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Immigration and Migration
Asylum has become a central part of the U.S. immigration debate in recent years after border crossings reached a record high in fiscal year 2023. Here’s how the asylum process works.
Feb 19, 2025
Asylum has become a central part of the U.S. immigration debate in recent years after border crossings reached a record high in fiscal year 2023. Here’s how the asylum process works.
Feb 19, 2025
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How Does the U.S. Refugee System Work?The United States has long been considered a safe haven for refugees from around the world, but this could change following the Trump administration’s decision to suspend the country’s decades-old refugee resettlement program.
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What Is Birthright Citizenship and Could the Supreme Court End It?The Trump administration’s efforts to nullify birthright citizenship for millions of U.S.-born children could overturn a nearly 160-year legal precedent.
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Canada’s 2025 Elections: Why the U.S. Is on the BallotCanadians are heading to the polls at the most fraught moment in U.S.-Canada relations in eighty years.
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Can the Courts Undo Trump’s Deportation of Ábrego García?CFR law and foreign policy fellow Matthew Waxman answers questions about the Kilmar Ábrego García case, which has put a spotlight on Trump’s immigration and deportation practices and set up a legal showdown between the White House and the courts.
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Here’s Where Trump’s Deportations Are Sending MigrantsThe Trump administration’s deportations of undocumented immigrants are accelerating as part of a broader crackdown on unauthorized immigration. The focus so far has been on hundreds of flights, mainly to Latin American countries.
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Transition 2025 Series: The Future of Immigration Policy and Border Security in the United StatesPanelists discuss the Trump administration’s immigration policies, including increased deportations, the attempt to end birthright citizenship, and the suspension of refugee admissions, as well as the implications for U.S. national security and foreign policy. This meeting is part of CFR’s Transition 2025 series, which examines the major foreign policy issues confronting the Trump administration. The Silberstein Family Annual Lecture on Refugee and Migration Policy was established in 2019 through a generous gift from Alan M. Silberstein and the Silberstein family. The lecture provides CFR with an annual forum to explore emerging challenges in refugee and migration policy in the United States and around the world. For those attending virtually, log-in information and instructions on how to participate during the question and answer portion will be provided the evening before the event to those who register. Please note the audio, video, and transcript of this hybrid meeting will be posted on the CFR website.
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How the U.S. Asylum Process WorksAsylum has become a central part of the U.S. immigration debate in recent years after border crossings reached a record high in fiscal year 2023. Here’s how the asylum process works.
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Can the United States Send Undocumented Immigrants to Guantánamo Bay?The Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants includes a plan to transport potentially thousands to Guantánamo Bay. It is likely to spur international condemnation and a range of legal challenges.
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Destabilizing Mexico Would Make the U.S. Less Safe and WealthyTrump’s revival of his punitive immigration playbook will overwhelm Mexico’s overburdened state, sandbag regional economic growth and enrich criminal cartels.
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U.S.-Mexico RelationsOver the course of two hundred years, the United States and Mexico have developed rich diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties but at times clashed over borders, migration, trade, and an escalating drug war.
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U.S. Postwar Immigration PolicyImmigration has been an important element of U.S. economic and cultural vitality since the country’s founding. This interactive timeline outlines the evolution of U.S. immigration policy after World War II.
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Trump’s Executive Orders: What to ExpectPresident-elect Trump has promised to commence his new term with an expansive array of executive actions, some of which could have immediate effects on U.S. foreign policy.
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Israel-Hamas Cease-Fire, Trump’s First Immigration Moves, Russia’s and Iran’s New Partnership, and MoreIsrael and Hamas reach a cease-fire deal aimed at exchanging hostages and prisoners while seeking a longer-term pause in fighting; the incoming Donald Trump administration weighs ambitious moves on immigration; Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Russian President Vladimir Putin sign off on a twenty-year partnership agreement; and students in Serbia protest violations of civil rights.
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Trump's Immigration Policy, With Edward Alden (Transition 2025, Episode 9)Edward Alden, senior fellow at CFR and co-author of When the World Closed Its Doors: The Covid-19 Tragedy and the Future of Borders, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss Trump's proposed immigration policies and their likely effects on the economy. This episode is the ninth and final episode in a special TPI series on the U.S. 2025 presidential transition and is supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
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Puerto Rico: A U.S. Territory in CrisisThe Caribbean island, which shares a close yet fraught relationship with the U.S. mainland, faces a multilayered economic and social crisis rooted in long-standing policy and compounded by natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, migration, and government mismanagement.