Executive Summary In 2017, one of the largest global refugee resettlement programs concluded with approximately 85,000 stateless Bhutanese resettled legally in the United States. By 2025, newspapers began reporting that some of these resettled refugees were being deported. This article analyses the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) data from September 2023 to mid-October 2025 to map the patterns of arrests and deportation of stateless Bhutanese refugees. Because “stateless” is not a category of nationality in the DHS dataset, the article develops a methodology to determine if a stateless Bhutanese is moving through the deportation process. The stateless Bhutanese provide a significant case study regarding the deportation of stateless people who are in the country legally. The paper recommends that the United States should improve the identification of stateless refugees in order to ensure it can make more informed decisions regarding their potential deportation. The study finds that refugees from Bhutan are not clearly identified as “stateless” in the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dataset covering the period of September 2023-October 2025. In addition: The monthly average of arrests between 2024 and 2025 suggests a 500 percent increase in arrests of the Bhutanese. The location where ICE takes custody of Bhutanese has shifted from primarily state prisons to local jails and non-custodial arrests. These apprehensions are frequently through ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program. The removal of Bhutanese refugees occurred for a variety of offenses, ranging from serious offenses against persons to minor property offenses. The paper recommends that the category of “stateless” be added to DHS intake forms. Previously, guidance to determine and respond if someone was stateless was provided to decision makers in the DHS under Section K of their policy manual. That section of the manual has been removed or is no longer publicly available as of June 2025. This article recommends that it be restored. Training of officers evaluating cases, including how to weigh different types of evidence and the use of detailed country information on potential stateless populations, will be necessary to support accurate categorization. These steps will help reduce the risk that the United States breaches its obligations under international law, including under the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment by deporting stateless refugees to countries where they will be at risk of serious harm.
Executive Summary This paper studies the effect of destination state immigration policy shifts on the behavior and perceptions of migrants in transit. We leverage a novel survey of over 40,000 migrants in transit through Central America between 2021 and 2025 to examine their behavioral and attitudinal responses to shifts in United States (US) immigration policy under the US administrations of Presidents Joseph Biden and Donald Trump. Our research examines how intentions among transit migrants heading northward—principally to the US—alter in response to a promised change in US border and immigration policies. We find that, after Trump’s inauguration, migrant intentions to enter the US significantly subsided, along with northbound trajectories more broadly. However, migrants traveling with children and migrants moving for economic reasons were less deterred than others. As a result, the “Trump Effect” did not produce uniform deterrence but rather intensified the perception of risk among US-bound migrants. Our research suggests that: Migrants are sensitive not only to restrictive policy, but to the threat of a restrictive and unwelcoming environment,; Even under the most restrictive policy conditions, a minority of migrants will continue with their journeys; Restrictive border policies in destination states will apply greater demographic pressure on the societies and economies of safe alternative destinations like Costa Rica; Mexico’s appeal as an alternative destination for migrants may be contingent on the openness of the US Southern Border; Uncertainty about long-run policy effectiveness remains given the persistence of humanitarian and geopolitical risks that the US may not be able to control.
Executive Summary When nation-states have responded to increased migration by intensifying border enforcement, restricting immigrant rights, and closing paths to citizenship, cities have emerged as sanctuaries for displaced and marginalized populations. This article traces a historical pattern of urban refuge across three historical periods—late eighteenth-century Hamburg and Altona, mid-nineteenth-century Brussels, and contemporary Minneapolis—to argue that municipal hospitality constitutes a practical, if fragile, alternative framework for protecting the human rights of immigrants when national governments fail to do so. Drawing on Immanuel Kant’s cosmopolitan principle of universal hospitality and Eleanor Roosevelt’s call to ground human rights in “small places close to home,” the article demonstrates how cities have consistently extended informal citizenship—access to housing, employment, commerce, and community—to immigrants and refugees excluded from formal political membership in nation states. In the revolutionary 1790s, Hamburg and Altona, neutral port cities on the Elbe River, welcomed thousands of political émigrés and economic migrants under a civic republicanism that valued tolerance and trade. In Brussels between 1845 and 1848, constitutional guarantees of civil rights for all residents of the territory of Belgium opened access to a cosmopolitan refuge for radical exiles, including Karl Marx, even as neighboring empires pressured the federal government to expel them. In 2025–2026, the most recent case of Minneapolis demonstrates that decentralized, grassroots “neighboring”—mutual aid networks, rapid-response teams, food distribution, legal support, and solidarity protests—can mount a sustained challenge to aggressive federal immigration enforcement. The article situates this contemporary urban resistance within the broader theoretical debate over the asymmetry between emigration and immigration rights at an international level, and state sovereignty at a national level, and asks whether city-based informal citizenship can offer a stable, replicable foundation for immigration reform. The comparative historical analysis reveals both the resilience and the limits of municipal sanctuary: open-door policies in Hamburg and Brussels ultimately collapsed under Napoleon’s military occupation and diplomatic pressure from Austrian and Prussia, respectively. Nevertheless, the persistence of urban hospitality across two and a half centuries suggests that the city remains an indispensable arena for negotiating the tension between national sovereignty and human security, and a productive starting point for reimagining inclusive models of belonging.
Executive Summary 1 This article introduces a special edition of the Journal on Migration and Human Security on the causes, effects, and future of the second Trump administration’s “migration-related” policies, a term meant to encompass U.S. legal immigration, enforcement, refugee, asylum, development, and humanitarian assistance programs. In outlining the 11 studies comprising the collection, this article examines: The myriad effects of the administration’s policies on individuals, communities, and institutions, as revealed by original research, legal analysis, and reporting. Their reception in U.S. courts, Congress, and public opinion, which may serve as a bellwether to their direction and future. The rationale offered for these policies and the rhetoric deployed in support of them. The collection emerged as the Trump administration: Slashed U.S. foreign aid, including development and humanitarian assistance programs. Pursued a mass deportation and detention program of unprecedented scope, ambition, and cost. Sought to make conditions so harsh, coercive, and unsettled that U.S. undocumented residents and other targeted non-citizens would “self-deport.” Instituted largely unprecedented bans and barriers to legal immigration. Eviscerated the nation’s refugee resettlement program. Eliminated the one mechanism for asylum-seekers at the border to access the U.S. asylum system, removed asylum seekers without a hearing, placed them in expedited removal, and adopted exclusionary legal processes and requirements. Depopulated U.S. temporary protection and humanitarian programs, exposing more than five million formerly “legal” residents to possible removal. Transformed the immigration courts into an immigration enforcement tool. Exhibited disdain for the rule of law, U.S communities that oppose its mass deportation policies, and the contributions of refugees and immigrants to the nation’s life. Eviscerated watchdog and investigative institutions and units, which are charged with upholding standards and with documenting, investigating, and offering a check on abuses against immigrants. The special edition draws from diverse disciplines and fields, and covers a range of issues—border control, migration deterrence, overseas development, humanitarian assistance, mass deportation, detention, refugee protection, asylum, statelessness, and the treatment of unaccompanied minors. It explores the response of targeted communities to the administration’s policies and the effect of these policies on institutions, partnerships, and systems built over decades. Finally, it offers original research and evidence-based policy proposals to guide future administrations, Congress, states and localities, civil society institutions, and the public.
Executive Summary In times of crisis, local governments transform from service providers into emergency responders. When hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers arrived in New York City from 2022 to 2024, New York City government was compelled to help them integrate into communities. To do this, New York City designed, opened, and operated the largest asylum application help clinic in the country. The New York City Asylum Application Help Center (the Center) was the first in the nation to combine government, private sector, nonprofit, and university support to provide pro se application support at scale. The Center did not provide legal representation. Submitting more than 111,000 immigration applications over its 24-month life, from June 2023 through June 2025, the Center helped a sizable portion of new arrivals apply for immigration relief (City of New York, Office of the Mayor 2023a, 2025). As a result of its scale, the Center helped tens of thousands of asylum seekers move closer to work authorization while seeking some type of immigration benefit. It also gave New York City the operational credibility to advocate for improvements to federal immigration procedures. This paper examines the creation and impact of the Center and makes four recommendations: Advocacy should start with good operations. The Center was able to achieve positive changes to procedural hurdles in the federal immigration system because of its scale and the quality of its applications. High-quality operations at scale cannot only have a large impact but also create leverage to advocate for change. Municipal governments should operationalize best practices learned during emergencies. Short-term emergencies often result in some of the most effective government responses. Successful innovations should be incorporated into local governments’ social service systems once the emergency ceases to exist. Public and private actors can, and should, collaborate in response to major challenges facing cities. The success of the Center was due in large part to collaboration among public and private actors. It represents the work of a city that found ways to leverage the highest and best use of each collaborator to rise together and meet a challenge. Government systems should simplify processes and focus on substance. The US immigration system is fractured. Reform is needed to ensure that immigration benefit applications are adjudicated on their merits, rather than on the ability of the applicant to access and navigate complex federal processes. The section “The challenge facing New York City” of this paper provides context, explaining the challenge facing New York City as hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers arrived. The section “The Asylum Application Help Center and Its Impact” describes how New York City ran the Center and its impact. The final section, “Policy Recommendations”. expands upon the recommendations noted above. More broadly, the Center illustrates how municipal governments can use operational innovation (separate from policy advocacy) to influence implementation of federal immigration law.
