By Jennifer Anzardo Valdes, et al.

For years, thousands of children have made the difficult decision to flee from their countries with the hope of securing safety and security in the United States. Their reasons for fleeing vary but there are common themes. Many of these children are seeking protection from human trafficking, targeted gang violence in the form of assaults, kidnappings, or extortions, as well as domestic violence and child abuse.

In 2019 alone, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detained over 76,000 children. As part of our investigation into the treatment of unaccompanied children and conditions at the facilities at the border, we interviewed and provided legal services to 9,417 of them.

This report is based on these unaccompanied children’s testimonies of being detained at US detention facilities along the southern border. Children were detained in horrific conditions way beyond the 72 hours allowed under US law. Children described being held in frigid rooms, sleeping on concrete floors, being fed frozen food, with little or no access to medical care. Too often, they were subjected to emotional, verbal, and physical abuse by CBP officers.

Miami: Americans for Immigrant Justice,2020 74p.

By Thibaut Girault

This paper looks at the role of smugglers in facilitating migrant movement amid the worsening political and security situation in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Findings reveal that migrants rely on smugglers to bypass occasional border restrictions between members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and to navigate increasingly dangerous routes within Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—three countries that formed the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) in 2023. This reliance on smugglers also comes with significant risks, including greater exposure to exploitation, debt, and corruption— vulnerabilities that are particularly pronounced for women.

The research is based on the responses of 2,674 migrants surveyed by 4Mi between May and August 2024 in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso. It compares the experiences of migrants who used smuggler services (n=1,550) with those who did not (n=1,124) to better understand the relationship between smuggler use and migrants’ routes, journey costs, and protection risks.

London/Denmark: Mixed Migration Centre, 2025. 17p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Global Action to Prevent and Address Trafficking in Persons and the Smuggling of Migrants (GLO.ACT)

At least 3 billion people live in contexts highly exposed to the impacts of climate change19 and yet more to non-climatic environmental degradation and disaster. Even if the world meets the currently improbable target of limiting global warming to 1.5 C degrees set out in the Glasgow Climate Pact, extreme weather and environmental degradation will see the deterioration of ecosystems and loss of biodiversity depended on by billions. In climate vulnerable countries, children and future generations, women, the poor (among whom the majority are women), and Indigenous Peoples, are disproportionately impacted.

The international community is expanding its response and financing. Mitigation measures aim to limit the damage by reducing and removing carbon, using regulation (like emissions limits) and technology (like carbon sinks). Adaptation measures seek to help people survive sudden-onset disasters and reconstitute livelihoods undermined by slow-onset processes that degrade soils, rivers and forests.

Additional factors threaten to exacerbate climate damage and undermine mitigation and adaptation strategies. Environmental crimes accelerate the destruction of natural resources and undermine the resilience of affected populations. The economic damage of COVID-19 has intensified competition for resources, increased the precarity of people on low incomes and with insecure migration statuses, and reduced the capacity of states to respond, as does the conflict and instability seen in some climate-vulnerable countries, such as those in the Sahel. Conflict and instability undermine adaptation measures.

This brief explores how climate change, climate-re- lated events, and crimes that affect the environment (environmental crimes) influence trafficking in persons (TIP) and smuggling of migrants (SOM), with special consideration of gender. It draws on expert interviews and a desk review to explore three key questions:

The effects of climate change, climate-related events, and environmental crime on TIP and SOM, and in particular its effects on women, in Part 1. Climate, movement and vulnerability.

How business practices shape exposure to TIP and SOM risk, in Part 2. Climate, industry and exploitation.

Current and emerging responses among policymakers, law enforcement, and civil society, in Part 3. Legal, policy and criminal justice responses.

The case of Bangladesh, a climate vulnerable and origin country for TIP and SOM, and a pioneer in adaptation, in Part 4. Environment and vulnerability in Bangladesh.

The paper concludes with Part 5. Framing the response and lists recommendations.

The analysis takes a human rights-based approach, integrating the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) human rights and gender equality toolkit, which provides practical ways of integrating the protection of rights outlined in the United Na- tions Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and sibling protocols on TIP and SOM into programmatic approaches. In particular, that approaches to countering TIP and SOM should not affect rights outlined under international human rights laws, including the 1951 Refugee Convention.

Vienna: UNODC, 2022. 55p.

By Jennifer M. Chacón

Immigration enforcement in the United States has undergone a revolutionary transformation over the past three decades. Once episodic, border-focused, and generally confined to the efforts of a relatively small federal agency, immigration enforcement is now exceedingly well-funded and integrated deeply into the everyday policing of the interior United States. Not only are federal immigration agents more numerous and ubiquitous in the interior, but immigration enforcement has been integrated into the policing practices of state and local officials who once saw their purview as largely distinct from that of federal immigration enforcement agents. This essay briefly explains these developments, from shortly before the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 through the present day, and assesses their consequences. It includes a brief discussion of the ways states and localities have responded to federal enforcement trends, whether through amplification or constraint.

Daedalus, Winter 2022, at 121.

By Stefano Comino, Giovanni Mastrobuoni, Antonio Nicolò

Do undocumented migrants under report crimes to the police in order to avoid being deported? And do criminals exploit such vulnerability? We address these questions using victimization surveys and administrative data around the 1986 U.S. immigration amnesty. The amnesty allows us to solve two major identification issues that have plagued this literature: migrants’ legal status is endogenous and unobserved.

The results show that the reporting rate of undocumented immigrants is 17 percent, which limits the immigrants’ ability to protect some of their fundamental human rights. However, right after the 1986 amnesty, which disproportionately legalized individuals of Hispanic origin, crime victims of Hispanic origin show enormous improvements in reporting behavior. The implied increase in the reporting rate by amnesty applicants is close to 20 percentage points.

Journal of Policy Analysis and ManagementVolume 39, Issue 4, Sep 2020, Pages879-1288

By Elisa Jácome

Mistrust between immigrants and the police may undermine law enforcement’s ability to keep communities safe. This paper documents that immigration policies affect an individual’s willingness to report crime. I analyze the 2015 Priority Enforcement Program, which focused immigration enforcement on individuals convicted of serious crimes and shifted resources away from immigration-related offenses. I use data from the Dallas Police Department that include a complainant’s ethnicity to show that the number of violent and property crimes reported to the police by Hispanics increased by 4 percent after the introduction of PEP. These results suggest that reducing enforcement of individuals who do not pose a threat to public safety can potentially improve trust between immigrant communities and the police.

Journal of Urban Economics, 2022

By Ben Orlebeke and Cory Shindel

In recent years, administrative policies seeking to roll back protections for immigrant and refugee children and families have had devastating impacts and only highlighted the unique needs and vulnerabilities of children in U.S. immigration custody. Efforts to restore, expand, and reimagine processes that prioritize children’s rights and well-being have never been more critical. With the generous support of the Four Freedoms Fund, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) undertook a project to map the different types of facilities in which children are detained in the U.S. immigration system to inform efforts to create a system centered in children’s best interests, rights, and unique needs. This brief is excerpted from that project. Many thanks to the Four Freedoms Fund for making this project possible, and to Ben Orlebeke and Cory Shindel (KIND)

Washington, DC: Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), 2021. 13p.

By U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General

We incorporated the formal comments provided by your office. The report contains four recommendations aimed at improving ICE’s ability to monitor the location and status of unaccompanied alien children. Your office concurred with all four recommendations. Based on information provided in your response to the draft report, we consider recommendations 1 through 4 open and resolved. Once your office has fully implemented the recommendations, please submit a formal closeout letter to us within 30 days so that we may close the recommendations. The memorandum should be accompanied by evidence of completion of agreed-upon corrective actions.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of UACs enter the United States illegally. Public concern for the safety of UACs has continued as the U.S. media has reported on trafficking, exploitation, forced labor, and other criminal activities. ICE is responsible for managing and monitoring the immigration cases of these children once they are released from DHS’ custody. We conducted this audit to determine ICE’s ability to monitor the location and status of UACs once released or transferred from DHS and HHS’ custody

Washington DC: OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL U.S. Department of Homeland Security , 2025. 27p.

By William A. Kandel

The number of unaccompanied alien children (UAC, unaccompanied children) apprehended at the Southwest border between U.S. ports of entry while attempting to enter the United States without authorization has increased substantially over the past decade. Apprehensions numbered 8,041 in FY2008 and reached a then-record of 68,541 in FY2014. Since FY2014, apprehensions have fluctuated considerably, ranging from a low of 30,557 in FY2020 to a high of 149,093 in FY2022. Since FY2021, they have exceeded 130,000 each year. In the first 10 months of FY2024, apprehensions of UAC numbered 87,475. UAC are children under age 18 who lack both lawful immigration status in the United States, and a parent or legal guardian in the United States, or a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody. U.S. policy on UAC treatment and processing is guided by the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008. Children from the Northern Triangle countries—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—and increasingly from other countries dominate what was previously an almost entirely Mexican migrant flow. The TVPRA permits most Mexican children to be voluntarily returned to Mexico. In contrast, children from all other countries may enter the United States and are placed in formal removal immigration proceedings, during which they may apply for relief or protection from removal. Consequently, the shift in origin-country composition has affected both federal spending and the federal agencies responsible for unaccompanied children. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and Department of Justice (DOJ) share responsibility for UAC processing, treatment, placement, and immigration case adjudication. DHS’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehends and detains UAC arrested at the border. DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) handles custody transfer and repatriation, apprehends UAC in the U.S. interior, and represents the government in removal proceedings. HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) coordinates care and placement of UAC in appropriate custodial settings. DOJ’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) adjudicates UAC removal cases. The Obama, Trump, and Biden Administrations, as well as Congress, have taken steps since 2014 to respond to the general increase in UAC apprehensions. During the 2014 surge, the Obama Administration opened the first large temporary shelters, initiated programs to address root causes of child migration, and created the Central American Minors (CAM) Refugee and Parole Program. The Trump Administration instituted policies to reduce illegal migrant flows and limit who could apply for asylum. It discontinued the CAM program and implemented an agreement between ORR and DHS to share biometric and immigration status information about children as well as sponsors and any adults in their households. In 2020, HHS’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) exercised its authority under U.S. Code Title 42 (public health) that temporarily allowed CBP to promptly expel UAC at the border. The Biden Administration has faced record high UAC apprehension levels. It has excepted unaccompanied children from Title 42 expulsions, revoked the ORR-DHS information-sharing agreement, employed numerous temporary influx facilities, and reactivated the CAM program. It also issued a final rule implementing the Flores Agreement and formalizing UAC policies in regulation. Congress has responded by providing funding for UAC-related activities in response to annual, supplemental, and emergency appropriations requests. Current UAC policy issues facing Congress include the provision of post-release follow-up and services, the prevalence of child labor violations, legal representation for children in immigration proceedings, and potential incentives for child migration created by the TVPRA.

Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2024. 56p.

By Sofia Avila

Workplace raids are visible and disruptive immigration enforcement operations that can result in the detention of hundreds of immigrants at one time. Despite concerns about the impact of raids on children’s well-being, there is limited research on how these tactics affect their academic performance. Using school-level testing data from 2015 to 2019, I compare changes in the performance of Hispanic students in schools close to a workplace raid to white students in the same schools and Hispanic students at control schools. I find exposure to a raid lowered the scores and passing rates of Hispanic students in standardized tests taken 40 days after the operation. I further find that students in schools closer to the raid experienced more pronounced drops in performance, but I do not detect strong evidence that performance decreases were caused by interruptions to schooling. These findings provide new evidence on the spillover effects of workplace raids, underscoring the potential role of immigration enforcement in generating disparities in Hispanic children’s educational outcomes.

Sociological Science 11: 258-296 2024.

By David K Hausman

The US government maintains that local sanctuary policies prevent deportations of violent criminals and increase crime. This report tests those claims by combining Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation data and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) crime data with data on the implementation dates of sanctuary policies between 2010 and 2015. Sanctuary policies reduced deportations of people who were fingerprinted by states or counties by about one-third. Those policies also changed the composition of deportations, reducing deportations of people with no criminal convictions by half-without affecting deportations of people with violent convictions. Sanctuary policies also had no detectable effect on crime rates. These findings suggest that sanctuary policies, although effective at reducing deportations, do not threaten public safety.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Nov 3;117(44):27262-27267.

By Chloe N. East , Annie Laurie Hines , Philip Luck , Hani Mansour and Andrea Vel´asquez

We examine the labor market effects of Secure Communities (SC)–an immigration enforcement policy which led to over 454,000 deportations between 2008-2014. Using a difference-in-differences model that takes advantage of the staggered rollout of SC, we find that SC significantly decreased the employment share of likely undocumented male immigrants. The policy also led to a decrease in the employment rate of citizens. The employment effects on citizens are concentrated among males working in medium-skilled occupations, particularly in sectors that traditionally rely on likely undocumented workers. The results are consistent with complementarities in production between low-skilled immigrants and higher-skilled citizens.

Unpublished paper, 2020. 61p.

By UK Home Office

1. Immigration is important for Britain. For centuries people have come to this country to build a better life, contributing economically and culturally to our society and helping to rebuild our country after major shocks such as the Second World War. From Uganda to Ukraine, Britain has also proudly played its part in offering refuge – and in many cases, a fresh start – to those fleeing violence and persecution overseas. 2. It is precisely because of immigration’s historic significance to our country, that it must be properly controlled and managed, so that the public can have confidence in the system, so that it properly benefits the UK and so that the system itself is fair. Delivering such an immigration system, coupled with strong border security, is one of the foundations of this Government’s Plan for Change. 3. Over recent years, proper control and management of the immigration system has been lost. While much attention has rightly been focused on the surge in illegal migration across the Channel, reaching a peak of 45,744 small boat arrivals in 2022, there has been less focus on the rapid increase in the levels of legal net migration since 2019. Levels of net migration were approximately 200,000 per year throughout most of the 2010s and have risen from 224,000 in the year to June 2019 to a record high of 906,000 in the year ending June 2023- a four-fold increase in the space of under four years. 1 4. At the same time as a significant expansion in overall levels of migration, driven by particularly by non-EU nationals and their dependants coming to the UK for work and study, the mix of visa holders also changed – shifting increasingly away from higher-skilled migration, and towards lower-skilled migration. 5. Those unsustainably high levels of migration have also added extra demand to our public services and our housing supply during a decade when both are already stretched, adding to pressure on key services and the housing market, and fragmenting social relations. High levels of migration can also result in widespread labour exploitation, as migrant workers’ rights are violated, and employers who play by the rules are undercut. 6. It is this Government’s intention to restore confidence in the immigration system, so that we can support and see benefits from migration whilst ensuring it is properly controlled and is not used as an alternative to fixing problems here in the UK. That is what this White Paper seeks to achieve. THE CASE FOR CHANGE 7. Net migration hit a record high of +906,000 in June 2023 and quadrupled from its level of 224,000 in June 2019. In the latest data, for the year ending June 2024, net migration was +728,000. While levels of net migration have come down slightly in the latest year, it remains significantly above the level of net migration at any period in recent history, having averaged between 200,000 to 300,000 per year from 2010 to 2019.2 8. Recent high levels of net migration have been driven by non-EU nationals and their dependants coming to the UK for work, study, and humanitarian reasons. This includes temporary factors such as humanitarian migration from Ukraine and Hong Kong. Recent policy changes have reduced the number of migrants particularly on the health and care and study routes. 9. The recent significant increases followed the introduction of new immigration policies in 2020, following the UK's departure from the EU – a system which made a number of key changes as part of the transition to a single EU/non-EU set of rules, including reducing the overall skills threshold for migration from degree-level (Regulated Qualifications Framework Level 6 or RQF 6) to A-Level-equivalent (RQF 3), and setting a new basic salary threshold for all countries at £25,600.

London: UK Government, 2025. 82p. Annex; 15p.

By Ilias Chatzis, et al.

Illicit $nancial %ows (IFFs) – $nancial %ows that are illicit in origin, transfer, or use, that re%ect an exchange of value and cross country borders – are major impediments to sustainable development. !ey divert important resources away from state revenue and public investments, foster impunity, and ultimately erode criminal justice systems as a whole. !e harmful e&ects of illicit $nancial %ows and the need to reduce them are demonstrated by their inclusion in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as Target 16.4. It stipulates the goal to “signi$cantly reduce illicit $nancial %ows and arms %ows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime”. Progress towards this target is measured by SDG Indicator 16.4.1 (the “total value of inward and outward IFFs in current US dollars”), for which UNODC is the custodian together with UNCTAD. Organized crimes vary in their characteristics, objectives, and the extent to which they cross national borders. Consequently, the amount and nature of the IFFs they generate also varies. Given the transnational nature of smuggling of migrants (SOM) and cross-border tra"cking in persons (TIP), monitoring and combatting IFFs is crucially important for disrupting, prosecuting, and dismantling the organized criminal networks committing these dangerous crimes. !is Study focuses on the trends, nuances, and complexities surrounding IFFs associated with smuggling of migrants and tra"cking in persons into the European Union (EU), with speci$c attention paid to those relating to GLO.ACT partner countries.1 It is based on an analysis of available data, $eld research $ndings, and review of secondary literature. Smuggling of migrants For smuggling of migrants, the $ndings of this Study con$rm that the GLO.ACT partner countries are signi$cant countries of origin of smuggled people into Europe. According to Frontex, there were a total of 184,323 attempts at irregular entry into the EU by people from the four GLO.ACT partner countries during the $ve years between January 2018 and December 2022.2 According to Europol and Interpol, more than 90 per cent of irregular entries into the EU are facilitated by smugglers.3 !us, based on the detection of irregular entry attempts, it can be estimated that nearly 166,000 were smuggling incidents. As both the payment for and the cost of facilitating such smuggling generate IFFs, it follows that smuggling of migrants relating to GLO.ACT partner countries generates considerable IFFs. !e Study has also found that, from 2018 to 2021, the Eastern Mediterranean Sea route had been the route most commonly used by people from GLO.ACT partner countries to irregularly enter the EU.4 However, the trend changed in 2022 when the Western Balkans land route became the most popular for people from GLO.ACT partner countries. !is is apparent from the interceptions during 2022: there were 31,980 total detections for the Western Balkans land route followed by the Central Mediterranean Route with 15,062 total detections.5 !e Western Balkans route involves refugees and migrants leaving Türkiye, traveling through Greece or Bulgaria, exiting the EU, and traveling through North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and/or Albania before re-entering the EU via Hungary, Croatia, or Romania. !e Central Mediterranean Route is dominated by Libyan smuggling networks, who charge an average of US$1,500 - $1,800 per client to smuggle them from Libya to Italy by boat.6 In 2017, the peak year for arrivals on this route, organized criminal groups running smuggling operations along this route were estimated to have earned a gross income of $150 million. However, this income decreased to just over €24 million in 2018, and to €12 million in 2019.7 Trafcking in persons For tra"cking in persons, the type of tra"cking actors, forms of exploitation and victim pro$les heavily in%uence the size, modalities, and directions of IFFs. !e most pro$t tends to be made in the exploitation phase, as the %ow of revenue is continuous rather than one-o&. Tra"cking for forced labour and sexual exploitation are the most common forms of exploitation and provide for repeated pro$ts from continued exploitation. For IFFs associated with tra"cking in persons, an important distinction can be made between domestic tra"cking and cross-border tra"cking. Domestic tra"cking is less likely to generate IFFs – which are cross-border in nature – unless the perpetrator, the victim or other actors involved have their centre of economic interest outside the country. !e UNODC Global Report on Tra"cking in Persons 2022 indicates that an overwhelming majority (99 per cent) of detected victims of tra"cking in South Asia8 are domestically tra"cked. However, the data also indicates an increase in the number of detected South Asian victims identi$ed in other regions of the world. In fact, the tra"cking victims from GLO.ACT partner countries are among the most commonly detected nationalities from outside the region in Western and Southern Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom, Türkiye and Italy.9 It can thus be assumed that IFFs associated with cross-border tra"cking in persons from the GLO.ACT partner countries have been increasing in the recent years. Furthermore, as UNODC Global Reports on Tra"cking in Persons records only the administrative data on cases identi$ed by the authorities in the respective countries, it is likely that a signi$cant proportion of tra"cking cases and attendant IFFs go undetected. In the case of smuggling of migrants and tra"cking in persons from GLO.ACT partner countries, IFFs are generated through cash payments, value transfers using the hawala system, and to a lesser extent, money transfer service providers. !is poses challenges in responding to IFFs related to smuggling and tra"cking, as the majority of cases involve payment and transfer methods that are not easily traceable. !e illicit income made by smugglers and tra"ckers are largely spent in three ways: (a) sent back to the country of origin, often invested in legal businesses such as restaurants, bars, or real estate; (b) used to support a lavish lifestyle, generating IFFs related to consumer goods; and (c) invested in other criminal or legitimate activities in the destination country. All such uses may generate IFFs. Not only do the crimes of migrant smuggling and tra"cking in persons seriously endanger the lives, safety and well-being of the individuals being smuggled or tra"cked, but they also generate signi$cant sums of illicit $nancial %ows. !is ultimately undermines state institutions, promotes impunity, and further bolsters the means of criminals involved. An enhanced understanding and investigation of illicit $nancial %ows is a crucial step towards more e&ective disruption, prosecution and dismantling of migrant smuggling and tra"cking networks.

Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime - UNODC, 2023. 86p.

By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Doris Meissner and Andrew Selee

A new reality has set in across the Western Hemisphere since 2020 as migrant families, unaccompanied children, and adults from an increasingly diverse array of origin countries have embarked on journeys through the region. The United States, in particular, has faced significant challenges in managing its borders, but transit countries along migration routes and other existing and emerging destination countries have similarly faced new migration challenges and a need to fundamentally transform their policy responses. Many governments have responded to this new reality by building a sense of shared responsibility and deepening their collaboration on migration management, albeit at different levels given their uneven institutional capacities and resources. Whether and how the policies and hemispheric cooperation that have emerged will continue are now in the hands of the new administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Since taking office in January 2025, the Trump administration has been rewriting the U.S. relationship with Mexico, as well as with other partners across the Americas. The Biden administration’s focus on collaboration, which privileged a mixture of jointly negotiated migration controls, legal pathways, and selected returns, has been supplanted by a strategy based on large-scale deportations and tariff threats to compel Mexico to take even greater steps to stop unauthorized migration and drug trafficking. Despite the changed priorities and style, the basic truth remains that both governments fundamentally need each other to accomplish their policy objectives. But despite the changed priorities and style, the basic truth remains that both governments fundamentally need each other to accomplish their policy objectives, whether termed border control and migration management or national security. No country has been more critical to U.S. border enforcement efforts than Mexico, which has recorded more migrant encounters in its territory than the U.S. Border Patrol has at the southwest border every month since May 2024. Mexican policies have been central catalysts for sustained reductions in unauthorized migration at the U.S.-Mexico border that began in 2024 and have continued under the countries’ new administrations. Understanding the complexity of shifting migration patterns, institutional capacity in both countries, and other shared challenges is there fore crucial in the longer term to bilateral, and likely hemispheric, negotiations and goals. Drawing on interviews and two roundtables with U.S. and Mexican policy stakeholders, researchers, and leaders of international and civil-society organizations in 2024, this policy brief rounds out prior Migration Policy Institute work on U.S. border enforcement by providing an account of recent shifts in unauthorized migration and humanitarian protection trends, and the role the U.S.-Mexico relationship has played—and will continue to play—in responding to these new migration realities. To overcome future challenges in migration management, it contends that Mexico and the United States need to work together to: 1) establish a transparent infrastructure for border security and protection screening at the Mexico-Guatemala border; 2) break the grip of cross-national migrant smuggling organizations; and 3) strengthen labor pathways between Mexico and the United States. Given their geographic proximity and shared policy interests, the United States and Mexico are inseparable. Long-term management of migration requires working in good faith across both sides of the border and recognizing the successes of bilateral collaboration in recent years, which have illustrated how indispensable Mexican migration enforcement and protection operations are to U.S. policy aims and how vital unwavering U.S. support is for those operations. As the new administrations in Mexico City and Washington, DC set their courses for the period ahead, they would do well to advance their respective national interests by incorporating strategies that address the deeper complexities of irregular movement, consider the lessons from prior hemispheric collaboration and leadership models, and promote migration through channels that are legal, safe, and orderly

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute , 2025. 18p.

By Frédéric Docquier, Hillel Rapoport.

We investigate the relationship between immigration and right-wing populism, which we characterize as a self-reinforcing process. Anti-immigrant rhetoric and populist policies lead to a deterioration in the skill level of immigrants. This in turn fuels populist support. Historical and contemporary studies are suggestive of such dynamics. In particular, recent cross-country evidence shows that low-skill immigration tends to exacerbate populism, while high-skill immigration tends to mitigate it. Conversely, populist policies and xenophobic attitudes have a strong repulsive effect on highly-skilled immigrants and result in adverse immigrant selection. We use the empirical results from those studies to inform a theoretical model of joint determination of immigrants’ skill-ratio and right-wing populism levels. The model displays multiple equilibria. In this framework, structural trends such as internet penetration, erosion of the middle class, demographic pressure from poor countries or adverse cyclical shocks make the inferior equilibrium – the vicious circle of xenophobia -- more likely.

IZA DP No. 17754

Published in: Economic Policy, 2025, 40 (122), 551–573.

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2025. 21p.

By CJ McKinney

A white paper is a government document that proposes important policy changes, including new legislation. The attached briefing summarises seven white papers on immigration, asylum and citizenship issued over the past 60 years: Immigration from the Commonwealth, August 1965 Proposals for revision of the immigration rules, November 1979 British nationality law, July 1980 Fairer, faster and firmer, July 1998 Secure borders, safe haven, February 2002 The UK’s future skills-based immigration system, December 2018 Restoring control over the immigration system, May 2025 While the list provides a snapshot of issues that were important at different points in recent history, it is not a comprehensive survey of shifts in immigration policy. Many major changes were not preceded by a white paper.

London: House of Commons Library, 2025. 9p.

By Lucy Hovil, Sasha Jesperson and Jennifer Vallentine, with assistance from Julia Litzkow, Maël Galisson and Hugo Eduardo Jovel Majano

Against the backdrop of increasingly restrictive migration policies, this study explores recent irregular migration dynamics to the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom(UK). It aims to understand how migration and smuggling dynamics have shifted since 2023 and the impact of these shifts on people on the move. It also considers the trends and changes that may continue to emerge in the face of increasing migration restrictions in Europe.

Mixed Migration Centre, 2025. 43p.

By Jonathan Haggerty and Arthur Rizer

After the Trump administration implemented its “zero tolerance” immigration policy in early 2018, stories of children being ripped from their mother’s arms and extended family separations emerged. Initially, administration officials denied the existence of any policy aimed at separating families at the border. Others later claimed the separations were unintentional. However, a recent review of a leaked report from the Office of the Inspector General reveals both claims were false. This report revealed staff members from the White House and the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security met on multiple occasions to craft a plan, which they knew would separate migrant children from their parents, with the explicit goal of deterring illegal border crossings. The resulting outrage eventually prompted President Trump to partially rescind the “zero tolerance” policy and fueled the political left’s opposition to the Trump administration’s handling of immigration laws. As a new administration takes office, immigration advocates have produced an exhaustive list of border policies for the Biden White House to repeal, but this administration will have to prioritize which of the Trump-era immigration regulations to address first. And, while the political left undoubtedly presents a strong case against the “zero tolerance” prosecutions undertaken by its predecessor, a robust set of conservative arguments against this policy offers the Biden administration ample, cross-ideological support for a new approach.

R STREET POLICY STUDY NO. 212 November 2020, 7p.

By Melanie Gower

There is a long history of cooperation between the UK and France over immigration controls at their shared borders. This has been formalised through a series of bilateral agreements, including the Sangatte Protocol (1991) and the Treaty of Le Touquet (2003). The latter allowed for France and the UK to carry out immigration controls in each other’s territories at seaports. The Sandhurst Treaty (2018) provided a legal framework for broader cooperation on border and migration issues. Early agreements addressed security around the Channel Tunnel and ferry terminals and preventing people crossing the border by hiding in vehicles. Since 2019 cooperation has focused on small boat crossings. Small boats have been the predominant recorded method of irregular arrival in the UK since 2020. The Home Office says 82 organised criminal gangs responsible for people smuggling by small boats have been “dismantled” since a Joint Intelligence Cell with France was established in July 2020. UK funding commitments Many border control agreements since 2014 have had associated funding commitments. The UK will provide €541 million (around £476 million at the time of the agreement) between 2023/24 and 2025/26, under a three-year deal made in March 2023. France is due to make an unspecified “substantial and continuing” contribution. How is the effectiveness of UK spending assessed? There is limited official information published about how the funding attached to successive agreements is spent and monitored. The government says France and the UK jointly assess the impact of cooperation and funding through regular strategic reviews. The government doesn’t publish details of review outcomes. It says doing so could undermine border security controls and the UK-France relationship.

Recent statistics The UK–France Joint Leaders’ Declaration issued in March 2023 included an agreement to increase the interception rate of boats crossing the English Channel and to “drastically reduce the number of crossings year on year”. Fewer people and boats were detected arriving in the UK in 2023 compared with 2022. The number of people intercepted and returned to France was also lower. • 36% fewer people were detected arriving by small boats in 2023 than in 2022. The Home Office says this is largely explained by a 93% reduction in Albanian nationals arriving by small boats 2023, which it attributes to recent partnership work between the UK and Albania. Arrivals of other nationalities reduced by 14% overall. • 46% fewer boats were detected arriving in the UK without permission in 2023 than in 2022, although the average number of people in each boat increased from 41 to 49. • France prevented fewer crossing attempts in 2023 than in 2022. The Home Office says this reflects the decline in the overall number of crossing attempts in 2023. Data for the first nine months of 2024 shows the number of people arriving in small boats (25,244) was slightly more than for the same period in 2023 (24,830). This is despite fewer boats (479) arriving in the first nine months of 2024 than over the same period in 2023 (506). More recent provisional data shows significantly more people and boats arrived in October and November 2024 compared to in 2023. The Home Office has cited weather conditions as a relevant factor. Topical issues Some stakeholders, including Border Force unions, some MPs, and migrants’ rights advocates, have criticised agreements between the UK and France for falling short of what they think is needed to address unauthorised border crossings. Their alternative suggestions have included powers for French law enforcement to arrest and detain intercepted migrants; powers for UK counterparts in France; and enhanced safe and legal routes for asylum seekers wishing to come to the UK. There have been reports of French police intervening more to prevent small boat departures since the 2023 UK-France funding agreement. Some commentators have linked the increased funding with an increase in migrant fatalities in 2024. Recent UK governments have wanted formal agreements with European states to return unauthorised migrants who travel to the UK. So far, the Labour government has prioritised practical cooperation with neighbouring countries over pursuing a formal returns agreement with the EU.

London: UK House of Commons Library, 2024. 31p.