By Sofia Guimaraes (PO ’24) A few weeks ago, pictures of Haitian migrants being aggressively detained at the Mexico-U.S. border shocked the public and brought attention to Joe Biden’s immigration policies. Even though Biden ran his campaign on the promise of reforming the Trump administration’s immigration policy and made changes to the system in his first months of presidency...
Kenyamarie Mahone (PO ’23) The final Presidential debate on Thursday at Nashville’s Belmont University brought unexpected levels of professionalism from both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. After the chaos that unfolded during the first debate, it was unclear whether this one would offer any substance on either candidates’ platforms or policy goals. Fortunately, with the change in debate rules...
By: Calla Li (PO ’22) May 6, 2020; marks the 138-year-anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the only piece of immigration legislation in American history to exclude an ethnic group by name. At the time, economic anxiety ran high due to the increasingly fierce competition to find gold in Northern California, causing rising animosity against Chinese laborers for taking White American...
By Aditya Bhalla (PO ’23) Over the last few months, the coronavirus pandemic has caused a marked increase in racially motivated attacks and xenophobic sentiment, particularly towards the Asian-American community. As early as January, when the threat of the virus began to seep into media outlets around the world, anti-Asian rhetoric began filtering into the global psyche. French newspaper...
By Savannah Green (CMC ’20) The topic of citizenship in the United Kingdom and throughout Europe has been consistently discussed since the beginning of Brexit talks. Though the UK’s exit from the European Union is still not finalized, many EU citizens living in the UK (and vice versa) are worried about their status post-Brexit. EU citizenship brings a multitude of perks, including seamless...
By Kimberly Tuttle (CMC’19) Birth tourism, or birth immigration, is a phenomenon that occurs all over the world; it is the practice of traveling to another country for the purpose of giving birth in that place. The main motivation behind this practice is for the parents and children involved to obtain citizen status in a country with birthright citizenship. Canada, Hong Kong, and the U.S...
By Savannah Green (CMC ’20) On the evening of February 11, California Governor Gavin Newsom delivered his State of the State speech and defied Trump on border security, criticizing the “border emergency.” As seen in the news throughout Trump’s presidency, the president has large plans to build a wall along the border between Mexico and the United States. Trump has stressed the need for more...
By Daisy Ni (PO ’21) In light of the caravan of migrants, thousands in number, traveling from Central America toward the United States, President Trump has released a new series of startling anti-immigration policy Tweets, including the idea of banning asylum seekers. The administration has already taken steps over the past few years to reduce the number of asylum cases, which it sees as...
Conducted and transcribed by Ande Troutman (CMC ’19), Staff Writer As a founding member and executive director at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Lindsay Toczylowski has dedicated her career to advocating for and protecting immigrants’ access to a fair trial and due process. What challenges do immigration attorneys in today’s political climate face? How does the “good vs. bad” immigrant...
By Isaac Cui (PO ‘20), Senior Editor Introduction On February 10, Daniel Ramirez Medina was taken by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and placed in detention to await deportation proceedings. Having come to the United States at the age of seven, the 24-year-old registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.[1] DACA gives selected unauthorized migrants[2]...
