President Trump was elected in part because of his promise to overhaul immigration in America, cracking down on people who cross the border illegally and ramping up deportations across the country.
Nearly a year into his first term, his overhaul has been swift and dramatic, reshaping American families and communities. In the past week, after the shooting of two National Guard troops by an asylum recipient from Afghanistan, Trump’s crackdown on legal immigration pathways has escalated further.
Earlier this year, I asked for your questions about immigration, and you had hundreds. Today, I’m bringing you up-to-date answers from colleagues who cover immigration and more from all over the country — and the world.
Is seeking asylum no longer applicable when entering the U.S.? — Maureen Mercury, Palm Desert, Calif.
Hamed Aleaziz, who covers federal immigration policy, says:
On the first day of his presidency, President Trump moved to reduce access to asylum by barring migrants who crossed the border illegally from being eligible for it. The order was challenged in court, and it has been partially blocked.
But Trump went even further this past week by pausing all asylum applications filed by migrants inside the U.S. with the Department of Homeland Security. As of June, the agency had more than 1.5 million pending asylum applications.
The remaining way for people to get asylum is in immigration court — during deportation proceedings.
Exactly what is “the legal process” to become a citizen? — Fran Fischer, Schenectady, N.Y.
Madeleine Ngo, who covers immigration and economic policy, and Jazmine Ulloa, a New York-based immigration reporter, explain:
The process of applying for U.S. citizenship has for years been long and involved several steps, including an application, background checks, tests and an interview. One must first establish legal residency for a time, through visas, green cards or other forms of immigration relief that in themselves can be difficult to obtain.
This year, the Trump administration has further narrowed the path for legal immigration in different and significant ways. It created a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, which are granted to skilled foreign workers. And it’s harder now to become a U.S. citizen.
The administration has reinstated a more difficult civics test and stepped up social media vetting for people applying to naturalize. Immigration officers have also been directed to check for more “positive attributes,” like family caregiving and stable employment.
Since last week’s deadly shooting, the administration has rolled out the most sweeping set of policy changes yet to curtail legal immigration. It has barred Afghans from entering the country, and paused all immigration applications filed by immigrants from 19 countries, mostly from the Middle East or Africa, that it restricted from travel to the United States earlier this year. That’s in addition to the pause on asylum decisions that Hamed mentioned above.
That has resulted in canceled citizenship ceremonies and interviews for immigration status, and immigration lawyers have been left puzzled as their clients have been turned away from appointments for green cards and other forms of relief with no explanation. The changes, lawyers say, are also likely to further delay the path to citizenship for people in an already backlogged system.
What is the state of the U.S. refugee program? How many legal refugees have been deported? Other than the white South Africans, have any other refugees been granted entry? Where did the appropriated funds go that were promised, but rescinded, for refugee resettlement? — Marsha Campbell, Kansas City, Mo.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs, who covers the White House, tells us:
The Trump administration has drastically shrunk the U.S. refugee program designed to help those fleeing war and persecution across the globe. Applicants for the refugee program often wait years overseas before they are vetted to travel to the United States.
In October, the administration lowered the ceiling of refugee admissions to just 7,500 for the fiscal year that started that month, down from the cap of 125,000 set by the Biden administration last year. The administration is prioritizing those limited slots mostly for white Afrikaner South Africans, who once ran South Africa’s brutal apartheid system.
Almost every other refugee in the world faces a ban after Trump signed an executive order when he came into office freezing the program.
There have been limited exceptions. According to documents obtained by The New York Times, federal agencies worked this year to resettle a limited number of Afghans who helped U.S. soldiers during the war. But that will also probably stop after Trump’s recent crackdown on Afghans.
The administration is also considering other changes to the refugee program, including overhauling it to give preference to English-speaking applicants, like Europeans who have been “targeted for peaceful expression of views online such as opposition to mass migration or support for ‘populist’ political parties.” Those proposals have not yet been finalized.
As for the funding: According to a congressional staff member who was briefed on the refugee program and insisted on anonymity, at least some of the money for the program is available for three years, and some of it is most likely still being used on the limited number of Afrikaners resettled into the U.S.
When an immigrant is deported and sent somewhere other than their native country (for example to Uganda rather than El Salvador), what happens to them? — Angela Mack, Branford, Conn.
Julie Turkewitz, our Bogotá-based Andes bureau chief, writes:
Since taking office, the Trump administration has used the threat of being sent to a far-flung nation to try to deter illegal migration, and officials have sent hundreds of people to places that are not their native lands.
Receiving countries have included Panama and El Salvador in Latin America, and Eswatini in Africa.
A group of about 300 sent to Panama were locked in a hotel in Panama City, then in a jungle-side detention camp, before being freed. Some agreed to return to their home countries, while others were granted temporary legal status in Panama.
A group of more than 200 Venezuelan men sent to El Salvador spent four months in a maximum-security prison, and dozens of them later told The Times that they had experienced systematic abuse on the inside. Independent forensic experts told reporters that much of the abuse described met the United Nations definition of torture.
In July, the men were sent back to Venezuela. Many are living at home in Venezuela, according to interviews with The Times, while a small group was detained by the Venezuelan government, which has declined to comment on their whereabouts.
In other cases, like in Eswatini, migrants have also been detained in third countries before ultimately being sent home.
Why are ICE agents allowed to cover their faces when they are arresting people? How is that legal? — Susan F., Beacon, N.Y.
Sabrina Tavernise, a writer-at-large on American politics, says:
It is extremely unusual for law enforcement to wear masks in stable democracies, as I wrote this year. It also goes against the direction of things in the U.S., where police departments have been adopting more transparency, with tools like body cameras. But it is not technically illegal, and federal immigration officials say it’s necessary to prevent immigration officers from being doxxed.
However, a number of blue states and municipalities, including California, have been passing or proposing laws against it (as red states have done against mask-wearing by protesters). It is not yet clear how courts will respond.
Many industries including agriculture, building and hospitality rely on immigrant labor in the United States. Why hasn’t there been any immigration program reform? — Jim Russell, Ore.
Here’s Jennifer Medina, who covers national politics:
To put it simply: There’s been a lack of political will.
It has been nearly four decades — dating to the Reagan administration — since Congress passed a major immigration overhaul meant to both give legal status to the millions of immigrants then living illegally in the United States, while stopping any new flows of unauthorized immigration. In reality, the bill did little to stem the tide, and conservatives now often deride it as “amnesty.”
The backlash to that bill has shaped the immigration debate ever since, with Republicans demanding more and more restrictions before agreeing to relief for the roughly 14 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. The closest Washington has come to passing any major reform came in the first Obama administration, but a compromise bill passed by the Democratic-controlled Senate ultimately stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
Many business leaders, especially in agriculture, have pressed Republicans for some legal pathway to allow more immigrants to work in this country. Their demands for a legislative fix have been rebuffed by the Trump administration, although the president earlier this year directed his administration to ease enforcement in the hospitality and agriculture sectors.
Finally, many readers asked how the deportation of immigrants working in low-wage jobs has affected American businesses and the economy. Has it led to a labor crunch?
I brought that question to Lydia DePillis, who covers the American economy:
You’re right that many of those deported — currently up to 527,000, according to the Department of Homeland Security — work in typically low-wage industries. Undocumented immigrants are most concentrated in landscaping, domestic work, janitorial services, agriculture, meatpacking and construction.
It’s hard to know exactly how this is showing up in the labor market, particularly because so much of the data we would typically rely on has been delayed by the government shutdown. But so far, with a few isolated exceptions, deportations do not appear to have caused acute labor shortages because demand for those services has also been depressed. To the extent that employers are replacing their deported workers, they are most likely doing so with other immigrants who have similar skill sets.
Wages do not appear to be rising as a result. Pay for workers at the bottom of the income spectrum has fallen well behind high earners over the past year.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”
That was President Trump on Truth Social, after he announced that he would pardon Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, who was set to stand trial on charges of bribery and money laundering. Cuellar is a Democrat — but he has fiercely criticized former President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
It’s the latest example of how the question of who gets a pardon from Trump can seem, well, random. His pardons have undermined the work of his own Justice Department and even his policy priorities.
It often comes down to who has personally won him over. Indeed, Trump posted a letter from Cuellar’s daughters as he announced the pardon of their father.
TAKE OUR QUIZ
This question comes from a recent article in The Times. Click an answer to see if you’re right. (The link will be free.)
Numerous Republican voters in Georgia crossed party lines to power Democratic upsets in last month’s elections. Why did some of them say they opted for the Democratic candidates for the state’s utility’s board?
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The Democrats outperformed the incumbent Republicans in debates
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The incumbent Republicans were too receptive to the construction of data centers
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The Democrats hosted successful fund-raisers for 30 public schools
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The Republicans voted to replace a supermarket with a power plant
Hamed Aleaziz, Madeleine Ngo, Jazmine Ulloa, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Julie Turkewitz, Sabrina Tavernise, Jennifer Medina, Lydia DePillis, Ama Sarpomaa and Taylor Robinson contributed reporting.
Jess Bidgood is a managing correspondent for The Times and writes the On Politics newsletter, a guide to how President Trump is changing Washington, the country and its politics.
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