Many U.S. Colleges May Close Without Immigrants And International Students, Report Finds

2025/08/22 Leave a comment

Comparable dependence on international students:

Many U.S. colleges and universities could be forced to close if they’re not able to enroll as many immigrants and international students, according to a National Foundation for American Policy report. That would mean fewer schools for American students and less employment opportunity for U.S. workers in towns with local universities.

Data show a bleak picture without the foreign born. Current immigration policies, including toward international students, affect the future of U.S. higher education.

“Without immigrants, international students and the children of immigrants, the undergraduate student population in America would be almost 5 million students smaller in 2037 than 2022, or about two-thirds of its current size, while the graduate student population would be at least 1.1 million students smaller, or only about 60% of its current size,” according to the NFAP study.

The study’s author, Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, explains why foreign-born students are vital.

“U.S. colleges and universities face a looming demographic cliff. Due to the post-2007 drop in birth rates, the number of U.S.-born traditional college-age young adults is expected to start dropping in 2025,” writes Zavodny, who was an economist in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Source: Many U.S. Colleges May Close Without Immigrants And International Students, Report Finds

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French: Why a ‘Paleo-Confederate’ Pastor Is on the Rise

2025/08/15 Leave a comment

Depressing:

…This should tell us that white evangelical support for Republicans is far more cultural and tribal than it is ideological or (certainly) theological. As Ryan Burge, one of the nation’s foremost statisticians of American religions, has said, white evangelicals “vote for Trump because white evangelicals are Republicans, and Donald Trump is the standard-bearer of the G.O.P.”

As a practical matter, this reality puts the Republican nominee at the center of white evangelical politics. And if he wins, he instantly becomes the most influential political thinker in evangelical America, and his political ideology and temperament become the political ideology and temperament of millions of American evangelicals.

When you live in evangelical America (especially in the South), you experience the sheer power of its culture up close. It’s theologically tolerant and politically intolerant. You can believe many different things about matters as important as baptism, salvation and the role of women in your denomination.

But if you leave the Republican Party, much less publicly criticize Trump? Well, you’ll quickly find that political orthodoxy matters more than you could possibly imagine.

Do you want to know the cultural and political future of American evangelicalism, including the cultural and political future of men like Wilson? When the white smoke rises from Super Tuesday, the Republican Party won’t just choose a new political leader, evangelicals will choose their next political pope, the single-most-influential person in the church.

We should pray fervently that he or she is a better person than Donald Trump.

Source: Why a ‘Paleo-Confederate’ Pastor Is on the Rise

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USA: New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda

2025/08/08 Leave a comment

Incorrect title – not “may” but “will:”

The new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will likely focus the agency on the Trump administration’s anti-immigration agenda. On July 15, 2025, Joseph Edlow began as USCIS director following a Senate confirmation vote along party lines. Edlow’s job will be to implement the policies of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. The agenda will include restricting asylum, directing adjudicators to tighten the approval process for immigration benefits applications and ending or controlling the ability of international students to work in the United States after graduating from U.S. universities.

USCIS Will Be An Immigration Enforcement Agency

In an opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation, Joseph Edlow said, “USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency.” That sends a message to adjudicators: Treat applications similarly to those during Donald Trump’s first term, when denials increased and Requests for Evidence skyrocketed at USCIS.

In a question submitted to Edlow, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL), the committee’s ranking member, wrote, “The Homeland Security Act does not include language stating that USCIS is an immigration enforcement agency. . . . The statute makes clear that unlike ICE and Customs and Border Protection, USCIS’s primary mission is adjudication and processing of applications, not enforcement. Will you retract your inaccurate statement that ‘USCIS must be an immigration enforcement agency?’” Edlow replied in writing, “No. The statement was not inaccurate as the adjudication of immigration benefits is inherently an act of enforcement of the immigration laws.”

Jon Wasden of Wasden Law said the USCIS transition from a “service” to an “enforcement” agency began under Barack Obama and intensified during Donald Trump’s first term. He notes that even during the Biden administration, USCIS continued to take funds and reallocate them to the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate within USCIS, which he believes violates the Homeland Security Act. Wasden is harsh in his assessment: “Both parties have created an environment where applicants are seen as the enemy, treated as criminals, and officers are above the law. I wish I could lay all this at the feet of Stephen Miller, but his Democrat predecessors share the blame.”

Still, USCIS differed significantly under Joe Biden compared to Trump’s first term. The Biden administration’s final rule on H-1B visas proved to be far more favorable for employers, universities and high-skilled foreign nationals than anything produced during the Trump years. Policy experts viewed the Trump administration’s interim final rule on H-1B visas, which a court blocked for violating the Administrative Procedure Act, as designed to prevent, or at least discourage, employers from using the H-1B category by narrowing eligibility and piling on requirements. A Department of Labor interim final rule would have priced many H-1B visa holders and employment-based immigrants out of the U.S. labor market by inflating the required salaries.

“Positive actions the Biden administration took on high-skilled immigration included taking steps to issue an ‘unprecedented’ number of employment-based green cards, increasing the validity of Employment Authorization Documents for up to five years, providing favorable guidance for O-1A visas and national interest waivers and making it easier for some employment-based green card applicants to stay if they have ‘compelling circumstances,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “O-1A visa filings and requests for national interest waivers increased significantly after the new guidance.”

The NFAP analysis noted that the Trump administration carried out what judges found to be unlawful policies on H-1B visas for nearly four years. An H-1B is often the only practical way for a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, to work long term in the United States. Denial rates for H-1B petitions for initial employment reached 24% in FY 2018 and 21% in FY 2019, compared to 6% in FY 2015. (H-1B petitions for “initial” employment are primarily for new employment, typically a case that would count against the H-1B annual limit.) Only lawsuits, court rulings and a legal settlement ended the policies.

Source: New Immigration Service Director May Pursue An Anti-Immigration Agenda

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USA: Despite grand claims, a new report shows noncitizen voting hasn’t materialized

2025/07/31 Leave a comment

No surprise. Unfortunately, will not change many minds:

After President Trump and many other Republicans warned that vast numbers of non-U.S. citizens would influence last year’s election, states and law enforcement have devoted more resources than ever before to root out those ineligible voters.

More than six months into Trump’s second term, they haven’t found much.

New research out Wednesday tracking state government efforts across the country confirms what election experts have said all along: Noncitizen voting occasionally happens but in minuscule numbers, and not in any coordinated way.

“Noncitizens are not a large threat to our election system currently,” said David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), which conducted the research. “Even states that are looking everywhere to try to amplify the numbers of noncitizens … when they actually look, they find a surprisingly, shockingly small number.”

Source: Despite grand claims, a new report shows noncitizen voting hasn’t materialized

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Kang: We need an official policy prohibiting removal of at-risk trans and non-binary people to the U.S.

2025/07/30 Leave a comment

Predictable and understandable call:

…A temporary public policy, like a stay of removal, serves as a mechanism to delay or prevent deportation under specific circumstances. They can differ significantly in terms of their purpose, application and duration, but a temporary suspension-of-removal policy could offer a meaningful – albeit short-term – solution for trans and non-binary Americans who fear being removed to the U.S. Under this type of policy, the Canadian government can temporarily change or suspend certain immigration requirements in response to international crises, with targeted immigration measures for specific groups of people. Set for a limited timeframe, the Canadian government can reassess the policy and, if necessary, extend it until circumstances change…

Joycna Kang is a partner and Benjamin Merrill is an articling student at Battista Migration Law Group, an LGBTQ immigration firm based in Toronto.

Source: We need an official policy prohibiting removal of at-risk trans and non-binary people to the U.S.

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Saunders: No, politics haven’t become polarized. Only one side has moved to the extremes 

2025/07/29 Leave a comment

Indeed:

…What has especially caused Ms. Harris – and other moderate leaders after her – to be falsely associated with the far left is the constellation of issues and hysterias known on the right as “gender,” as well as the memory of mass protests and riots against police violence during the pandemic years. Although there definitely are far-left activists on both subjects, Mr. Harris had absolutely nothing to do with them; instead, she said little about either, and quietly took mainstream positions on both issues.

But the mainstream has become measurably more tolerant. Same-sex marriage, for example, has become so acceptable to the majority of voters that even Mr. Trump doesn’t publicly attack it. It’s moderate, centrist views, not far-out radical ones, that have come under attack.

This week a study by Vancouver-based polling firm Research Co. asked Americans and Canadians what they thought about “political correctness.” They weren’t asking about Mr. Trump’s ultra-PC desire to, for example, consider removing mentions of slavery from national parks; rather, they asked about “language and/or behaviour that seeks to minimize possible offences to racial, cultural and gender identity groups.”

The results were very pro-PC: Six out of 10 Canadians, and a majority of Americans, said they support political correctness – and in both countries, the pro-PC proportion of the population has increased since 2022.

That doesn’t mean that middle-of-the-road voters are drifting to the far left. It means that moderate, mainstream political views have become more open and tolerant – and therefore hated by Trump-like figures on the rightward extreme. For all the noise they throw at these normal views, it’s worth remembering that they’re the only ones who are polarized.

Source: No, politics haven’t become polarized. Only one side has moved to the extremes

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Keller: Trump wants to deport millions. What impact will that have on Canada?

2025/07/22 2 Comments

Legitimate concern:

…Which brings us back to Canada. Over the last two weeks at the main border crossing south of Montreal, more than 1,500 people drove up and asked the Canada Border Services Agency for asylum. Under the STCA, most of those people will likely be quickly returned to the U.S. There are some narrow exemptions, but beyond them, the STCA is clear. It is designed to stop people coming from the U.S. to make an asylum claim. 

The foundation for the STCA is that the U.S. is a “safe” country for refugee claimants. It’s a rule-of-law country, just like Canada, that treats refugee claimants humanely and according to the rule of law, just like Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the STCA on that basis.

But things can change. Look who’s in the White House. Look what he’s doing.

A court challenge arguing that the STCA should be struck down because the U.S. is no longer safe might succeed some day, but not soon. It would take years to work its way through the courts, by which time who knows who will be in the White House, or what U.S. immigration policy will be.

But Mr. Trump has the power to rip up the agreement right now, or ignore it, if he wants to. So far, we’ve seen no evidence of any intent to do that. Nor have we seen signs of wanting to load up buses bound for the Canadian border. The administration is offering people $1,000 to self-deport, but it’s not sending them anywhere in particular.

By 2024, Texas had spent US$148-million busing migrants to blue states. That sounds like a lot of money, until you notice that in the new U.S. budget, there’s US$165-billion for immigration enforcement, including US$75-billion for ICE. 

The Trump administration is putting in place the conditions for a massive forced displacement of people. And we’re the next-door neighbours.

Source: Trump wants to deport millions. What impact will that have on Canada?

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Nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s birthright citizenship order goes into effect

2025/07/21 Leave a comment

Of note:

President Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally will remain blocked as an order from one judge went into effect Friday and another seemed inclined to follow suit.

U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed in the last week his order went into effect.

“The judge’s order protects every single child whose citizenship was called into question by this illegal executive order,” Cody Wofsy, the ACLU attorney representing children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions, said. “The government has not appealed and has not sought emergency relief so this injunction is now in effect everywhere in the country.”

The Trump administration could still appeal or even ask that LaPlante’s order be narrowed but the effort to end birthright citizenship for children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily can’t take effect for now.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

Meanwhile, a judge in Boston heard arguments from more than a dozen states who say Trump’s birthright citizenship order is blatantly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars for essential services. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation’s highest court.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin was asked to consider either keeping in place the nationwide injunction he granted earlier or consider a request from the government either to narrow the scope of that order or stay it altogether. Sorokin, located in Boston, did not immediately rule but seemed to be receptive to arguments from states to keep the injunction in place….

Source: Nationwide injunction blocking Trump’s birthright citizenship order goes into effect

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Documents used to assess asylum cases fail to account for Trump’s edicts, advocates say

2025/07/19 Leave a comment

Valid point:

Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board is assessing refugee claims using outdated briefing documents about the U.S. that fail to mention President Donald Trump’s edicts on mass deportations and detention, as well as his orders rolling back the freedoms of non-binary and trans people. 

Lawyers representing refugee claimants and migrants facing deportation from Canada are calling for an urgent update for the official package of documents on conditions in the U.S. 

National documentation packages are used by the IRB, an independent body that considers asylum claims. 

The packages, which include briefing materials from a variety of sources about conditions in different countries, are also used by Immigration Department staff to help assess the risk posed to foreign nationals facing deportation. 

The U.S. package of documents was last updated in January, 2024, when Joe Biden was president. 

Lawyers warn that failure to update the U.S. file could lead to flawed decision and more challenges of decisions in court, leading to even bigger backlogs of immigration cases. 

Immigration lawyer Yameena Ansari, whose client, a young transgender American, filed an asylum claim with the IRB last month, warned that the outdated file creates a “dangerous blind spot” for adjudicators. She said claimants “are being assessed against an artificial version of the United States − one that no longer exists.”

“That can lead to wrongful decisions, and potentially life-threatening deportations,” she said. “The IRB’s documentation must reflect the current reality on the ground.”…

Source: Documents used to assess asylum cases fail to account for Trump’s edicts, advocates say

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Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Ban Faces New Peril: Class Actions

2025/07/14 Leave a comment

Of note:

When the Supreme Court ruled in President Trump’s favor two weeks ago in a case arising from his efforts to ban birthright citizenship, he called the decision “a monumental victory.”

But the victory may turn out to be short-lived.

To be sure, the 6-to-3 ruling severely limited a key tool federal trial judges had used in checking executive power — universal injunctions that applied not only to the plaintiffs but also to everyone else affected by the challenged program nationwide.

But the justices made clear that another important tool remained available — class actions, which let people facing a common problem band together in a single lawsuit to obtain nationwide relief.

The differences between the two procedures may at first blush seem technical. But universal injunctions have long been criticized across the ideological spectrum as a judicial power grab without a basis in law. Class actions, on the other hand, are an established mechanism whose requirements are set out in detail in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Judge Joseph N. Laplante, a federal judge in New Hampshire, embraced class actions on Thursday, opening a new front in the battle to deny Mr. Trump’s effort to redefine who can become a citizen. The move was also a new sign that Mr. Trump’s win at the Supreme Court may turn out to be less lasting than it at first appeared.

The judge provisionally certified a class of all children born to parents who are in the United States temporarily or without authorization. Then he entered a preliminary injunction in their favor barring the enforcement of Mr. Trump’s ban on birthright citizenship. It applied nationwide.

That means Mr. Trump’s executive order, which has never come into effect and may never will, remains blocked. The ban would upend the conventional understanding of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

A White House spokesman called Judge Laplante’s ruling “an obvious and unlawful attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s clear order against universal relief.”

But the court’s decision specifically contemplated the alternative, and it gave challengers 30 days to pursue it and other options….

Source: Trump’s Birthright Citizenship Ban Faces New Peril: Class Actions

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