Migration

Across the United States, undocumented immigrants and their families are still experiencing eviction, food insecurity, hunger, and financial difficulties due to COVID-19. Federal relief has continuously excluded this population of immigrants from income replacement assistance, stimulus payments, and unemployment insurance, which has exacerbated the adverse economic effects on undocumented families. Earlier this year, the federal government passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) to provide financial relief to families who were impacted by COVID-19. Sadly, undocumented immigrants and their families were [...]

In localities and states across the U.S., advocates and legislators have been working together to invest in the collective health and well-being of immigrants. This year’s Policy wins  have been significant as advocates, and legislators continued to fight back against federal attacks on immigrants, and COVID-19 exposed the already persistent racial disparities.   A recent report from the National Immigration Law Center that outlines policy victories in the United States highlighted New York’s commitment to immigrants. Despite the lack of federal leadership in response to [...]

In August 2019, the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule on the “public charge” ground of inadmissibility for immigrants whose application for a green card is processed in the United States. The rule applies a similar test to people seeking to extend or change their temporary status (such as student or employment visas) in the United States. Although scheduled to go into effect on October 15, the rule has been blocked temporarily by several federal courts. If the new public charge rule goes [...]

On July 11, 2019, the Trump Administration released an executive order that requires the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Social Security Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services to collect citizenship data using administrative records for the federal administration to determine the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States. This executive order was in response to the federal administration’s failed attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census that was blocked by the Supreme Court. In [...]

Slashing Resettlement Will Hurt Refugees and Hurt New York July, 26, 2019. In 2019, President Trump capped the refugee resettlement program at just 30,000 entries, the lowest it has been since the beginning of the modern refugee resettlement program. If recent news reports are right, the Trump administration is now discussing reducing the cap even further, possibly as far as zero. Refugee resettlement is a humanitarian commitment: refugees are resettled in the United States from some of the most horrific circumstances around the world and [...]

November 2, 2018. Earlier this year, the Pew Research Center published a report showing that refugee resettlement was scaled back in the United States more dramatically in the United States than in any other country. In 2018, however, the refugee resettlement numbers have dropped even more dramatically. With data through the end of October already available, we can calculate pretty reasonably what the full year will look by extrapolating from the first 10 months of the year. For comparison, below are the number of refugees [...]