Join experts from Cornell Law's Migration and Human Rights Program as they examine the Trump administration's extensive 2025 immigration restrictions—including mass deportations, visa limitations, asylum restrictions, and enforcement operations—while outlining the program's advocacy efforts and ways for individuals to support immigrants.
The Migration and Human Rights Program @Cornell Law School
The Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic @Cornell Law School
Immigration was a top priority in 2025 for President Trump. The administration has restricted immigration in many ways, ranging from travel bans to mass deportations. The White House has stated that the United States may have negative net migration to the U.S. in 2025 for the first time in over 50 years.
In the meantime, employers face labor shortages. The demographics of an aging population and declining birth rates are indisputable. More people worldwide are fleeing the breakdown of civil society, climate change, and persecution than ever before. Over 10 million people in the United States lack immigration status and fear deportation. And our immigration courts face a backlog of over 3 million deportation cases.
Join retired Cornell Law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr and a panel of Cornell experts as they discuss how immigration law and policy changed in 2025 and what we might expect in 2026.
What You’ll Learn:
[00:00:00]
Intro: On today's Cornell keynotes, we are examining one of the most dramatic policy shifts in recent American history, the comprehensive immigration restrictions that have been implemented during President Trump's first year back in office.
The scale of change has been unprecedented from travel bans affecting nationals of 39 countries. Representing 20% of potential immigrants to mass deportations that may result in negative net migration for the first time in over 50 years. The administration has fundamentally altered America's relationship with immigration.
The numbers are stark. Over 500 executive orders and policy changes. Millions of immigrants removed or stripped of legal status, $100,000 H one B filing fees and paused diversity lottery. Green cards behind these statistics like complex human and economic realities like severe labor shortages.
Demographic challenges from [00:01:00] aging populations. Over 10 million people fearing deportation and immigration courts struggling with 3 million case backlogs. These changes are reshaping communities, families and industries nationwide, spanning humanitarian programs, work visas, student visas, asylum processes, and even efforts to end birthright citizenship.
We are joined by distinguished Cornell experts led by Cornell Law Professor Steven Yale Lahr, who is co-author of the leading 21 Volume, immigration Law, treatise and Founder of Cornell's Migration and Human Rights Program. He's joined by Dan Berger from Green and Spiegel, Michelle Brene of Together and Free. Former Immigration Detention Ombudsman, Theresa Cardinal Brown, who has three decades of bipartisan federal immigration experience.
And finally, we are joined by Bitta Mostofi, who is former senior advisor at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. ,
they'll explain how the administration achieved such sweeping changes so [00:02:00] quickly and what these restrictions mean for communities and the economy, and also how legal challenges are unfolding and what to expect in 2026. So check out the episode notes for details about Cornell Laws immigration work. And now here's our conversation with Professor Stephen Yale Lair and our expert immigration panel.
Steve Yale-Loehr: We've got a lot to cover today. . Let me go start by saying how much has happened in the last. , Year. There have been over 500 policy changes on immigration in the last year, covering everything from birthright citizenship to travel bans, to a pause on the diversity lottery program to pauses on adjudications to more detentions and arrests than ever self deportations, third party removals, refugee admission determinations.
, And it's been a real headache for everybody involved in immigration. Just to stay on top of all this, , let's start with [00:03:00] some questions. Theresa, you've served in the government at various times. How has the Trump administration been able to do so much in one year?
Theresa Brown: So thank you very much Steven. Thank you for e Cornell for having me.
I think we have to understand that this is a somewhat unique situation and that President Trump is serving a second term, but not consecutive to his first. And I think that's important. We understand how quickly he's been able to do things in this term because a lot of, him and his staff served in the first term, learned a lot about what it takes to actually move government and spent those intervening four years planning exactly how to come in and very quickly change many, many parts of the immigration system.
As you mentioned, a lot of it has been via executive orders. Trump has not really tried to push major immigration changes through legislation funding. Yes. Immigration [00:04:00] changes. No. Most of the changes have been administrative and have been through executive orders. One of the main ways he's doing this is by using expansive authorities that the president claims to have under national security emergency powers.
Many of his executive orders on immigration have claimed an emergency of some sort, , via crime or drugs, , an invasion of immigration and use that language to pull in, authorities that traditionally have been more discretionary on the part of the executive branch and which courts have given the government more leeway on.
Again, something I think they learn from the first administration is to try to use those authorities where they believe that the executive branch has the most authority to act. So if you look at a lot of the things he has done, whether it's in the executive orders themselves or the way he has talked about immigration, particularly enforcement, he's using that [00:05:00] language of national security terrorism.
, Crime Invasion. , He has, , invoked really old authorities such as the Alien Enemies Act to address immigration issues in this administration. So I think, again, that is a very different framework from we've seen immigration be addressed by presence of either party for at least several decades. And I think that's really why he's been able to move things so quickly.
Steve Yale-Loehr: And that's been sort of the unofficial model of the US citizenship and Immigration Services. You've heard about. Let's Make America Great Again, U-S-C-I-S as let's make America safe again. And that's sort of been the lens by which they've approached immigration. And Theresa, you talked about a whole of government approach where you've gotten out of the agency silos and basically all agencies are hands on deck in terms of enforcing.
Immigration restrictions. Let's start talking about some of those specific, , restrictions. And [00:06:00] Michelle, why don't you start us off with some of the humanitarian restrictions we saw in 2025?
Michelle Brané: Sure. Thank you Steve. And thank you everybody for joining us today. . I'll start with asylum. , Asylum has pretty much been restricted for almost everybody, , in the United States.
, I'll start with the border. , As Theresa said, one of the things the Trump administration did on day one was declare that immigration is an invasion. , And that because of that, he is going to stop and stop access to asylum for everybody. , Entering through, , US borders. So upon entry, , this is an expansion we've had in the past, restrictions on people on access to asylum, , from people entering between ports of entry.
But now it's , anybody, even if you're coming through a port of entry. And they actually terminated some of the pathways available to people to come in through ports of entry to seek asylum. So the CBP one app you may have heard about, which is a way that people used to be able to make an appointment and then proceed [00:07:00] through, requesting asylum once they entered, , that is under litigation.
And almost everything you hear me talk about today is being litigated. I should just say that. And even in cases where there are positive outcomes in terms of, courts finding in favor of, , plaintiffs. , They're almost always appealed and then continue, to operate while those cases go through the courts.
But, the many act restrictions on access to asylum at the border have been under litigation. We've had some positive outcomes, but again, they're under appeal. , And so we're waiting to see how those play out. But in the meantime, one, , people don't have access to asylum, but they do still have access to convention against torture CAT and withholding of deportation claims.
, It's a higher hurdle. It's difficult, and again, there's restrictions and difficulties and people getting attorneys to help submit those requests, but that is still available. I would say like so many of the things that are happening in immigration, it's a multi-layered approach or [00:08:00] attack, sort of on these accesses.
So. While people may still have some access to withholding, which prevents the, , the United States from removing a person back to the country that they have established a fear from. , But as you also may have heard a lot in the news, this administration has been looking at third country removals. And so even if you get, , some relief under convention against torture or withholding, you are at great risk of still being detained, , and remaining in detention, and then also of being removed to another country that you may have no ties to and who may again,
, Many would say against international and US law being returned back to their country of origin after that. , There's a lot more there, but that's the basics. , On the border, in on the interior. There have also been, , restrictions on people's access , to asylum. One being, , again, something you may have heard about, , which is people whose cases were dismissed when they go [00:09:00] into court.
A lot of those individuals were asylum seekers whose claims asylum cases were pending. They were being argued in front of a judge in some cases, maybe even in the very last stages of, , that case going forward. And the administration started requesting that those cases be dismissed. Which basically gets rid of and throws their entire case in the trash and starts them at zero.
, And then those folks were very often being detained and put into expedited removal immediately upon exiting the courtroom. . And then, , we have restrictions on just, , how applications were being reviewed. I 5 89 is the name of the form that you fill out when you're applying for asylum. And one of the, things this administration has done , is become extremely nitpicky in how people fill out that form.
, It's already a very complex form, but now, for example, if you leave a question blank or put not applicable, instead of answering the question with an [00:10:00] explanation of why it's not applicable, just as an example, that case can be thrown out as an incomplete application. , And then finally, , 'cause I don't wanna go on too long here, there's a lot to cover.
. Especially as of, , Thanksgiving weekend when the National Guard, , was attacked by what somebody who turned out to be, , an asylum, grantee. , All asylum applications, have been paused and put on hold. So no decisions can be made on asylum, either negative or positive until further notice. , So the process has continued in some cases.
So interviews continue, but no decisions can be made. And in the case of people from 39 countries, , there are also additional reviews that can't, , get adjustment of status. So they can't get their green cards, their naturalization, if they're about to become citizens that has been frozen. And in addition, passed asylum applications.
So asylum applications admitted and [00:11:00] approved under the Biden administration are all basically, , being reviewed and reconsidered, , as well as all refugee arrivals. ,
Steve Yale-Loehr: yeah, there's a lot there. We didn't even discuss the refugee restrictions or terminating parole or terminating temporary protective status, but maybe we'll get to that a little bit later.
Bitta let me turn it to you. There's been a vast increase in immigration enforcement operations in various cities. Why don't you tell us a little bit about those and how, what their effect has been?
Bitta Mostofi: , Yeah, so again, expressing gratitude for the opportunity , to be here and for folks who've joined, I think Theresa rightly pointed out, , what we're seeing is almost like the term two of the Trump administration. , And in the first term, , there was an intentional effort to really, , hone in on jurisdictions that are so-called sanctuary jurisdictions. , As a way to , push back against restrictions on cooperation around immigration [00:12:00] enforcement that local municipalities or states had decided, , under their power under the 10th Amendment , to essentially determine like how do they use their public safety resources?
What is the best interest of the municipality? As it relates to, , cooperating with federal immigration or and civil immigration enforcement efforts. And so many municipalities across the country had made intentional decisions around these questions, limiting cooperation in criminal investigations or criminal manners, in some cases, participating in task forces around, terrorism or other kind of trafficking or more serious, criminal, networks or conduct.
, But in the per for civil immigration enforcement, making the decision that was not the priority use of local resources and in fact, , worked against the interests of local police departments and [00:13:00] governments because, , it eroded trust in communities. And the reason that that's really important is because when you look at jurisdictions that made determinations like this.
You're talking about places where, like New York City, , nearly 40% of the population is foreign born. And on top of that you have what's called mixed status families, right? Where there may be a US citizen, , spouse or children, but there's one member of a household that doesn't have a durable status or maybe undocumented, that's a million people in a city like New York City.
So it's really critical in the ability for local, , governance to advance their interests of public safety and health to ensure that every resident feels comfortable interacting, , with local government reporting, crimes, seeking care at a public hospital, taking their children to school. So these have been longstanding.
Really community [00:14:00] debated, , policy interest, , advanced around trust with community members decisions. And in the first Trump administration, they began to weaponize this against almost exclusively democratic leaders across the country. , And there was litigation particularly around the conditioning of funds to municipalities, , to, , essentially say that if you don't cooperate with, , federal immigration enforcement goals that we would restrict grant making, that litigation ultimately didn't advance to the Supreme Court, juris, the municipalities and states were successful, , in the appellate court level largely.
, And then of course the administration changed. So, like Theresa noted sort of out the gate in, , 2025, we see this. Just dramatic escalation of enforcement in some of these jurisdictions, starting with Los Angeles. Then we see [00:15:00] Chicago a, a large scale escalation. Portland, , North Carolina and ultimately now in Minnesota, in Minneapolis.
And, , and certainly that's not exclusive. We're seeing increased kind of raids and enforcement across the country, not limited to those jurisdictions, but what we do see in those places is this attempt using some of the language that they've really weaponized against, , the municipalities or in the interest of advancing their authorities and saying that there's public, , safety concerns and that there is a need for federal intervention to address those public safety concerns.
That's really the rhetoric that they've encapsulated or just tried to justify , the kind of increased, , enforcement actions that they have, , deployed in LA and Chicago and elsewhere. , And with that has been the intention to essentially federalize. National Guard, such that [00:16:00] there is under federal control.
, A militarized force that's essentially assisting in the operations, and ensuring sort of the safety of federal officers, they say, right? , And making sure that there's not unrest as some of the enforcement actions are undertaken. And I think critically what I want to point out is in all of these areas, you've just seen an incredible response from community members who, many of whom have understood through some of the logic, , that, , the goal was maybe to go after public safety risks.
The goals, were maybe too advanced, , enforcement efforts or, , high enforcement efforts against people who had severe criminal histories. But really what people are seeing is that it's quite over broad, the enforcement. , anybody kind of collaterally stopped, , is being swept up in the enforcement efforts.
We're [00:17:00] seeing, certainly at the start in L.A. , An effort that really risked people being profiled because of the color of their skin, because of their ability to speak English without an accent because of where they were working, maybe like day laborers outside of Home Depot.
And we've seen supercharged confrontations between people who are really trying to observe what's happening, bear witness to what's happening, make sure there's accountability and recording and evidence around what is happening to support community members and enforcement, , agents, , federal enforcement agents that are seeking to advance some of these goals.
So, in brief, I wanna say a couple of things on the National Guard question. This made it's way through litigation and ultimately this, Supreme Court ruled. In a case that Illinois brought, , that at least they were gonna sustain the lower court's decisions to prevent the federalization of the National Guard.
So what does that mean? It means that the federal government hadn't substantiated or [00:18:00] shown the extreme sort of facts that are necessary to justify, , that kind of move. And in fact, hadn't shown that they couldn't do what they needed to do using their regular forces, which is this language in the law, without federalizing the National Guard.
And so the, Trump administration essentially recently said it's gonna stop its effort to deploy , the Guard to Illinois, to California, and to, , Portland, Oregon, the three jurisdictions that had attempted to do so. And there remains a question as to whether or not they'll advance. This goal, using another statute, the Insurrection Act.
, And so I think that's what folks are waiting to see, and that I think gets us to really the human consequence of what all of this has meant. It's meant a dramatic increase in the number of people arrested, a dramatic amount of fear in communities about individuals who are citizens feeling like because of the color of their skin, or where they [00:19:00] work or who their family members are, they have to carry their passports around or , they're concerned, , leaving their homes.
It has meant parents being afraid to take their children to school. , And it has really tragically meant things like what we witnessed yesterday, which is a US citizen, Renee Goode, being murdered, , at the hands of federal agents. And this is just,, I think for many. Local leaders.
It has been something that they've vocalized a fear with around what's gonna happen. This happened in Chicago as well, that the kinds of actions and the aggressive nature of the enforcement and the degree to which it's over broad, means that you're going to see escalation, you're going to see unnecessary, , and tragic impacts and harms to community members.
And has raised a lot of questions for local jurisdictions, whether it's a city or county or state, about what their authorities are and the powers they have to advance to continue to [00:20:00] advance their priorities around public health and safety in the face of this just incredibly aggressive federal immigration enforcement effort.
Steve Yale-Loehr: Great. So Dan, let's turn to you. What restrictions have you seen, , in the work visa and employment based Visa area in 2025?
Dan Berger: Thanks Steve and thanks to e Cornell for hosting this. Quite a few. It really has been a lot. And I was, thinking earlier , as a native of Buffalo that Grover Cleveland was the last president who didn't have consecutive terms, but definitely , didn't spend the four years in the wilderness, , preparing as well as they did here.
, And project 2025 really was the, the blueprint for this. And, I feel as if during the first Trump administration, , we talked in some ways about taking everything we heard seriously, but not literally. Now we really are taking everything literally, , as we move forward.
, With that said,, , one of the messages that I took from Project 2025 is that student visas and H one B work, visas in particular are pipelines for international, individuals to come to [00:21:00] the US and compete with US workers. So we've seen significant restrictions , on both of those.
And I'll talk about that in a minute. In terms of student visas, , we saw earlier in the year, met large scale revocations. , Not huge numbers. There are over a million foreign students in the US but this was about 3000, but it was growing exponentially.
There were a few the first week, maybe hundreds the second week, thousands the third week, , that was stopped by a court case. But it has had a chilling effect. And I think we're seeing a combination of that. And the fourth bullet point, which is, , visa and adjudication delays just a real, , challenge.
, Some schools are seeing up to a 70%. Drop in the number of students who are actually getting their visas on time to come here. In terms of , the H one B, , for those of you who, are not quite sure what it is, it's probably the most common professional working visa that is used, in a wide variety of situations and has been for decades.
, The President by Proclamation, last year added a $100,000 [00:22:00] fee for the H one B. , And the proclamation was not terribly clearly written and was, interpreted in a variety of different ways over the course of a weekend and then several weeks by different government agencies, sometimes in different ways.
Again, this can have a chilling effect as employers and individuals want to plan out their lives and know if an employer is doing hiring, they wanna know, is there a hundred thousand dollars fee or not at the moment. The H one BA hundred thousand dollars fee is focused on people who are coming from abroad.
So if somebody's already in the US and they're granted a change of status or an extension of H one B status. The a hundred thousand dollars fee does not apply. But if, let's say , a university is hiring , a mathematics professor from Bulgaria, directly on an H one B for a tenure track position, the a hundred thousand dollars fee would apply.
, As others have said, litigation is common. And , we all follow various litigation trackers. , Everything is being [00:23:00] fought out in the courts. There are three lawsuits going on. One of them, , the district court judge a couple weeks ago said that the a hundred thousand dollars fee could continue, but that is being appealed.
And also the opinion had some thoughts on ways new arguments that could be made. There are two other. Lawsuits that are going on. So we will see what happens with that last and quickly is the social media vetting. , I think this really goes to some of the due process points that Bitta was making.
, And, and Michelle, I believe, , right now in order to get a Visa abroad and a visa is a very specific term for the entry document that somebody uses to come to the US on a, in temporary status, , tourist student, H one B worker, et cetera. , There is now widespread social media vetting at consulates.
We don't know exactly what that means. , We do know that individuals are required to make their social media profiles. Public. , I have a lot of concerns about privacy there. , But that is the requirement. And, my guess [00:24:00] is that they don't really have time to do a deep dive on everybody, but they are not only probably looking at issues of what, of people's political speech, of what they're saying, but also it is another way that the government can and may look for inconsistencies.
In general, government officials look for inconsistencies when they're adjudicating a petition. So if somebody's social media indicates that a person might have been working in the US while they were on , a student visa or a tourist visa that could lead to issues, I realized myself that my LinkedIn profile had the wrong date that I started my first job.
, Those could be natural mistakes, but those mistakes, especially with AI tools and a lot of money from the big, beautiful bill for more ai. Screening could find , those kind of things. I did also just want to mention quickly, if you're looking to Google something, the A A UP versus Rubio case, American Association of University Professors was a free speech case and there are more coming, .
Steve Yale-Loehr: So all of this is causing delays in adjudications, both [00:25:00] overseas at consulates and also at U-S-C-I-S. And we've noted that, or I've read at least that both, U-S-C-I-S staff and statement department staff are shrinking. So basically all of these remaining staff are asked to be do more with less staff.
Theresa, what other major immigration restrictions have occurred in 2025?
Theresa Brown: Well, we've touched on an awful lot of them. I think we also need to recognize, . Some of the changes that seem minor, , for example, social media vetting, are just adding time to the regular process. , We saw this under the first Trump administration.
They talked about extreme vetting for cases at U-S-C-I-S, and as you mentioned, or somebody mentioned that the new motto at U-S-C-I-S is Make America safe again. They are investing very heavily in ensuring that whatever they do, that , the people they are admitting are not, , the term is not [00:26:00] anti-American.
, And I think this sort of ideological vetting, we've had some of this in our laws for a long time. For example, communism and, and anarchy. , Could be reasons for denial of some sort of visa status, but this is beyond that. And so when you talk about like the social media vetting, what are they looking for?
Well, one of the things explicitly they're supposed to be looking for is whether or not somebody has espoused anti-American views. , And this obviously gets to First Amendment protections, particularly for people who are already in the United States. But they don't necessarily apply in Visa application situations where somebody is outside the United States and looking to come in.
, You , did note some of the changes to , the work visas. I will note that the business community is very concerned about this. So much so that they have been making overtures to the administration. Maybe not publicly, maybe not vocally, but they've had some impact. So for example, farmers who saw very.
Difficult times getting H two A Visa workers in were successful in convincing the [00:27:00] administration to prioritize and facilitate those visas for the upcoming seasons. So the US Department of Agriculture created a office to help streamline the application process for farmers. They have not had that before.
So there are some small ways where the administration is recognizing the impact to, employers of some of these things that they have already done. , But I think we're also gonna see more things coming up. We're just now starting to see regulatory change. I mentioned that a lot of this was done by executive order early in the administration.
Regulations take a lot longer to write and develop, but we're starting to see a regular cadence of regulations coming out of the government now. And regulations are a way of ensuring that. Changes that administration makes to policy can continue into another administration. Another administration can change the regulations, but there's a longer process to do [00:28:00] so they can't do it very quickly by executive order necessarily.
And so we're gonna see more of that. Most recently, we saw, for example, and I'm sure others will talk about it, a new iteration of the public charge rule. We have seen a new regulation to change how H one B visas are processed. The lottery process for H one B visas. , I think we're gonna see more of that coming in the next year as the agencies get up to speed with their regulation and rulemaking processes.
Steve Yale-Loehr: And that's a great segue into talking about what further restrictions we might see in 2026 and Bitta , Theresa mentioned the public charge rule that is probably coming down the pike, but what other changes do you foresee in your area?
Bitta Mostofi: Yeah, I'd love to love to pull back on that in , just a minute.
And I'm not sure , how much the audience understands about public charge. So I'll speak to that for just a second. 'cause I'm not sure any of us really understand that. Honing in on what, how, why this matters in communities, for states, for localities. You've heard us [00:29:00] talk about this
attempt to do a whole of government response, to eliminate silos between agencies, , in the goal of advancing immigration enforcement efforts. And that includes, I think you've heard us touch on really kind of like a dismantling of the legal immigration system, taking people who have been in legal status and making them have no legal status, whether that's like a temporary protected status individual, somebody who entered with parole or making , the sort of entire process of realizing, whether you're, it's your permanent residence or citizenship, much more difficult,
and creating risk environments around all of that. So, enforcement actions at, , US citizenship offices, which is something that almost never occurred, , cases getting dismissed at the court. People who have longstanding maybe over a decade checking in with ICE And, , are, have been in good status doing that and accountable and holding their work authorization and paying their taxes.
All of a sudden having that removed, I think the [00:30:00] sort of egregiousness of the dismantling of the legal immigration system or people who are trying to comply is tremendous and we haven't even scratched the surface of that. In addition to that, is this goal around essentially making life difficult,
And , in some instances cruelly. And, that has to do with some of this elimination of silos and some of what we see in terms of public charge, which is a goal around really eliminating the ability for people to seek support, whether that's through local benefits that they may receive, like food assistance or other things.
Whether that's through the public health systems or the access to Medicaid or other things, creating an atmosphere , where immigrants, even if they're perfectly legally eligible for these things, are so afraid to access them, that there's a chilling effect and people withdraw and, pull themselves into the shadows.
And this is so pervasive. There's just [00:31:00] massive amounts of data sharing that's happening between, the Department of Homeland Security and other parts of the administration like HHS that administers Medicaid or, other kind of benefits like SNAP and others. There's instruction, to, make sure that there's auditing of people who are, , seeking these benefits and in the interpretation or sort of the proposed, , public charge rule.
It's not yet in effect, , at this moment, but they've essentially sought to rescind what is been known as the, interpretation of , , what might make somebody a public charge, who's seeking to become a legal permanent resident or come to the United States, which has, been largely understood as being primarily reliant on the government.
They've now proposed a rescission of a rule that the Biden administration, had advanced through regulation to codify that interpretation. , And instead to [00:32:00] say. That , the larger goal would be if somebody is, it can be self-sufficient. , And the nature in which they would make that determination is quite broad.
It would grant discretion to an officer to look at everything from your education to your health, , to the likelihood that you might be unhealthy. Like all of a sudden, officers are medical professionals. It's unclear how, , and what that training might be. But essentially, again, I think I wanna emphasize that this is an emphasis of making people withdraw from utilization of public services, in a way that could be quite detrimental to communities.
, If children are not getting the medical care that they need, if families aren't accessing services that they may be perfectly entitled to and eligible for. , Because of this overarching fear, and there's an acknowledgement in the regulation or the, the notice of rulemaking that the, , immigration service released, that they expect that to happen.
That they expect there to be a [00:33:00] chilling effect. And when this was first proposed in the first Trump administration, municipalities ran data that showed that there was already a chilling effect before it ever went into effect. Like tremendously. People just were perfectly legal, permanent residents who were eligible to access benefits, choosing not to because they didn't know what the impact may be, and were afraid to do so.
I just wanna end lastly in saying it's so important to think critically about what's happening. , We're seeing this exact discourse get weaponized in Minnesota right now, around the investigation of fraud, , in COVID funding for childcare utilization. And, being talked about as though this is something that only this party, the Republican party or the Trump administration cares about, when in fact the investigation in Minnesota began well before the Trump administration came into office, and actually folks were prosecuted in 2022.
Around this investigation, [00:34:00] all of our leaders should care about fraud, and all of our leaders, , should seek to make sure that there's trust in the public in how their money is being spent and utilized. But you have to do so in a manner that continues to build that trust instead of erode really the population in believing that government can deliver services and that people who need them should can access them.
So we're really in dangerous, , territory around some of this, and it's so important for all of us. To think critically about what is being said to us, , and how we support our neighbors in a moment where they might be afraid to access the food benefits that they need.
Steve Yale-Loehr: And Michelle, what do you see on the horizon in 2026 in terms of increased detentions and immigration enforcement?
Michelle Brané: , More of the same, I think the administration has been very bold, but they'll continue to be bold 'cause it's worked for them so far. Some of the things I didn't get to, refugee numbers, for [00:35:00] example, are already slated to be significantly down from previous, , years. So we were up in the over 120,000 refugees being resettled a year for 2026.
, The goal is to 7,500. , Practically nothing relative to the need that there is. And the majority of those have already been announced that they will go towards, white africaners from South Africa. So, large departure from the past. , We see TPS Temporary protective status, which is a temporary.
Status given to people who can't go back safely to their country. , That is being terminated in many cases. That is somewhat routine , that those renewals come up. But what we've seen this administration doing and what I anticipate will really come to fruition in 2026 is that they're not only, , terminating, , temporary protective status for many nationalities where there is an urgent need for it still.
Where there still is a lot of risk for people to go back to those countries. But also [00:36:00] doing so sort of retroactively undoing Biden administration extensions of temporary protective status. , And then, , all of those folks are again, become , more vulnerable to detention. We've seen detention increase drastically already, so we are now detaining.
, Over 69,000 people on any given day that is up from what was around 40,000 at the beginning of 2025. And the administration is now seeking an additional $4.2 billion to detain people just for detention on, on top of a $40 billion increase they already received with the big beautiful bill. So that's actually something that's happening right now.
It's being discussed in Congress. As part of the new appropriation. So another opportunity for people to take action would be to say something to their elected officials about what they think about an additional 4.2 billion going to detain people. And I'll just say that this is on top of a situation in which they've eliminated most of [00:37:00] the oversight of immigration detention.
And we've seen a drastic increase in deaths in custody. 32 people died in immigration detention custody in 2025. That is more than double what we had the previous year, and I would predict five of those deaths occurred in December. I think that those numbers, unfortunately, unless something changes, we'll go up drastically and we'll see even more people dying in US immigration custody in 2026.
So yeah, sort of grim, but there are things people can do to push back.
Steve Yale-Loehr: Well, that's a good segue. Let's talk about what Cornell Law is doing to try to help immigrants. , Dan, let's start with you. You are deeply involved in our path to Papers project at Cornell Law School. Why don't you tell us what that is and what it's accomplished so far?
Dan Berger: Sure. Thanks Steve. So, , a couple of years ago, thanks in, in large part to Steve's efforts, we were able to secure a grant to begin a project that is basically [00:38:00] a nonprofit immigration clinic, but focused on employer sponsored options. , Immigration, , as you may know, , is a game of categories.
With each person. We try to look at family, humanitarian, and employment based options and see what might work sometimes. One thing may work for one person and one may not for another, and a lot of these individual categories were created at different times and sometimes not harmonized. So what we've seen over the years is that people with fragile immigration situations such as DACA recipients, such as the TPS that was, that you were just hearing about, or.
The hundreds of thousands of parolees who were allowed in during the Biden administration and earlier from Afghanistan and Venezuela and so forth, the Ukraine, people with long pending asylum cases who may be , in a vulnerable situation. Now, all of those folks, , really should be screened for all categories, family, humanitarian, and employment based.
What we saw , was a disconnect where a lot of wonderful [00:39:00] nonprofits that were supporting these populations really didn't know very much about employer sponsorship. A lot of these folks have work cards that are working and may have employers who'd be interested in filing a petition to keep them.
On the other hand, we saw employment based lawyers, , like me, who didn't always know what to do with somebody who had a very complicated immigration situation. Path to papers now has eight attorneys. I'm really thrilled. Part-time and full-time. That's tremendous. We've done over a thousand consultations in the last year and a half.
, We're focused on, initially on the Bay Area of California, and we're trying to see what we can learn. , We're, we've developed , our website path to the number two papers.org has resources for employers. We have, resources for individuals, and we also provide technical assistance for attorneys who are trying to pursue some of these pathways.
And we're hoping that this can be a way to move people forward. , DACA in my mind, is an amazing program. I remember the days before we had it, , when dreamers were not able , to work, [00:40:00] but it was never intended to be permanent. And so, regardless of what happens with , the DACA court decision, , we do wanna keep moving people who have vulnerable, fragile immigration situations into longer term status.
Steve Yale-Loehr: And there's a lot more that the law school is doing. But in the interest of time, let's try to end on a more optimistic point. , What can people do both locally and nationally to help immigrants? Michelle, let's start with you.
Michelle Brané: Sure. , I think, be informed, learn about what's really happening.
You're gonna hear this from all of us. I think there's a lot of misinformation out there. Immigration in particular is very politicized, so people skew how they talk about it. , Look for trusted sources and learn what's really happening. I think, , advocacy with your elected officials, , I'll leave it to Bitta to give more detail on how you can involve locally, but I think local and state, level activities are gonna be critical , in this process to help turn things around.
Your [00:41:00] elected members of Congress also, should be saying a lot about this. And as I just mentioned, , the immigration detention. . Additional funding that people can raise their opinion on that and let their elected officials, know and support litigation.
Litigation has been critical, this past year. And is gonna continue to be, so a lot of these cases are, gonna drag on and, , the folks doing these class action litigations and even litigation on behalf of individuals is going to be critical. I'll let some of my colleagues say more about the areas they work in.
Steve Yale-Loehr: Theresa, , Michelle mentioned, , that there's been appropriations that would help increase immigration enforcement. What can I or you do on the legislative side to try to advance immigrants rights?
Theresa Brown: So there's a tried and true saying in Washington DC that if left their own devices, Congress will do nothing.
They are more than happy to never vote on immigration. If they don't have to. It's up to people to [00:42:00] talk to their members of Congress. I will echo what Michelle said, not just understand what's going on right now, but try to understand more about the immigration system generally.
If you wanna understand why and how a DACA person can't easily transfer to an immigration visa status that would allow them to keep working, you need to understand how the system works. It's very complicated. I'm not gonna say it's not, but get a basic understanding and that will help insulate you.
Against some of the shorthand. That is the way immigration is talked about by our elected leaders, by people in the press and by talking heads like us, on the news channels, you need to have a basic understanding so you understand, for example, why can't people just get in line? There's a really complicated answer to that.
, But it's the case. So I would say try to learn what you can, and then talk to your members of Congress, but don't just say, do something. What you will hear from a lot of them is, well, I've introduced X Bill and I've tried to vote for [00:43:00] Vote Bill and this other party, the other party, the people in charge won't let us.
What have you done to work with them? . What have you done to try to advance this? Don't blame the other side for stopping you. We elected you to try to get legislation done. So , this year, 2026 is an election year. Every member of the House of Representatives is gonna come back begging for your vote to be reelected.
And instead of letting them say all the things they would do if you reelected them, why haven't they done it so far, and what have they done to try to get it done? It's very easy to believe that people aren't talking to each other. I will tell you right now, today, there are bipartisan groups in Congress actively looking to try to do something on immigration, but I'll also tell you that they face a very big uphill battle, in part because there's not a lot of people supporting those kind of efforts.
It's important to let your members of Congress know that you want them to try to work across the aisle, that you want them to try to come to agreement that getting something [00:44:00] done is better than coming back to us and saying, we got nothing done, but elect me again. I would say , that shouldn't be a way to get your vote.
Those are some of the most important things. , We have seen, and Bitta mentioned there are lots of things going on at the local level. Local members of your state legislature are engaging in immigration debates right now. County councils are involved in immigration right now. City mayors are involved in immigration right now.
Talk to them about what you wanna see, but also recognize at the end of the day, immigration is a federal law issue and there's not a lot that states and localities can do. They cannot provide you legal status. That has to come from Congress. So no matter what policies they may have in place that can support immigrants locally, at the end of the day, Congress has to change the laws.
And so I would argue that definitely, talk to your members of Congress and urge them to do something.
Steve Yale-Loehr: [00:45:00] And to me, this is somewhat like the civil rights movement or the environmental movement. It had to be grassroots, sort of advocating and pressuring Congress before Congress finally made some changes.
And I think we need to do that on immigration as well. And Bitta, why don't you tell us what people can do at the state and local level to advance immigrants rights?
Bitta Mostofi: . So I wanna echo a lot of what's been said, but I wanna emphasize a couple of points. One is that, and honestly I'm just pulling from what I'm seeing across the country as people really leading.
I wanna say that very clearly. , It's been incredible to see people really understand what this moment has called for in terms of using their privilege, whether they're, , a US citizen or otherwise, using their voices. Understanding that democracy requires that we exercise our rights within it.
, That the principles that we hold dear, like due process or people having their fair day in court require us to make sure that those systems [00:46:00] exist, and that they can be accessed and utilized and they're not dismantled. And I think we're seeing that play out across this country in just really inspiring ways.
So the first thing I would say is know what your rights are, know what you can, , do. And that includes your first amendment right. That includes the really, really important thing that so many have been doing, which is witnessing, documenting, supporting their neighbors, their loved ones, , who may be experiencing raids, who there may be a child who's left behind, and a family who needs support wrapped around it.
There may be somebody who's navigating a court system alone and doesn't know exactly what kinds of support or relief they may need to seek. And so in your community, you can try to find all your rights information. There are many municipalities that have created these, , LA County has Chicago has. As well as New York and others, but so have the A CLU and large immigration [00:47:00] rights organizations in your community.
So find a trusted source that you trust, and that you know is producing good information and learn what your rights are and then teach your neighbors those rights and support community members around those rights. , Join maybe projects where people are accompanying people to court. Or to an appointment who may be unrepresented.
Engage your local leaders to talk about the import of supporting legal services. 'cause it actually does make a difference in somebody's ability to stay and fight their case and not be detained or summarily deported without the ability to, , exercise a benefit that they might be eligible for. , Make sure that everybody , can receive services or the needs that they need in a moment where they feel under attack.
There's a lot that you can do. You should find the space where you're comfortable and where you have community and build around that, but make sure you're exercising your right. And the last thing I'll say is, my family is from Iran and my parents came [00:48:00] here shortly after the Iranian revolution And the thing that was instilled in me from my young age and continuously through my adulthood.
Is that you have to fight for democracy. You have to fight for the rights that you have continuously. It's an active project and so many things that we have, we maybe take for granted or we think will remain there for us. But the truth is, and we've seen this across the world in so many different instances, when we, don't exercise those rights, when we're afraid to speak up for them, when we know the consequence can be so severe like we saw yesterday, , a mother, a US citizen in, Minneapolis, get shot.
When we know that that may be a consequence, we get afraid. But it's so important to see that so million, hundreds of thousands, millions of people across this country are feeling that same urgency to question what's happening and to protect our communities and protect our rights, and to [00:49:00] make sure that we live in a system, in a country that we value and that shares our values.
Steve Yale-Loehr: I think we have time just for one question, and Dan I'll pose it to you. One of our audience members asked about, duration of status and possible limitations on that. Why don't you explain for the audience what duration of status is and what might happen in 2026 in that regard.
Dan Berger: Sure. , This is one of those things that's really in the weeds, but does make a big, big difference. So at the moment, , and for decades, people who come here on student visas on, , training , or exchange visas called J visas, such as, , medical residents and fellows, or journalists, , come here and they don't have a fixed expiration date.
Like usually if you come here as a tourist, there's an expiration date and you're supposed to leave in a month or six months. , These folks don't have a fixed expiration date when they come in. , And the idea is that it's not always clear how long something might take. My wife is a [00:50:00] college professor.
Some students need a little longer or a little shorter to finish a program. With this new duration, there's a proposed regulation on duration of status, which would. It add on a fixed end date, and then after that, individuals would have to file an application and have it approved and have an immigration officer approve their extension of stay on the surface.
That doesn't sound crazy. It seems, , why not check in with people? However, this is a huge issue because what it means is that now an immigration officer, rather than some, let's say somebody's academic advisor will be deciding whether they need more time to finish their degree, whether they can change majors, whether they can move to another program.
And also as we've discussed earlier, the immigration service has lost 20% of its staffs. And this could get worse. So , the idea of adding millions of additional applications that need to be filed and approved before people can change their, , extend their program or work is a [00:51:00] huge issue. , The final regulation will be issued at some point and, , if there's anything I can guarantee it's that there will be litigation.
Chris Wofford: Thank you for listening to Cornell Keynotes. If you are interested in learning more about Cornell Law's Immigration Law and Advocacy clinic, check the episode notes for details.
I want to thank you for listening, and as always, subscribe to stay connected with Cornell keynotes