Author: Reporter

As immigration remains a hotly contested priority for the Trump administration after playing a decisive role in the deeply polarized election, the Border Patrol agents tasked with enforcing many of its laws are wrestling with growing challenges on and off the job. More are training to become chaplains to help their peers as they tackle security threats, including the powerful cartels that control much of the border dynamic, and witness growing suffering among migrants — all while policies in Washington keep shifting and public outrage targets them from all sides. “The hardest thing is, people … don’t know what...

Last time Donald Trump was president, rumors of immigration raids terrorized the Oregon community where Gustavo Balderas was the school superintendent. Word spread that immigration agents were going to try to enter schools. There was no truth to it, but school staff members had to find students who were avoiding school and coax them back to class. “People just started ducking and hiding,” Balderas said. Educators around the country are bracing for upheaval, whether or not the president-elect follows through on his pledge to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally. Even if he only talks...

Winston Leiva rattles off a long list of things immigrants should do to protect themselves against Donald Trump’s promise to conduct mass deportations when he returns to the White House. Make a plan for someone to care for your children if you are arrested. Do not open the door unless authorities slip a signed judicial warrant under it. And above all, exercise your right to remain silent. “We already know this administration,” Leiva told participants of a bilingual workshop in Los Angeles for immigrants who want to stay in the United States. “The truth is we don’t know to...

Immigration in 2024 drove U.S. population growth to its fastest rate in 23 years as the nation surpassed 340 million residents, the U.S. Census Bureau said in December. The almost 1% growth rate this year was the highest it has been since 2001, and it was a marked contrast to the record low of 0.2% set in 2021 at the height of pandemic restrictions on travel to the United States, according to the annual population estimates. Immigration this year increased by almost 2.8 million people, partly because of a new method of counting that adds people who were admitted...

A growing number of U.S. colleges and universities are advising international students to return to campus before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated, over concerns that he might impose travel bans like he did during his first administration. More than a dozen schools have issued advisories, even though Trump’s plans remain uncertain. At some schools, the spring semester begins before Trump will take office, so students may have to be back in class anyway. But for anyone whose ability to stay in the United States depends on an academic visa, they say it is best to reduce their risks and...