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Unpublished paper, 2020. 61p.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.

Edited by Bridget Anderson

This collection investigates how to rethink migration without reinforcing it as a problematic subject. The book illustrates that conceptually based, critical and creative thinking is as important for practice as it is for theory and can help us understand and respond to migration as a force that connects rather than divides.

Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2025.

By Stevie Glaberson, Emerald Tse & Emily Tucker, 

In every cell in your body, there resides a complete copy of your genetic code. As you moveabout the world, you shed cells without even realizing it, leaving your DNA, like a geneticcalling card, wherever you go. You probably don’t think about the trail you’re leaving. Itwouldn’t really matter if you did, because you can’t stop shedding cells, and you can’t leave your DNA at home.

But what if the government had access to a copy of your DNA and could track you based on thisinvoluntary, unstoppable trail without your consent? How would it change your behavior toknow that the government had a drop of your blood — or saliva — containing your “entiregenetic code, which will be kept indefinitely in a government-controlled refrigerator in awarehouse in Northern Virginia”?1 Would you feel free to seek out the medical or reproductivecare you needed? To attend protests and voice dissent? To gather together with the people ofyour choosing?This dystopia is fast becoming reality for millions of people, many of them already vulnerablebecause of over-policing, excessive surveillance, or economic insecurity. The federal governmentis amassing a huge trove of DNA, starting with a racialized, often traumatized, and politicallypowerless group: noncitizens. And it is using the federal agency that operates with the fewestpractical constraints and least oversight — the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — todo it. That’s what this report is about.In the waning days of the Trump administration, riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment andwith the resources of the immigrant rights movement depleted by four years of emergencyresponses, the Department of Justice made what it billed as a technical, boring rule change: Iteliminated an exemption in the government’s existing DNA-collection rule that previously hadallowed DHS to refrain from building out a labor-intensive and expensive DNA-collectionprogram.In so doing, it effectively set off a bomb that had lain dormant in federal law since2005.3 The 2005 DNA Fingerprint Act — which passed with little public scrutiny as anamendment to the reauthorization bill for the popular Violence Against Women Act — for thefirst time extended compulsory DNA collection to people outside of the criminal legal context:detained noncitizens.4 But because of the exceptions in the implementing regulations, andbecause previous administrations thought it was a good idea to use those exceptions to avoidescalating DNA collection from noncitizens, DHS never mounted a large-scale DNA collectionprogram. That is, until 2020.This report, which is based on publicly available records, as well as interviews with people whohave had their DNA taken by immigration authorities and legal service providers working withthem, is the first attempt to examine in-depth what happened after the 2020 rule change, and toexplain the legal and political implications of these developments.

Washington, DC, Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law (2024)., 108p.

By Matt Herbert

On 7 May 2025, reports emerged that the US was preparing to deport irregular migrants to Libya. While no deportations had occurred as of mid-May, and the US government has neither confirmed nor denied such plans, the potential for expulsions has raised urgent concerns among international observers, particularly regarding Libya’s fragility, human rights conditions, and entrenched criminal economies.

This publication explores the multifaceted risks associated with these possible transfers. Authored by Dr. Matt Herbert, the report presents a detailed analysis of how migrant expulsions could exacerbate instability in Libya and fuel smuggling and extortion networks.

The brief underscores that deportations would risk reinforcing cycles of violence and impunity, placing vulnerable individuals in harm’s way and undermining regional stability. Rather than viewing deportations through short-term political calculus, the US should assess the long-term risks to its broader interests in Libya and the region that such a policy would entail.

Geneva: Global Initiative AGainst Transnational Organized Crime, 2025. 17p.

By Nina Wang, Allison McDonald, Daniel Bateyko and Emily Tucker

When you think about government surveillance in the United States, you likely think of the National Security Agency or the FBI. You might even think of a powerful police agency, such as the New York Police Department. But unless you or someone you love has been targeted for deportation, you probably don’t immediately think of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This report argues that you should. Our twoyear investigation, including hundreds of Freedom of Information Act requests and a comprehensive review of ICE’s contracting and procurement records, reveals that ICE now operates as a domestic surveillance agency. Since its founding in 2003, ICE has not only been building its own capacity to use surveillance to carry out deportations but has also played a key role in the federal government’s larger push to amass as much information as possible about all of our lives. By reaching into the digital records of state and local governments and buying databases with billions of data points from private companies, ICE has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time. In its efforts to arrest and deport, ICE has—without any judicial, legislative or public oversight—reached into datasets containing personal information about the vast majority of people living in the U.S., whose records can end up in the hands of immigration enforcement simply because they apply for driver’s licenses; drive on the roads; or sign up with their local utilities to get access to heat, water and electricity. ICE has built its dragnet surveillance system by crossing legal and ethical lines, leveraging the trust that people place in state agencies and essential service providers, and exploiting the vulnerability of people who volunteer their information to reunite with their families. Despite the incredible scope and evident civil rights implications of ICE’s surveillance practices, the agency has managed to shroud those practices in near-total secrecy, evading enforcement of even the handful of laws and policies that could be invoked to impose limitations. Federal and state lawmakers, for the most part, have yet to confront this reality. This report synthesizes what is already known about ICE surveillance with new information from thousands of previously unseen and unanalyzed records, illustrating the on-theground impact of ICE surveillance through three case studies—ICE access to driver data, utility customer data and data collected about the families of unaccompanied children.

Washington, DC: Center on Privacy & Technology at Georgetown Law , 2025. 114p.

By Cecilia Schenetti, Valentina Mazzucato, Sally Wyatt, Djamila Schans

European states employ migration information campaigns (MICs) to discourage irregular migration to Europe by people from the Global South. Campaigns are justified by their initiators in various ways. On the one hand, campaigns are said to protect ‘potential migrants’ by helping them to make informed decisions (‘care’). On the other hand, campaigns respond to Europe's security objective of restricting migration flows (‘control’). Researchers have looked at various intermediaries involved in these campaigns. Yet, little attention has been given to individual European policy actors who decide on the funding and design of campaigns and how they navigate between campaigns' contradictory intentions to care for ‘potential migrants’ and to control borders. How do European campaign initiators justify the need for MICs? And what does this tell us about the migration imaginaries of those who develop migration governance measures? Based on interviews with European policymakers and campaign designers in the Netherlands and Senegal, this article examines their discursive acts of legitimation. It shows that in justifying their everyday work, they imagine themselves as humanitarian actors, and ‘potential migrants’ as depoliticized subjects in need of care. While initiators do sometimes examine campaigns critically, they build a worldview in which care is instrumental to border enforcement and in which compassion becomes a form of repressive ‘soft’ bordering.

International Migration, Volume63, Issue3 June 2025, 14p.

By Tadgh McMahon, Sukhmani Khorana, Ingrid Culos, Liam Magee, Emilie Baganz

COVID-19 resulted in global restrictions on migration, with pronounced consequences in Australia, where the resettlement of refugees was significantly curtailed from March 2020. This research, comprising a third phase in an ongoing study on refugee settlement and integration, seeks to understand the broader implications of these restrictions on family separation and reunion among resettled refugees in Australia. Employing a mixed-method approach of surveys and family interviews conducted in late 2021, we explored various themes that emerged from the pandemic's effects on family reunion, such as concerns about living difficulties, maintaining contact with family overseas, financial hardship, and reunion challenges specific to the pandemic. The findings reveal the negative impact of COVID-19 on refugees' ability to reunite with families, with evidence pointing to differences between gender, visa category, and language group/ethnicity. The research underscores the need for innovative approaches in resettlement to address the negative impacts of family separation and for governments to expedite family reunion pathways to alleviate isolation and uncertainty among resettled refugees.

International Migration, Volume63, Issue3, June 2025, 20p.

By Bridget Collrin, Harald Bauder

The concept of migration governance has captured scholarly attention in recent decades. In this paper, we present the results of a bibliometric analysis and a scoping review of this concept and explore how it is defined by authors across the social sciences. Based on our sample of literature, we find that a majority of definitions assume a state-sovereignty perspective of migration governance, leading to discussions that can fail to account for the role of migrant rights and autonomy. Our review reflects upon this result and discusses other findings on the conflation of migration governance with migration management and on the significance of externalized, multi-level and transnational migration governance in the literature. We conclude that migration governance is a complex concept that must pay closer attention to migrant rights and autonomy.

International Migration, Volume63, Issue3, June 2025, 17p.

By Matthew Lisiecki, Kevin Velasco, and Tara Watson

The Trump administration has begun to carry out activities connected to its campaign promise of a nationwide mass deportation program for undocumented immigrants. What will this mean for the estimated 5.62 million U.S. citizen children with an undocumented household member, and for the state and local child welfare systems charged with protecting their safety and well-being?

Changes in immigration enforcement policy

In fiscal years 2021 through 2024, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested around 125,000 immigrants in the nation’s interior each year and deported an average of 38,000. These numbers were lower than during the first Trump administration, which in turn were lower than during Obama’s first term.

Under Biden, immigrants most often came to the attention of ICE through the criminal justice system because they were already in custody of local law enforcement. Fewer than half were “at large” arrests in the community, meaning enforcement activity was mainly focused on those in contact with local jails and prisons. In addition to a more aggressive border stance, the Trump administration has signaled its intention to ramp up and broaden interior enforcement.

In his first term, Trump slightly increased enforcement, but the bigger change was making it more chaotic and unpredictable. This pattern appears to be resuming in 2025. The administration has revoked the sensitive locations guidance that previously prevented enforcement activity in hospitals, schools, and churches, with legal challenges underway. It has expanded expedited removal for migrants who recently crossed the border—which bypasses the usual legal process for undocumented residents—to include anyone arriving in the last two years encountered anywhere in the United States. The recently passed Laken Riley bill requires the detention of any undocumented person charged with certain crimes, even if not convicted, including crimes as trivial as shoplifting. The administration has also amplified efforts to involve state and local law enforcement through the 287(g) program, and has shifted priorities across federal agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) away from their usual work toward immigration enforcement. And in mid-March Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which is contested in court but would allow deportations of Venezuelans without the usual due process protections.

It is too early to know how much the numbers of arrests and deportations will increase. Certainly, the administration may fall short of its stated goal of deporting all undocumented immigrants, but between enforcement activities already underway and immigrants faced with no good options electing to leave the country—so-called “self-deportation”—the level of enforcement will be significant from an economic and humanitarian perspective. There will also be chilling effects on activities including free speech, appearing in public, seeking medical care, and going to work as immigrant communities struggle to make sense of the new policy environment.

Washington, DC: Brookings, 2025. 16p.

By Immigration Equality, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), and Human Rights First

Asylum in the United States is a lifesaving necessity for LGBTQ and HIV-positive people. For decades, many have fled to the United States to seek refuge from persecution and torture. However, the United States subjects hundreds of thousands of people yearly, including LGBTQ and HIV-positive people, to its massive network of jails and prisons. These jails, run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are infamous for their inhumane and abusive conditions. For LGBTQ and HIV-positive people, these conditions routinely include high rates of physical and sexual violence, improper and prolonged solitary confinement, and inadequate medical care among other forms of systemic abuse and neglect. For this report, Immigration Equality, the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC), and Human Rights First (HRF) surveyed 41 LGBTQ and HIV-positive immigrants who were detained by CBP and ICE. This survey revealed: • Approximately one third of survey participants (18 out of 41) reported sexual abuse, physical assaults or sexual harassment in immigration detention due to their LGBTQ identity; • Nearly all of the participants (35 out of 41), reported being targets of homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, racist, or other verbal and nonverbal abuse in ICE and CBP jails that included threats of violence and assault; • A majority of participants (28 out of 41) reported receiving inadequate medical care or asking for medical care and not receiving it while in ICE or CBP detention. • Nearly half of participants (20 out of 41) interviewed reported new or increased mental health symptoms while in detention, including hives, panic attacks, mental health crises, flashbacks, and self-harm; • Roughly half of participants (20 of 41) were subject to solitary confinement; • Nearly half of participants (18 of 41) reported having their sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV status or other confidential medical information disclosed in custody without their consent; • More than a quarter of survey participants (12 out of 41) reported that ICE or CBP separated them from their loved ones, whether a partner, spouse, or sibling; • Survey participants routinely struggled to access their attorneys or find one, while in ICE or CBP detention; • The majority of survey participants living with HIV (13 out of 17 participants) reported medical neglect or denial of medical HIV treatment. The executive branch and Congress can take steps to end this unnecessary suffering and protect the rights of LGBTQ/H individuals. These include steps to apply parole authority, issue guidance on vulnerable populations, support legislative action and phase out immigration detention.

Brooklyn, NY: Immigration Equality, 2024. 53p.

By ASEAN–Australia Counter Trafficking (ASEAN-ACT) with the support of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Migrant Forum in Asia

This study examines the linkages between wage theft and forced labour in labour migration within ASEAN, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on this phenomenon. The report seeks to provide an evidence base for policymakers on wage theft, and relatedly counter human trafficking and forced labour measures. The study was carried out in five countries in ASEAN- Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Philippines and Indonesia- to capture experiences in both countries of destination and origin. Interviews were conducted with 451 migrant workers and further in-depth key informant interviews and focus group discussions with 140 respondents. The study also assesses the impact of the policies and practices of the government and non-government stakeholders in ASEAN during the COVID-19 pandemic on the indicators of forced labour and incidence of wage theft. The findings of the research indicate a strong correlation between wage theft and migrant workers’ experience of forced labour during the pandemic. 31% of respondents reported experiencing wage theft, among whom 46% were found to also have likely been in conditions of forced labour. The high incidence of wage theft worsened their working and living conditions during employment and upon return to their home countries. Vulnerability to wage theft and forced labour also appears to be influenced by factors such as irregularity in the migration process, a lack of effective protection or support mechanisms, lack of information provided to migrants, poor access to services, violation or absence of contracts, and lack of prioritisation of policies for migrant workers. The policy interventions during the pandemic were largely not designed to protect migrant workers from forced labour and wage theft. While basic services such as access to health care and other emergency relief were provided, migrant workers lacked access to social protection, access to justice mechanisms and assistance to retrieve unpaid wages both in the countries of destination and origin. The report contains recommendations for the consideration of policymakers at national and regional levels, that may help to address the incidence of wage theft and forced labour, and therefore the wellbeing of migrant workers in ASEAN. In brief, the recommendations are: 1. Develop or improve complaints mechanisms for migrant workers to seek justice, without fear of immigration enforcement, retaliation, detention, or deportation. 2. Increase access to information for migrant workers’ rights protection, services provided by governments and others, including digital platforms. 3. Develop an ASEAN model standard labour contract to reduce the incidence of forced labour and related violations. 4. Support national and regional advocacy spaces to raise the linkage of wage theft and forced labour. 5. Implement a framework similar to the ILO's Fair Recruitment Guidelines to support improving recruitment practices by agents, brokers and those responsible for migrant worker policies1 . 6. Strengthen or establish platforms of cooperation for government and non-government stakeholders to coordinate in grievance redressal and ensuring retrieval of unpaid wages and other benefits. 7. Establish a forced labour referral mechanism in ASEAN, which includes missions, representatives of the destination country, NGOs and regional observers, to report, refer, and monitor forced labour activities. 8. Strengthen monitoring and reporting systems within diplomatic missions of countries of origin to document whether migrant workers are paid their due wages and benefits. 9. Establish a permanent transitional justice mechanism at regional ASEAN level to respond to cases of wage theft2 . 10. Establish or strengthen compensation funds for workers to receive unpaid wages and benefits, and related legal services, by both diplomatic missions of countries of origin and countries of destination.

ASEAN–Australia Counter Trafficking (ASEAN-ACT), 2024. 46p.

By Meghan Benton, Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan and Kate Hooper

Populist claims that immigration is chaotic, unlawful, and unfair are increasingly resonating even within societies whose members generally believe some level of immigration is needed to maintain economic competitiveness. This shift, which has pushed governments of all stripes toward greater restrictions and reduced the appetite for experimentation, comes at a particularly fraught time.

Advanced economies with aging populations are increasingly reliant on immigrants to sustain their workforces, but concerns about how population growth could affect the soaring cost of living and public infrastructure have caused support for even legal immigration to wane. Meanwhile, a perception of a loss of control over borders and immigrant admissions has prompted quick fixes, at the expense of longer-term, sustainable solutions.

This Transatlantic Council on Migration issue brief explores the factors behind this breakdown in immigration governance and lays out strategies for reform, drawing lessons from a range of countries. In particular, it makes the case that regular, long-term planning—while a tall order when governments are grappling with short-term pressures—will be essential if countries are to successfully navigate emerging demographic and economic challenges

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2025. 17p.

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. 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 Lucrezia Canzutti

The digitisation of borders has permeated academic and political debates, the image of ‘digital fortress Europe’ becoming normalised and taken for granted. This ‘taken for grantedness’, however, clashes with the reality on the ground and has important implications for migrants' rights and credibility. This paper seeks to supplement accounts that foreground the assumed omnipresence of digital technologies with an analysis of their concomitant absence. Drawing on fieldwork in Italy, it demonstrates how the discourse around digital borders sustains states' ‘epistemic borderwork’ and erases migrants' knowledge and rights claims. Overall, the paper reflects on which technologies are made absent and present at the EU borders, and how both absence and presence are imbricated in power relations that enable new forms of violence and reactivate legacies of subordination and domination.

International Migration, Volume 63, Issue 4, August 2025, 10p.

By Robert Warren

In 2023, the US undocumented population reached 12.2 million, exceeding the previous high of 12.0 million in 2008. This report provides estimates of the undocumented population in 2023 based on data collected in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS). The report focuses on trends in annual population growth from 2013 to 2023 for the total population and for 17 countries or areas of origin. It also describes trends in the undocumented population in the six states with the largest undocumented population in 2023.

The CMS estimates of undocumented residents include immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) programs, and the estimates include most of the people that have entered asylum backlogs or received humanitarian parole status since 2021. The estimates were derived using previous CMS estimation procedures except that higher undercount rates were used to estimate the number of undocumented residents that arrived after 2020.

Adjustment for undercount was increased for post-2020 arrivals to account for the unusually large flow across the US/Mexico border in recent years and because relatively more migrants resided in group quarters1 where enumeration can be difficult. The CMS methodology is summarized after the following section, and information about undercount rates for recent arrivals is shown in the Appendix.

Journal on Migration and Human Security, May 2025, 8p.