While getting less attention that ICE's actions, the Trump administration's growing barricade of restrictions on legal immigration could drastically lower immigration levels this year, & potentially tip the country into population decline. My new short-read details the accumulating barriers:

Big news that USCIS is resuming affirmative asylum processing for applicants EXCEPT those from the 39 travel ban countries. www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-a...

Trump administration scaling back asylum crackdown enacted after D.C. National Guard shooting, sources say

The unprecedented move amounted to an indefinite suspension of all asylum requests filed outside of immigration court, regardless of the applicant's nationality.

cbsnews.com

It has been one year since the Trump admin invoked the Alien Enemies Act and began targeting international students with a novel provision of the INA but thus far faced resistance in the courts with these and other policies. Read more here: www.migrationpolicy.org/article/trum...

The Trump Administration’s Immigration Policies Encounter Resistance in the Courts

Federal judges have provided significant opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration policies during its second term. The courts have halted or slowed a number of administration initiatives, ...

migrationpolicy.org

USCIS is truly NOT keeping up with new immigration applications being filed. As of September 2025, even before USCIS committed itself to revisiting likely millions of past decisions, their pile of unopened applications - the frontlog - was 248,000(!) That's up from ZERO in December 2024.

Actions by state & local governments in the wake of high-profile operations in Minneapolis typify a recent wave of opposition to aspects of federal immigration enforcement Muzaffar Chishti & @kathleenbush.bsky.social explain how ⤵️ https://bit.ly/4aUjcZo

Escalation of ICE Operations Emboldens State and Local Lawmakers to Constrain Its Operations

The ramp-up of federal immigration enforcement during the second Trump term has prompted sharp responses from state and local governments, with some limiting cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), or barring agents' wearing ...

bit.ly

an immigration court has dropped the deportation case against grad student Rümeysa Öztürk, after trying to revoke her student visa over an op-ed she’d co-written in a Tufts University student paper. www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

Immigration Court Drops Case Against Tufts Student Rumeysa Ozturk

The Turkish national had been arrested by plainclothes federal officers outside her apartment.

wsj.com

A sharp decline in border arrivals, the end of Biden-era parole programs, increased deportations of noncitizens from inside the U.S., and more-recent restrictions to legal immigration have likely led to a sharp decrease in net international migration. Decreases in job growth will naturally follow.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6mo ago

Peter Navarro: "The jobs report comes out tomorrow. We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like ... Wall Street has to adjust for the fact that we're deporting millions of illegals out of the job market."

This is why many argue for graduated penalties for immigration violations, with the penalty tailored to the severity of the violation. Under current U.S. law, it's often deportation or nothing.

Mike Elk@mikeelk.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The Brazilian federal police detained me for an hour as I had once overstayed a visa by accident for two weeks. After giving me a lecture on immigration policies, they released me. If I had been a Brazilian in the United States, I'd be in jail. paydayreport.com/brazilian-fe...

In a @kff.org survey from fall '25, nearly half of likely undocumented immigrant adults, and one in seven who are lawfully present, said they had avoided medical care since January '25 due to immigration-related concerns -- recent increases in ICE presence could further exacerbate these challenges

Daniel Payne@danielpayne.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Doctors nationwide are seeing patients avoid care amid ICE crackdowns, sometimes with dire consequences. Health providers are now employing pandemic-era tactics to keep care accessible. How immigration policy is changing American health care: www.statnews.com/2026/02/03/i...

Haitian TPS holders had to wait all day to learn if they would still have protections and work authorization as of tomorrow. This decision keeps their TPS in place for now. Almost guaranteed that the administration will appeal.

Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News@froomkin.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Haiti’s TPS continues for now!!!!! And zowie: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.283214/gov.uscourts.dcd.283214.124.0_1.pdf

BREAKING: We're challenging the Trump administration’s sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for people from 75 countries. This discriminatory, nationality-based ban on legal immigration strips families and working people of the process guaranteed by law.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 6mo ago

Breaking News: A group sued Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department, asking a judge to block a ban on 75 countries, saying the Trump administration tried to “eviscerate decades of settled immigration law.”

Essential context for discussions about the future of immigration: If the country loses immigrants, on net, this year or next, the U.S. population will begin to shrink for the first time in the nation's history. (1918 may have been an exception.) Gift link below

The US Is Flirting With Its First-Ever Population Decline

America’s population wasn’t expected to start falling until 2081. Trump’s immigration crackdown means it could happen as soon as this year.

bloomberg.com

2017 research showed high-profile immigration enforcement actions can increase low-birthweight births. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28115577/ Just one of the ways that indiscriminate enforcement tactics leave indelible effects on children's well-being. For more, see my colleague Valerie Lacarte's piece

The Health Costs to Children of Stepped-Up U.S. Immigration Enforcement

Evidence suggests heightened U.S. immigration enforcement will have major and lasting effects on the physical and mental health of unauthorized immigrants and their children, as they avoid essential h...

migrationpolicy.org

Shefali Luthra@shefali.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Citing fear of ICE, pregnant immigrants in Minnesota are -skipping prenatal care -requesting home births, even when not medically advised -going w/o adequate food Many are experiencing complications providers say can be stress-onset: diabetes, high blood pressure, and even water breaking early

FWIW, immigrants who are not "lawfully present" are already barred from purchasing insurance through ACA exchanges, even at full cost, as well as being barred from subsidies for ACA insurance premiums.

Burgess Everett@burgessev.bsky.social · 6mo ago

News - Moreno makes ACA subsidy offer to Dems -1 year extension of credits w option to convert to HSA after - bars “individuals not lawfully present” - minimum $5 monthly payments on plans - extends open enrollment to March 31 -penalties on fraud - CSRs - Hyde audits www.semafor.com/article/01/2...

Do any taxpayers think this is a good use of their money? Arresting vetted refugees with no criminal record who have applied for green cards, flying them to TX, putting them in ICE detention, interviewing them, and releasing them with an approved green card?? Why? www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/u...

They ‘Had Done Everything Right.’ ICE Detained Them Anyway.

nytimes.com

An emerging patchwork of Trump visa policies is blocking entry for students, immigrant talent, and family of American citizens. It's the flipside of a mass deportation campaign in the US interior that's using any available tool to restrict new immigrants or foreign visitors.

Trump’s ‘Maximum Chaos’ in Immigration Leaves Employers Hanging

Employers are struggling to navigate an evolving patchwork of unpredictable Trump administration policies disrupting entry to the US from nearly 100 countries.

news.bloomberglaw.com

With news of ICE's focus on Maine, recommending my colleagues @colleenputzelkav.bsky.social & Valerie Lacarte's profile of ME's small immigrant population. ME's immigrants are a mix of long-settled, well-integrated folks, and newcomers from diverse origins, bolstering the workforce of an aging state

If you missed our @migrationpolicy.bsky.social webinar yesterday on Trump's immigration policies, check out the recording here: @nickmiroff.bsky.social talked about the administration challenging the value of immigration & the role of immigrants in our society

TOMORROW: Beyond Shock & Awe: Immigration Actions in the 1st year under Trump 2.0 Join @kathleenbush.bsky.social & @migrationpolicy.bsky.social colleagues Muz Chisti and Doris Meissner as we unravel the sweeping changes to immigration policy this last year www.migrationpolicy.org/events/immig...

Beyond “Shock and Awe”: Immigration Actions in the First Year under Trump 2.0

MPI analysts assess the immigration actions taken during President Trump's first year back in office, detail the legal state of play, and analyze the actual effects on the labor market, U.S. communiti...

migrationpolicy.org

As the US government expands it's travel ban, USCIS is also expanding its pause on immigration applications and its re-review of green cards, asylum, citizenship, and other benefits it granted since 2021. Applications from all 39 countries are now subject to the pause and re-review.

DHS pauses immigration applications for an additional 20 countries

The Department of Homeland Security is pausing immigration applications from 20 additional countries following increased scrutiny on people who seek legal pathways for immigrating to the U.S.

npr.org

The Trump admin says it aims to file 100-200 denaturalization cases per month, a huge increase. But these cases are hard to file and win, and require a lot of DOJ resources, and the DOJ is incredibly stretched thin already. So we’ll see; I have serious doubts about their ability to do this.

Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 8mo ago

What this will mean, in practice, that if you are deemed an enemy of the administration, they will pore through your citizenship application paperwork looking for some reason to retroactively disqualify you. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/u...

USCIS said yesterday they're shortening the validity period for work permits for asylum & green card applicants + others from 5 yrs to 18 months. Combined with USCIS' slowing processing, & the end of auto-extensions while people renew, this will cause MANY people to churn in & out of the workforce.

USCIS Increases Screening, Vetting of Aliens Working in U.S. | USCIS

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services updated its Policy Manual to reduce the maximum validity period for Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) for certain categories of aliens.

uscis.gov

Heads up: Right before Thanksgiving, a proposed regulation to restrict asylum applicants' access to work authorization cleared a key government review step. That means we could see a proposed regulatory change soon. But no details yet on what it might do. (1/2)

USCIS published a policy memo declaring (1) a pause on all affirmative asylum decisions, (2) a pause on all applications (green card, citizenship, change of visa, etc) for the 19 travel ban countries, and (3) a re-review of all benefits granted to people from the 19 countries who came since 1/20/21

The Trump admin has paused all immigration and naturalization processes for people from one of the 19 travel ban countries; including Cuba and Venezuela. Even people who fully passed the citizenship exam are having their cases put on hold, just inches from the finish line.

Hamed Aleaziz@haleaziz.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Scoop: The Trump administration has paused all immigration applications filed by people from 19 countries banned from travel to the United States earlier this year, halting green card and U.S. citizenship processing for broad swaths of people. More coming soon.

Belatedly noticing that the State Dept. updated its refugee resettlement data through October. In February-October 2025, the US resettled just 506 refugees(!) 342 of those (2/3) were South Africans. www.rpc.state.gov/admissions-a...

Great piece on how immigration and Medicaid policies are making aging care —already tough work —even tougher. Gift link. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/o...

Opinion | The People Holding Everyone Together Are Coming Apart

nytimes.com

@kff.org analysis finds that almost half of noncitizen adults living in the U.S. have one of the health conditions that may be grounds for visa denial based on new State Dept. guidance. The analysis also finds that noncitizens are much less likely than U.S. citizens to have one of these conditions.

Before this ruling, the Trump admin had said that anyone who originally crossed the border without authorization was to be held in immigrant detention without the chance for release on bond. This had left lawyers scrambling to file habeas petitions for their detained clients.

Nate Raymond@nateraymond.bsky.social · 8mo ago

New: A federal judge in California ruled that Trump's administration cannot impose mandatory detention on thousands of migrants held by U.S. immigration authorities nationally without first giving them an opportunity to seek release on bond. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

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