Immigration to the United States

"Invoking Title 42 has basically created a shadow deportation system that moves quickly and is accountable to no one. And they have used this a lot. Since March, there’ve been nearly 200,000 expulsions, in which asylum seekers were sent back without so much as a court hearing."

"The Trump administrations attack on asylum has been focused, dedicated, and deeply resourceful. And I now that those aren’t adjectives you’re used to associating with this administration, but in those one area, they’ve been truly disciplined about being truly evil."

"We found that applicants had a significantly greater chance of winning if their applications included a request for protection of a spouse or minor child in the United States. Perhaps family applications are more persuasive, because judges don’t believe that married applicants would flee from danger and leave a spouse or child behind, or because the judges feel additional sympathy for spouses and children, or because they suspect that unmarried applicants are more likely to commit fraud or be terrorists. The reasons for the increased odds of prevailing if one has dependents in the United States merit further study. Perhaps the most interesting result of our study is that the chance of winning an asylum case varies significantly according to the gender of the immigration judge. Female judges grant asylum at a rate that is 44% higher than that of their male colleagues. The work experience of the judge before joining the bench also matters: The grant rate of judges who once worked for the Department of Homeland Security (or its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service) drops largely in proportion to the length of such prior service. By contrast, an asylum applicant is considerably advantaged, on a statistical basis, if his or her judge once practiced immigration law in a private firm, served on the staff of a nonprofit organization, or had experience as a full-time law teacher."

"As explained in Part I, immigration courts are the “trial-level” administrative bodies responsible for conducting removal hearings—hearings to determine whether non-citizens may remain in the United States. For represented asylum seekers, these hearings are generally conducted like other court hearings, with direct and cross-examination of the asylum seeker, testimony from other supporting witnesses where available, and opening or closing statements by both sides. Approximately one-third of asylum seekers in immigration court are unrepresented; in these cases, the immigration judge must play a more active role in questioning the applicant and building the factual record. Neither the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure nor the Federal Rules of Evidence apply in immigration court."

"VICE News spoke with multiple asylum-seekers who have been kidnapped or narrowly escaped being kidnapped upon being returned to Mexico. All of them said they suspected Mexican immigration officials were working in coordination with the cartels. Often, they were grabbed at the bus station or along the three-mile stretch from the Mexican immigration office to their shelter. The stretch between the border and the shelters may be a few miles, but it is among the most dangerous part of a migrant’s journey."

"Jodi Goodwin, an immigration attorney who has been representing migrants in the Matamoros camps, said that no one has been allowed to cross the border amid the pandemic, even people who need medical attention and who have health conditions that put them at a high risk of complications from the virus. Even so, most migrants have chosen to continue to wait in Mexico. There have been a small number of people who have returned to their home countries voluntarily, but for many, going back would mean risking their lives. The vast majority of them come from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, collectively known as Central America’s “Northern Triangle,” where rampant crime, violence, and corruption has driven hundreds of thousands to flee in recent years. In those countries, migrants are commonly robbed, kidnapped for ransom, raped, tortured, and killed. “90 percent of the people we are treating as patients are people who are fleeing the exact same kinds of violence as ISIS,” said Helen Perry, the executive director of Global Response Management, a health care nonprofit administering services in the Matamoros camps. “If the option is you stay here and live in your tent until you have exhausted all hope, or you go home and get your head cut off — the reality is that they don’t want to leave.”"

"David is among the estimated 42,000 asylum-seekers who’ve been returned to Mexico in recent months under President Trump’s new asylum policies. The Trump administration calls the policy “Migrant Protection Protocols,” but far from offering protection, the policy has led to a brutal wave of kidnappings in some of Mexico’s most dangerous border cities."

"All Americans… are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens and legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more, by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, . . .[and] by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. …We will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens arrested for crimes. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws."

"As we have seen time and time again over the last four years, this President is attempting to rewrite our immigration laws in direct contravention of duly enacted statutes and clear congressional intent," Nadler and Lofgren said in statement. "In this historic moment, preserving the rule of law and nation's long tradition of asylum-seeking is crucial. We can and must continue to be a beacon of hope and freedom across the world."

"Superman is more than just an American, but he is no longer Kryptonian either. His identity is shaped both by where he came from and the strong morals and American values instilled in him by his adoptive parents. He inherited his abilities from Krypton ... but it was the Kents who inspired him to become a hero. Superman was something new and special ... and not just because he had superpowers. Apart from his normal crime-fighting activity, he spoke out against issues including social injustice, corruption, domestic violence and racial inequality. During World War II, he went to Europe to fight the Nazis and fascists. Then he returned the U.S. to take on white supremacists. Superman’s story is the ultimate example of an immigrant who makes his new home better. America's favorite superhero is an immigrant, and that's only fitting because America is a nation made up of people from all over the world—people blending their contributions and creating something new in the process."

"Foreigners, I esteem foreigners no better than other people, nor any worse. They are all of the great family of men, and if there is one shackle upon any of them, it would be far better to lift the load from them than to pile additional loads upon them. And inasmuch as the continent of America is comparatively a new country, and the other countries of the world are old countries, there is more room here, comparatively speaking, than there is there; and if they can better their condition by leaving their old homes, there is nothing in my heart to forbid them coming; and I bid them all God speed..."

"This year the senate passed an immigration reform bill by a wide bipartisan majority… It would strengthen our borders… It would make sure that everybody plays by the same rules by providing a pathway to earn citizenship for those who are living in the shadows. A path that includes passing a background check, and learning English, and paying taxes and penalties and in getting in line behind it, everyone trying to come here by the right way. And each of these pieces would go a long way toward fixing our broken immigration system."

"The Departments have determined that the 1,500-encounter threshold is a reasonable proxy for when the border security and immigration system is no longer over capacity and the measures adopted in this rule are not necessary to deal with such circumstances."

"While 53 percent of unauthorized immigrants are from Mexico, the remainder are from a diverse set of countries. The other top countries of origin are El Salvador, Guatemala, China (including Hong Kong), and Honduras. Mexico was the top origin of the unauthorized population in 36 of the 41 states for which more detailed analysis could be done. In Rhode Island, however, Guatemala was the leading country, in Hawaii the Philippines was the leading source, and El Salvador was the top origin in Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia. In most states, the second most common origin was a country from the Northern Triangle of Central America: El Salvador, Guatemala, or Honduras (see Figure 1). Several states in the Midwest and Northeast had China or India as the second-most common origin."

"The United States is a nation of immigrants, as reflected in its motto e pluribus unum—”from many, one.” U.S. presidents frequently remind native-born Americans that their forebears left another country to begin anew in the United States. Immigration permits individuals to better themselves financially. Many believe that it also strengthens the United States. The Commission on Immigration Reform, established by Congress, reflected a widely shared American opinion when it asserted in 1997 that “a properly regulated system of legal immigration is in the national interest of the United States.”"

"At the end of the 20th century, immigration is as contentious an issue as it was at the century’s beginning. Opinions about immigration generally lie between two extreme views: “no immigrants” and “open borders.” The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), for example, favors severely reducing U.S. immigration. FAIR charges that immigration contributes to excessive population growth and environmental degradation, displaces low-skilled American workers, depresses average wage levels, and threatens the cultural bonds that hold Americans together. FAIR calls for a stop to most immigration for several years to allow recent arrivals and Americans time to adjust to one another. Minimal immigration of 200,000 to 300,000 a year would be allowed during the adjustment period. The Wall Street Journal, the leading U.S. newspaper for the business world, exemplifies the other side of the immigration debate. The Journal advocated a five-word constitutional amendment: “there shall be open borders”—in a 1990 editorial. Wall Street Journal editorials often cite the benefits of immigration for the U.S. economy and labor force—more people mean more consumers and more workers, which helps the economy grow. Groups such as the Organization of Chinese Americans and the Emerald Isle Immigration Center favor immigration from particular countries or regions. The Catholic Church and some other religious organizations oppose immigration controls because they believe that national borders artificially divide humanity. Other people and groups support continued immigration as a defining part of the American national identity."

"Laura Ingraham, who hosts an hour-long show at 10pm, has told her viewers that Democrats “want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever increasing number of chain migrants”, while Jeanine Pirro claimed on a radio show that liberals were engaged in “a plot to remake America, to replace American citizens with illegals who will vote for the Democrats”. “To be clear, Fox News is far from the only place where you might hear such dangerous rhetoric,” wrote Tom Jones, a senior media writer at the Poynter institute. “[But] the size of Fox News’s audience is what is notable. Fox News is the most-watched cable news network, and Carlson’s show is the most-watched on cable news, routinely drawing more than 3 million viewers a night.”"

"“These regulations are the final nail in the coffin of ever-increasing barriers to access asylum. If enacted, the rule would treat asylum seekers as nothing more than a nuisance unworthy of consideration or care,” said Richard Caldarone, Tahirih Litigation Counsel. “It would complete the transformation of immigration courts into conveyor belts in a deportation machine that rapidly returns people to violence, torture, and death without the slightest regard for their humanity. The Tahirih Justice Center intends to challenge the rule by any and all possible means.”"

"The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimated 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants resided in the United States in 2016. About half of all unauthorized immigrants resided in three states: California (27 percent), Texas (14 percent), and New York (8 percent). The vast majority (82 percent) lived in 174 counties with 10,000 or more unauthorized immigrants each, of which the top five—Los Angeles County, CA; Harris County, TX; Cook County, IL; Orange County, CA; and Queens County, NY—accounted for 20 percent of all unauthorized immigrants."

"Nearly 70,000 foreigners arrive in the United States every day. Most of these travelers are visitors, not settlers. More than 60,000 are tourists, business people, students, or foreign workers who are welcomed at airports and border crossings. About 2,200 daily arrivals are immigrants or refugees who have been invited to become permanent residents of the United States. Finally, about 5,000 foreigners make unauthorized entries each day. About 4,000 of them are apprehended just after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border. But nearly 1,000 elude detection, or slip from legal to illegal status by violating the terms of their visas. Many will remain, while others will return to their home countries."

"Foreigners, I esteem them no better than other people, nor any worse. It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles-the oppression of tyranny-to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke, than to add anything that would tend to crush them. Inasmuch as our country is extensive and new, and the countries of Europe are densely populated, if there are any abroad who desire to make this the land of their adoption, it is not in my heart to throw aught in their way, to prevent them from coming to the United States."

"In April 2021, after [[Tucker Carlson|[Tucker] Carlson]] claimed on his show that Democrats were "diluting" his vote by "importing a brand-new electorate", the Anti-Defamation League wrote to Fox News to sound the alarm. "Make no mistake: this is dangerous stuff. The 'great replacement theory' is a classic white supremacist trope that undergirds the modern white supremacist movement in America," wrote Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the ADL."

"We make use of uniquely comprehensive arrest data from the Texas Department of Public Safety to compare the criminality of undocumented immigrants to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens between 2012 and 2018. We find that undocumented immigrants have substantially lower crime rates than native-born citizens and legal immigrants across a range of felony offenses. Relative to undocumented immigrants, US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes. In addition, the proportion of arrests involving undocumented immigrants in Texas was relatively stable or decreasing over this period. The differences between US-born citizens and undocumented immigrants are robust to using alternative estimates of the broader undocumented population, alternate classifications of those counted as “undocumented” at arrest and substituting misdemeanors or convictions as measures of crime. The tripling of the undocumented population in recent decades is one of the most consequential and controversial social trends in the United States. Backlash regarding the criminality of undocumented immigrants is at the fore of this controversy and has led to immigration reforms and public policies intended to reduce the crimes associated with undocumented immigration. As recently as June of 2020, the debate on undocumented criminality made its way to the US Supreme Court, where the US solicitor general sought to invalidate California’s “sanctuary” policies because “[w]hen officers are unable to arrest aliens—often criminal aliens—who are in removal proceedings or have been ordered removed from the United States, those aliens instead return to the community, where criminal aliens are disproportionately likely to commit crimes”. Indeed, concerns over illegal immigration have arguably been the government’s chief criminal law enforcement priority for years, to the point where the federal government now spends more on immigration enforcement than all other principle criminal law enforcement agencies combined."

"Contrary to public perception, we observe considerably lower felony arrest rates among undocumented immigrants compared to legal immigrants and native-born US citizens and find no evidence that undocumented criminality has increased in recent years. Our findings help us understand why the most aggressive immigrant removal programs have not delivered on their crime reduction promises and are unlikely to do so in the future."

"“What can they say?” said Matt Gertz, senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a watchdog of rightwing media. “There’s no way for anyone at Fox News to really issue a convincing and compelling, forthright denunciation of great replacement theory, because it’s being discussed on the network’s primetime hour on a near constant basis.” Great replacement theory, or white replacement theory, states that a range of liberals, Democrats and Jewish people are working to replace white voters in western countries with non-white people, in an effort to achieve political aims. It is not a new concept. But Carlson has led the charge in reintroducing it to mainstream rightwing thought. In April a New York Times investigation found that in more than 400 hundred of his shows Carlson had advanced the idea that a “cabal of elites want to force demographic change through immigration”."

"Representatives from the resettlement agencies meet frequently to review the biographic information and other case records sent by the Department of State’s overseas Resettlement Support Centers (RSC), seeking to match the particular needs of each incoming refugee with the specific resources available in U.S. communities. Through this process, they determine which resettlement agency will sponsor and where each refugee will be initially resettled in the United States. Many refugees have family or close friends already in the United States, and resettlement agencies make every effort to reunite them. Others are placed where they have the best opportunity for success through employment with the assistance of strong community services. Agencies place refugees through a network of approximately 200 local affiliates operating in communities throughout the United States. Through its local affiliates, each agency monitors the resources that each community offers (e.g., interpreters who speak various languages, the size and special features of available housing, the availability of schools with special services, medical care, English classes, employment services, etc.)."

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!""

"Most immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe, meaning that in religion they were Catholic, Jewish and Orthodox Christians, and some were atheists. The nation's churches recognized that they needed to reach out to these new Americans. Some Protestants took direct action, opening mission houses to aid immigrants and help in their Americanization. When it came to immigration, the FCC took a measured approach. On the one hand, the Committee on the Church and the Immigrant Problem believed that the pervading opinion of immigrants by most Americans (one of "disparagement") "ill consists with the spirit and teaching of Jesus concerning human brotherhood." On the other hand, the FCC also believed tat it was imperative that nation's churches look after the "religious care" of the immigrants, which implied bringing them into the Protestant fold."

"Migrants and asylum seekers face further barriers in accessing reproductive healthcare. Irregular immigration status prevents millions of individuals from qualifying for health insurance programs in general, and creates particular barriers to accessing insurance that covers reproductive healthcare services. Immigrants also face mobility restrictions. Many US states require documentation of immigration status in order to receive a driver's license, and some of the most restrictive bans on abortion are in states (such as Texas) that host a network of Border Patrol checkpoints. Undocumented immigrants who seek to cross state lines to access abortion care are at risk of arrest, detention, and deportation. As Dr. Serapio explained, for individuals who are undocumented and/or unauthorized, or who have undocumented and/or unauthorized family members, travel out of state is therefore not an option due to the possible legal ramifications, even where resources are available. Youth with migrant status or with families that have mixed migration or documentation statuses face particular barriers in states where parental consent is required for abortion. For example, immigrant youth may lack access to a qualifying parent living in the country; immigrant parents may not be able to provide legally valid consent if they lack documentation of their legal status; and younger people with migrant status may be deterred from seeking healthcare or involving a parent by a general fear of immigration consequences for themselves or their families. In these cases, immigrant youth may be forced to seek a judicial bypass or remain pregnant involuntarily."

"During the mid-1800s, the nation welcome the first wave of large-scale immigration from Europe since the Revoltuion. Prompted by war, famine, and political disruption, and tied to both cheap land in the West and a growing industrial capability in the Northeast, these immigrants, primarily from Ireland and Germany, were largely Roman Catholic. To many native born Americans, such an influx brought with it societal strain and challenge, and also religious tension. The Reformation divide between Protestants and Catholics was still very much alive, and the early nineteenth century witnessed a wave of anti-Catholicism, which included riots and bloodshed. These events helped bolster both Catholic and Protestant identity, each largely independent of the other."

"The immigrants they liked to hire to get work done cheap, then use them for every scapegoat situation possible, forgetting they wouldn’t even be there to blame for what they did and for what they didn’t do, if they weren’t offered the jobs in the first place."

"While religion has a unifying role in American public life, it also has had a divisive role. Before the 1960s, denominational affiliation, especially whether one was Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, played a defining role in American public identities due to the history of American immigration and the relationship between religion and ethnicity (Herberg 1955). Sociologists have long been interested in the “social sources of denominationalism” and divisions in the American religious field, pointing especially to inequality based in race and class (Niebuhr 1929; Herberg 1955; Roof and McKinney 1987; Darnell and Sherkat 1997; Sherkat 2001; Park and Reimer 2002; Smith and Faris 2005). Although these divides of denominationalism in inequality remain today, the salient symbolic boundaries in the religious field are no longer between denominations as they long have been."

"[T]he unprecedented immigration crackdown Trump has vowed if he returns to the White House could also lead to higher inflation, economists say, despite Trump recently asserting prices would “come down dramatically and come down fast” as a result. If mass deportations occur, businesses could struggle to fill open positions, forcing them to raise wages and pass those costs to consumers. Even deporting 1.3 million workers, which is lower than the 10 to 20 million deportations Trump has advocated for, would be an “inflation shock” that lifts inflation by 1.3 percentage points after three years, according to research presented at the Peterson Institute for International Economics by Australian economist Warwick McKibbin. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the US economy, would be 2.1 percentage points lower – a dramatic decrease. If 7.5 million workers were deported, inflation would be a staggering 7.4 percentage points higher and GDP would be 12 points lower after three years, the research found."

"The U.S. government first began collecting data on the nativity of the population in the 1850 census. That year, there were 2.2 million immigrants, representing nearly 10 percent of the population. Between 1860 and 1910, the immigrant share fluctuated between 13 percent and almost 15 percent of the overall population, peaking at 14.8 percent in 1890, largely due to high levels of immigration from Europe. Restrictive immigration laws in 1921 and 1924—which kept permanent immigration open almost exclusively to northern and western Europeans—coupled with the Great Depression and World War II, led to a sharp drop in new arrivals from the Eastern Hemisphere. The foreign-born share steadily declined, hitting a record low of 4.7 percent in 1970."

"On Monday evening, President Trump pressed send on a tweet declaring that in the next week, ICE would begin removing “the millions of illegal aliens” who are in the United States. This, of course, was not true. ICE deports about 7,000 immigrants per month, which is rather short of the roughly 10.5 million undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States. The tweet, coming two days before Trump’s big reelection rally, seemed tailor-made to send Democrats into paroxysms of rage and force us into a law-and-order debate in which we stand on the side of the lawbreakers."

"Immigration has had a long history in the United States. For the most part, however, it was seldom treated dispassionately even when an attempt was made only to ascertain the pertinent facts and their reliability. Books and innumerable articles were written to "prove" that immigration did not contribute to the population growth of this country because immigration depressed the fertility rate of the native population: that immigration, if it continued, would result in race suicide of the Nordic element; that immigration was a threat to "American" institutions, etc. For this reason much of the literature on the subject is almost worthless."

"Elise Stefanik, the Republican chairwoman in the House of Representatives and a staunch Trump supporter, has been condemned for a Facebook ad last September that accused Demo-crats of trying to “overthrow our current electorate” through amnesty and enabling non-citizens to vote. Her office has denied any link to replacement theory. Ron Johnson, a senator for Wisconsin, has described replacement theory as “the Democrat grand plan”. He said in a radio in-terview last month: “I’ve got to believe they want to change the makeup of the electorate.”"

"The paradox is that American carbon emissions are partly responsible for wretchedness in Guatemala that drives emigration, yet when those desperate Guatemalans arrive at the U.S. border they are treated as invaders."

"In the United States, minority populations were never an indigestible mass—with the major exceptions of the one ethnic group that did not come here voluntarily (African Americans) and those who were here when Europeans arrived (American Indians). The rest all came, clustered and dispersed, and added new cultural layers to the general society. This has always been the strength of the United States."

"Immigration statistics indicate that while the total number of individuals apprehended at the Southwest border has generally declined over the past two decades, the demographic profile of those apprehended has shifted toward a population more likely to be subject to detention. Historically, most unauthorized aliens apprehended at the Southwest border have been adult Mexican males who are considered to be “economic” migrants because they are primarily motivated by the opportunity to work in the United States, and who can be more easily repatriated without requiring detention. However, over the past five years, apprehensions of aliens from the Northern Triangle countries—many of whom are reportedly fleeing violence and seeking asylum in the United States—have exceeded those from Mexico. Since 2017, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reported a sharp increase in the number of apprehensions at the Southwest border, especially among members of family units and unaccompanied alien children (UAC). Together, persons in family units and UAC currently make up more than two-thirds of apprehensions."

"Since FY2004, Congress has appropriated funding to the Department of Homeland Security’s(DHS’s) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for an Alternatives to Detention (ATD) program to provide supervised release and enhanced monitoring for a subset of foreign nationals subject to removal whom ICE has released into the United States. These aliens are not statutorily mandated to be in DHS custody, are not considered threats to public safety or national security, and have been released either on bond, their own recognizance, or parole pending a decision on whether they should be removed from the United States. Congressional interest in ATD has increased in recent years due to a number of factors. One factor is that ICE does not have the capacity to detain all foreign nationals who are apprehended and subject to removal, a total that reached nearly 400,000 in FY2018. (ICE reported an average daily population of 48,006 aliens in detention for FY2019, through June 22, 2019.) Other factors include recent shifts in the countries of origin of apprehended foreign nationals, increased numbers of migrants who are traveling with family members, the large number of aliens requesting asylum, and the growing backlog of cases in the immigration court system."

"In the Trump era, Republicans evidently see no political incentive in distancing themselves from replacement theory. In an opinion poll released last week, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about one in three Americans believes that an effort is under way to replace US-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gain. Several Republican Senate candidates are drawing on replacement theory as they campaign for November’s midterm elections. In Ohio, Trump-endorsed JD Vance told the conservative Fox News network that Democrats “have decided that they can’t win re-election in 2024 unless they bring a large number of new voters to replace the voters that are already here”. In Missouri, the Senate candidate Eric Schmitt, the current state attorney general, said Democrats are “fundamentally trying to change this country through illegal immigration”. And in Arizona, which borders Mexico, another Senate candidate, Blake Masters, accused Democrats of trying to flood the nation with millions of immigrants “to change the demographics of our country”."

"Joyce Beatty, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, described replacement theory as “a key plank of the Republican platform”, adding: “Time and time again, domestic terrorists are using the great replacement theory to justify their crimes." “Right here on Capitol Hill, we hear our Republican colleagues echoing versions of this theory. We must confront it. Let me say it in very clear terms: the Republican leadership is not innocent and, whether they use a dog whistle or a bullhorn, they do not get a pass.”"

"Today, the administration proposed regulations that aim to overturn U.S. asylum law, making it effectively impossible for people fleeing persecution to obtain protection in the United States. If implemented, the rule would eliminate gender-based asylum—shutting the door to anyone fleeing life-threatening persecution due to their gender, while undoing decades of legal precedent. Women fleeing rape and severe domestic violence, LGBTQ+ individuals facing deadly attacks, and those escaping other fatal gender-based harms will no longer be allowed to seek safety within our borders if the regulations take effect."

"The administration’s proposed regulations are an assault on the fundamental right to seek asylum. If fully implemented, they will gut years of progress in the U.S. to create bridges to safety for so many whose governments could not and would not protect them from severe harm and even death. Moreover, these regulations specifically endanger and target survivors of gender-based violence and will make it all but impossible for them to achieve justice."

"Can anything fall more directly within the police power and internal regulation of state, than that which concerns the care and management of paupers or convicts or any other class or description of persons that may be thrown into the country, and likely to endanger its safety, or become chargeable for their maintenance?...[I]f all power to guard against these mischiefs is taken away, the safety and welfare of the community may be very much endangered."

"The Immigration Court backlog has jumped by 225,846 cases since the end of January 2017 when President Trump took office. This represents an overall growth rate of 49 percent since the beginning of FY 2017. Results compiled from the case-by-case records obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the court reveal that pending cases in the court's active backlog have now reached 768,257—a new historic high. In addition, recent decisions by the Attorney General just implemented by the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) have ballooned the backlog further. With a stroke of a pen, the court removed 330,211 previously completed cases and put them back on the "pending" rolls. These cases were previously administratively closed and had been considered part of the court's completed caseload."

"Under the authority of long-standing UN conventions and an extensive body of United States law, tens of thousands of individuals each year seek asylum in the United States. See TRAC report on asylum law and asylum process. Many of these requests are processed by the 200-plus special judges of the immigration court, a wing of the Justice Department with an annual budget of about $200 million. In the last decade, these judges have disposed of "on their merits" somewhere between 25,000 and 35,000 requests each year."

"TRAC's systematic examination of the nearly 300 thousand asylum decisions over more than a decade documents a significant judge-by-judge disparity in the proportion of asylum requests that are granted versus denied. These findings held even after restricting our comparisons to only those asylum seekers who were represented by an attorney, and only comparing judges who had made substantial numbers of decisions. The extreme range in asylum denial rates among the 208 judges deciding 100 or more of these matters from FY 2000 through the first months of FY 2005 was summarized above and shown in Figure 1. The median denial rate -- half turned down more, half less -- was 65%. But the data also shows there were eight judges who denied asylum to nine out of ten of their applicants and two who granted asylum to nine out of ten of theirs. Similar variability was found in the denial rate among the 193 judges who made 100 or more of these decisions in the FY 1994-1999 period. See Figure 3."

"Though the political movement collapsed, the anti-immigrant nativism of the Know Nothings never really went away. Even during the Civil War, when all other issues were subsumed, the passions stirred by the Know Nothings were never far from the surface. The New York Draft Riots of 1863 were in part an uprising of Irish immigrants after years of discrimination, with African-Americans bearing the brunt of their rage. After the Civil War, a Republican-controlled Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned all immigration for 20 years. Those currents also worked their way into the Populist and Progressive movements of the late 19th and early 20th century, which ultimately became a prominent strain of both parties, the Republicans under Teddy Roosevelt and the Democrats during the Woodrow Wilson years."