the United States.

  • TPS Extended for Six Countries, Advocates Urge Status for More

    The Biden administration recently announced an extension and redesignation of the program that gives temporary protection from deportation for nationals of Sudan and Ukraine. Nationals of El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua also have had their protection extended.

  • Expedited Work Permits for Migrants a Key Part of “Ttransition to Life” in NYS

    As New York grapples with an influx of migrants, two Cornell University law professors call on the administration to expedite the work authorization process for these migrants under the Administrative Procedures Act, so that they can begin to work, thus helping address the state’s labor shortages and take care of themselves.

  • Why Some Wisconsin Lawmakers and Local Officials Have Changed Their Minds About Letting Undocumented Immigrants Drive

    “If we suddenly kicked out all of the people here, the undocumented, our dairy farms would collapse,” one lawmaker said. “We have to come up with a solution.”

  • Thinking-Style Differences Associated with Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Beliefs

    People who think more analytically, rather than intuitively, are less likely to believe in the “great replacement” conspiracy. This association remained when individual differences in political ideology and education were statistically controlled in the analyses. People who think analytically also have higher ‘faith’ in science, disbelief in paranormal phenomena, and lower religiosity.