By The American Immigration Council

The first six months of the second Donald J. Trump administration have arguably seen the most significant changes to U.S. immigration policy in the nation’s history. Taken one by one, as they have been announced or revealed, the effect can be overwhelming: it seems impossible to even comprehend everything that has happened, much less to understand it in a systematic way or to anticipate what might come next. The purpose of this report is not to recapitulate the last six months of chronology. Nor is it to contextualize the last six months within the history of immigration policy. The administration is simultaneously continuing some policy trends in place under the previous administration; taking latent powers within immigration law and using them as a matter of course; reanimating laws whose enactment predates the modern immigration system; and asserting wholly new powers that have never existed in law before. Lists like these can make anyone feel as though they have no idea what is actually going on. We aim to do the opposite of that: to provide a framework for the American people to understand what has been done to noncitizens, the communities in which they live, and the entire U.S. immigration system since January 20, 2025. We hope this framework will remain useful as the Trump administration continues its effort to fundamentally transform the American government, character, and role in the world. Our report is organized as a survey of the immigration policy landscape as of mid-2025, seeking to answer three key questions: The first six months of the second Donald J. Trump administration have arguably seen the most significant changes to U.S. immigration policy in the nation’s history. Taken one by one, as they have been announced or revealed, the effect can be overwhelming: it seems impossible to even comprehend everything that has happened, much less to understand it in a systematic way or to anticipate what might come next. The purpose of this report is not to recapitulate the last six months of chronology. Nor is it to contextualize the last six months within the history of immigration policy. The administration is simultaneously continuing some policy trends in place under the previous administration; taking latent powers within immigration law and using them as a matter of course; reanimating laws whose enactment predates the modern immigration system; and asserting wholly new powers that have never existed in law before. Lists like these can make anyone feel as though they have no idea what is actually going on. We aim to do the opposite of that: to provide a framework for the American people to understand what has been done to noncitizens, the communities in which they live, and the entire U.S. immigration system since January 20, 2025. We hope this framework will remain useful as the Trump administration continues its effort to fundamentally transform the American government, character, and role in the world. Our report is organized as a survey of the immigration policy landscape as of mid-2025, seeking to answer three key questions.

Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, 2025. 74p.

By Andrés Dae Keun Kwon

Los Angeles County has a proud history of providing public defenders to people who cannot afford a lawyer to defend them in criminal court. On January 9, 1914, the county opened the first public defender office in the United States. In addition to being first, this office is the biggest in the nation. The Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office (LACPD) currently employs about 700 public defenders, who handle approximately 300,000 criminal cases a year. And yet there is a crisis today in our county’s public defender system. In particular, LACPD has been grossly under-resourced as measured against recommended staffing ratios and compared to other California public defender offices. As a result, LACPD underserves a large and vital segment of the Los Angeles population: the immigrant community. This report, Defend L.A., examines the failures of the county’s public defender system and demands legal representation that, at a minimum, meets the standards of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S Constitution for all Los Angeles community members— including immigrants. The report documents many cases in which LACPD’s noncitizen clients pleaded to criminal dispositions triggering severe immigration consequences when more immigration-favorable alternative dispositions were available. Uninformed and unaware, LACPD’s noncitizen clients have pleaded guilty only to face mandatory deportation and permanent separation from family, community, and home—the loss “of all that makes life worth living.

Los Angeles: American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, 2018. 80p.

By Abigail Andrews And the students of the Mexican Migration Field Research Program

The world is changing so fast that it's hard to know how to think about what we ought to do. We barely have time to reflect on how scientific advances will affect our lives before they're upon us. New kinds of dilemma are springing up. Can robots be held responsible for their actions? Will artificial intelligence be able to predict criminal activity? Is the future gender-fluid? Should we strive to become post-human? Should we use drugs to improve our intimate relationships — or to reduce crime? Our intuitions about questions like these are often both weak and confused. David Edmonds has put together a philosophical task force to get to grips with these challenges. Twenty-nine philosophers present provocative and engaging pieces about aspects of life today, and life tomorrow — birth and death, health and medicine, brain and body, personal relationships, wrongdoing and justice, the internet, animals, and the environment. The future won't look the same when you've finished this book.

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023.

By Antonella Bandiera, Lelys Dinarte, Sandra Rozo, Carlos Schmidt-Padilla, Micaela Sviatschi, Hernan. Winkler    

  Can repatriation inflows impact firm behavior in origin countries? This paper examines this question in the context of repatriation inflows from the United States and Mexico to El Salvador. The paper combines a rich longitudinal data set covering all formal firms in El Salvador with individual-level data on all registered repatriations from 2010 to 2017. The empirical strategy combines variation in the municipality of birth of individuals repatriated over 1995–2002—before a significant change in deportation policies—with annual variation in aggregate inflows of repatriations to El Salvador. The findings show that repatriations have large negative effects on the average wages of formal workers. This is mainly driven by formal firms in sectors that face more intense competition from the informal sector, which deportees are more likely to join. Repatriation inflows also reduce total employment among formal firms in those sectors. Given that most deportees spend less than a month abroad, these findings suggest that the experience of being detained and deported can have strong negative effects not only on the deportees, but also on their receiving communities.  

  Policy Research Working Paper 9521. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2021. 39p.

By James Feigenbaum, Jesse Baker and Austin Brooksby  

  This paper provides a macroeconomic perspective on the costs and benefits of two very different immigration policy changes—mass deportation and legalization—in comparison to the status quo of allowing illegal immigrants to broadly remain in the country under precarious circumstances. A macroeconomic analysis can capture the economy-wide impact of immigration policies on wages, employment, the government budget, and the stock of productive capital. To provide intuition, the paper begins with a simple analysis before adding layers of complexity that capture how immigration affects the economy. Although the results are sensitive to the assumptions used in the analysis, we find that over a broad range of parameters mass deportation creates worse economic outcomes for US citizens relative to both the status quo and to a policy providing for legalization.  

Logan, UT: The Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, 2020. 18p.