#immigration-policy

#immigration-policy

During the previous government shutdown, President Trump reveled in the chance to fire federal workers, expand his executive authority, and steer taxpayer dollars toward his allies and away from his perceived political enemies. After a record-setting 43 days of gridlock-during which Trump pursued those goals with varying degrees of success-several Democrats abandoned their quest to force Republicans to negotiate a health-care deal, and voted to end the shutdown.

I have been very vocal about the fact that I'm scared of what I'm seeing in this country. I've been living here for decades. This is not the place that I grew up in. We need to all stand up.

The cause isn't an abnormal number of deaths or a plummeting birthrate - though that's slipping too, exacerbating the trend - but instead a collapse in the rate of migration from 2.7 million people in July, 2024 down to just 1.3 million in 2025 as the White House does everything in its power to make the country hostile to immigrants.

With this legislation, all of these existing agreements would be void. The legislation would also prohibit federal agents from using local detention centers for civil immigration enforcement, mass raids or the transportation of detainees, and authorizes New Yorkers to bring state-level civil actions against federal officers who violate their U.S. constitutional rights. Hochul has also proposed legislation to ensure sensitive locations, such as homes, schools and doctors' offices, are protected from civil immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant.

Meth. We're On It.

For a generation, the smartest people I knew dreamed of moving to America. They took uninspiring jobs, learned to wait through endless paperwork, and believed that one visa stamp could change their lives. That belief built an empire of talent that powered some of the world's most iconic companies. And now, that same empire is dying, or at the very least, dreaming of moving elsewhere. Talent is now voting with its feet.

The Trump administration is removing Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Gregory Bovino from Minnesota, after federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, the 37-year-old VA ICU nurse, Saturday morning. Bovino has been the face of Trump's roving paramilitary-style immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and other Democratic-led cities. Shortly after Pretti was killed, Bovino had claimed Pretti intended to "massacre law enforcement," a statement unsubstantiated by video and witness testimony from the scene. According to The Atlantic magazine, Bovino will return to his previous post in El Centro, California,

Over the weekend, the basketball star Breanna Stewart didn't have her normal bounce during player introductions. As soon as the announcer shouted her name, Stewart walked out holding a white sign with a message: Abolish ICE. "I think that when human lives are at stake, it's bigger than anything else," Stewart said at a press conference following the game with Unrivaled, a three-on-three professional basketball league she co-founded in 2024.

Let me be emphatic; all undocumented immigrants have committed a crime. They have all broken immigration law. All of the undocumented immigrants I spoke to frankly admitted this. And almost all of them also expressed a real desire for immigration reform. That surprised me-at first. Although, on second thought, they would almost certainly benefit from any rationalized system-which would necessarily recognize their indispensable importance to the U.S. economy.

Is this a pullback? Cain asked Trump. I don't think it's a pullback. It's a little bit of a change. Everybody in this room that has a business, you know, you make little changes. You know, Bovino is very good, but he's a pretty out there kind of a guy. And in some cases that's good. Maybe it wasn't good here, Trump said.

In a social media post on Monday about federal officers' killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, Rep. Delia C. Ramirez, a Democrat representing part of Chicago, pointed out that DHS's purpose since its inception in 2002 has been to oppress those in the U.S. "The officer who shot Alex worked for DHS for 8 years. The officer who shot Renee worked for DHS for over 10 years.

Judge Indira Talwani of the Boston District Court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the termination of the legal status of more than 8,400 immigrants living in the country under family reunification parole, a measure announced by the Department of Homeland Security in late 2025. The decision was issued on Saturday night and prevents the government from ending the humanitarian parole granted to relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent residents from Cuba, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

That was the case for Mailan Pacios, a 28-year-old Cuban immigrant living in Tennessee, who was scheduled to take her citizenship exam on January 8, only to receive a notice on January 3 that her appointment had been canceled. It was like a bucket of cold water. It's very painful when you come with the hope of moving forward and this happens, says Pacios, who has two children, owns an air-conditioning business, and insists she has never had legal problems nor been a public burden.

All Florida public universities would be banned from hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas under a policy change that the Florida Board of Governors will consider next week. Next Thursday, the board's Nomination and Governance Committee will consider adding to a policy a line saying the universities can't "utilize the H-1B program in its personnel program to hire any new employees through January 5, 2027." If the committee and full Board of Governors approve the addition, there will be a 14-day public comment period.

But the message of welcome contrasts sharply with the broader policy landscape in Trump's second term. Immigration restrictions, intensified enforcement, and deportation raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have become defining elements of his administration. "This is a difficult time in this country because a lot of things that are happening are extremely unusual," says Daniel Kanstroom, professor of Boston College Law School. "We are seeing examples of ICE agents who appear to be overstepping their authority in some cases."

The response to the 2024 riots in England and Northern Ireland failed to address its root causes and delinked the violence from racism, a thinktank has claimed. A paper by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) reported that an obfuscation of the causes and consequences of the riots risks legitimising further far-right mobilisation and vigilante violence. It said that what happened has often been reduced to mindless thuggery or violence.

No country in the European Union has stricter immigration laws than Hungary. Nowhere in the bloc is it more difficult to attain refugee or protection status: EU statistics show exactly 10 people received either in 2025. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is proud to claim that there are "zero" refugees, or as he generally refers to them, "illegal migrants," in his country. That was how he framed his immigration policies and their impact during a November 2025 White House meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Only last year, the Reform UK leader was describing him as a fraud and saying he was sceptical that Jenrick was genuine, branding him Robert the Generic, Robert the Remainer and Robert the I Don't Stand Particularly for Anything at all. There are people in politics who are there through conviction and there are people in politics who are there because they want to reach rank, position and all that comes with that, he said at the time.

He began by characterizing what I had written as "fascinating," which could have meant a multitude of things coming from a teenager. He then explained that his eighth-grade English class included recent discussions about immigrant pursuits of the American dream. Accordingly, one major takeaway from those conversations with his teacher and peers was that many people come to the U.S. because it is perceived as a land of opportunity.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul used her annual State of the State address Tuesday to unveil a reelection year agenda aimed at bridging divides in the Democratic Party - moving to harness liberal anger at President Donald Trump and excitement over Mayor Zohran Mamdani, while also tending to moderates anxious about public safety and antisemitism. Speaking to a packed crowd at The Egg, a striking domed theater near the state's ornate Capitol building, Hochul announced a slate of affordability proposals, including a plan to expand pre-kindergarten programs statewide,

Starmer launched the national digital ID scheme by pitching it as a means to control undocumented immigration, through making use of a government app mandatory when employers conduct right-to-work checks. The plan brought an instant backlash from civil rights groups and privacy campaigners, as well as widespread criticism from the tech sector, where digital identity providers have been encouraged for many years to go through a rigorous compliance process to achieve accreditation on a government-approved register of digital verification services.

Trump is still conferring with officials about the action he could take. But his words imply he will not be content with further economic pressure. The US state department issued a warning Tuesday to US citizens currently in the country: Leave Iran now. The US virtual embassy for Iran says citizens should have a plan for departing that does not rely on US government help and if safe to do so, consider departing Iran by land to Armenia or Turkiye.

The death of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, has the potential to shake the political landscape in ways reminiscent of George Floyd's killing in 2020. The Trump administration initially claimed Good weaponized her vehicle in an act of domestic terrorism, an account that appears to be contradicted by video evidence.