Author: Nada Shalash (Page 1 of 2)

(start with a scene. I don’t have a good one yet. This is a backup in case I don’t find a better one: Just two days after the presidential election results were announced, a group of recent migrants gather around a dozen or so round tables inside Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. They are here to share their stories with a group of student journalists. The environment was casual and welcoming, despite the tension in the air from the looming second Trump presidency just around the corner. One of those migrants is Sebastian Galeano, a 29-year-old asylum seeker from Colombia.

Galeano has only been in the U.S. for seven months. He says he might get killed if he goes back home. [insert quote from Galeano])

Although it is not yet clear how Trump will enforce his proposed immigration policies like mass deportations, immigrants and advocates are bracing themselves. Most are preparing for increases in detention, deportation, and family separation, in addition to fear within immigrant communities.

Trump made gains with groups of voters that the Republican party has not had this level of success with in recent years. For example, Trump won over many Black and Latino voters, especially men, which surprised people who were not closely following these groups in the past few years. He also made gains with young voters. 

[List key results/stats]

Experts who study political trends among Latino voters, however, were not surprised by the results. Julio Ricardo Varela, MSNBC columnist and founder of The Latino Newsletter, wrote on X as election results rolled in, “[I] am not engaging anyone who can’t understand why Latinos voted who they voted this election cycle. If you need explanations today, you can read my last 3 years of work. This was always possible. The results do not surprise me.”

Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University, says her research shows that anti-immigration sentiment is present even among immigrant populations. The longer an immigrant stays in a country, the more they absorb some of the attitudes of the larger population.

“Older immigrants from anywhere, the longer they have resided in the country, the less sympathetic they are going to be towards more recently-arrived immigrants,” she said. “Even fairly recently arrived immigrants don’t want other immigrants, even from their own country.”

Recent migrants from Central and South America are reacting differently to Trump’s gains among Latino voters. While some are disappointed in what they feel is their own community turning on them, others understand where the resentment is coming from, even if they don’t agree with it. 

Luz Herrera, one of the migrants at the church in Brooklyn, says she and her family are getting many services that previous migrants did not get, which can understandably lead to frustration and resentment. 

Herrera, a 39-year-old asylum seeker from Ecuador, is one of the over 200,000 bused to New York City from the southern border, along with her husband and four children. They are currently staying at the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, one of the many places functioning as shelters for migrants. She and her husband have work permits and are undergoing the asylum process. She has access to English language classes. Her children are all studying.

[Luz Herrera quote about fleeing because of violent groups, so understanding the sentiment of wanting people to be safe]

“We aren’t criminals, but there are some who give us a bad name,” says Sebastian Galeano. “Let’s hope Trump doesn’t get confused between us and them.”

Though some of these migrants are hopeful that Trump will only go after criminals, he has vowed to target all undocumented migrants, so it is not clear whether he will make that distinction. For instance, Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric targeting Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, is leading many of them to leave Springfield. They are deciding to leave despite being there lawfully – many of them are on Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

Trump’s campaign pushed forth highly inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric, but Trump has not shared many details on how he plans to accomplish his sweeping immigration proposals. At an Arizona rally in October, Trump mentioned wanting to hire an additional 10,000 agents to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, with no plan for how he will accomplish that or secure funding for it. Trump has also proposed mass deportations of millions of people and building new detainment centers.

According to the New York Times, Trump will have a very difficult time getting the resources to implement his proposed policies. Many candidates, especially Donald Trump, rely on hyperbolic rhetoric on the campaign trail to energize their base without any realistic details on how they will put their proposals in action.

However, experts and advocates are making predictions for what’s to come based on what they saw during the first Trump presidency. This includes policies like Safe Third agreements, Remain in Mexico, and Title 42. Safe Third agreements with countries in Central America required asylum seekers traveling through those countries to first seek protection there before they get to the U.S.-Mexico border. Remain in Mexico is a Department of Homeland Security policy which requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico until their U.S. court date. Title 42 is a policy that was revived during the COVID pandemic which allowed for turning away migrants arriving at the southern border on the basis of public health concerns. This policy ended in 2023 by the Biden administration with the end of the pandemic.

Amelia Frank-Vitale, a professor of anthropology at Princeton University says, “the discourse that came from the Trump administration the first time around is very similar to the discourse that’s coming this time, which is terror…emboldening ICE agents and border patrol and terrorizing immigration.”

Frank-Vitale adds that this is not just about discourse, but that one unique thing about asylum law compared to other areas of law is that its interpretation can be changed at the hands of judges. The Attorney General can make decisions which set new precedents for asylum law, which we saw during the first Trump administration.

“The incoming Trump administration is going to build on what the Biden administration has done to basically make people who show up at the southern border ineligible to seek asylum,” she says. “Although US law says that you can seek asylum in the United States regardless of how you enter the country. It’s very, very clear in the 1980 Refugee Act.” She says that people who come to the southern border to seek asylum will have to eventually prove in court that they first tried applying for asylum in other countries they crossed through.

“I am not hopeful that anything that makes things fairer or better for immigrants is coming in the next administration,” she says. She thinks the incoming Trump administration will “make a whole lot of people removable who aren’t currently removable,” such as people on TPS and DACA.

One thing we know based on previous border crackdowns is that stricter immigration enforcement does not necessarily deter  migrants who want to cross the border. Anuj Gupta, CEO of The Welcoming Center (TWC), says the grit and perseverance of migrants who go through difficult journeys to get to the United States shows that they are determined to make it to their final destination. He says the U.S. should welcome people with that level of grit and determination.

“The issue is not that people want to come to this country,” he says. “The problem is that we don’t have a system to accommodate them.”

As a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization, TWC provides community support and a wide range of services for migrants, including language training, entrepreneurship support, and leadership workshops. Elizabeth Jones, Strategy and Impact Director, says preparing for the possibility of a second Trump presidency means responding to changing community needs and emphasizing wellness, while maintaining TWC’s current programming.

“We need to provide a way for people to be able to express their fears,” she says. “Wellness will be threatened.”

[End with something from migrants at the church in Bay Ridge]

All of the pieces have interesting structures with important lessons for us to think about as we work on our feature story. I paid particularly close attention to chronology and choices pertaining to the order of presenting information. For Engelhart’s dementia story, the piece started in October 2017, first describing when the mother stopped answering the phone and the daughters first showed up at their mother’s doorstep asking to be let in. Then, Engelhart moves to the past, sharing descriptions of what the daughters thought their mother was like, then moves back to 2017 to the dementia diagnosis, then moves to the present mostly in chronological order. This order of past – further back – past – present effectively provided context while maintaining reader interest in the story. Although my final story is more focused on the present moment and future anticipation, one potential thing to think about for my remaining interviews is how to ask questions about past events such as the last Trump presidency to set the context for how migrants feel about what lies ahead.

Saslow’s piece on education in the pandemic is an example of several good practices we discussed in class. The first is using a scene as the lede, and I liked that it opened at an airport with the superintendent trying to find the newly recruited teacher. The piece also had several other scenes including conversations from the classroom with students and Obreque’s attempt at maintaining order in the classroom as students asked to use the bathroom. The story also heavily relies on quotes and classroom scenes to deliver the message, which is a great way of following the rule of “show don’t tell”.

Drost’s piece on the Darien gap also starts with a scene of people arriving at the campsite. In terms of chronology, this piece seemed to start with the “present moment” of the scene, then goes back to the past to explain the historical and political context of the Darien gap, then goes back to the group that arrived at camp and explains their journey. A common theme across several of these stories is starting with a scene, moving back to an earlier point in time, then going forward to meet the point on the timeline that opened the story, then continuing from there. Many of them also ended with a scene, and the last sentence was a quote of the main character in the story.

Pitch: How Different Immigrant Communities Are Bracing Themselves for the Second Trump Term

I am writing my final piece about how immigrants of various backgrounds are reacting to Trump’s reelection and what concerns and anxieties they have heading into the next presidential term. I will rely on our interviews in Philly and New York, as well as additional interviews with leaders of relevant organizations in the Chicago area.

Sources:

Miriama Diallo (immigrant from Guinea – from TWC in Philly)
Anuj Gupta (CEO of TWC)
Elizabeth Jones (Strategy and Impact Director at TWC)
Patricia Fernández-Kelly (Princeton professor of sociology and director of Center for Migration and Development)
Johannes Favi (Deputy Director of the Illinois Community for Displaced Immigrants)

Lede and nut graph:

Although it is not yet clear how Trump will enforce his proposed policy of mass deportations, immigrants and advocates are bracing themselves. Most are preparing for increases in detention, deportation, and family separation, in addition to fear within immigrant communities.

Julia Preston’s piece is a thorough walkthrough of what immigration policy can look like under Trump (and now we know the outcome of the election, which was not the case when the piece was written). She accurately describes Trump’s vision of immigration as one that fails to recognize the importance of the contributions of immigrants to this country. She also details the extent of the devastation which could be caused by Trump’s proposed policy of mass deportations.

However, I slightly disagree with Preston’s assessment that Trump and Harris have a narrowing gap on immigration “on the surface” and that Harris’ track record and policy proposals are actually a practical way to address a problem rather than a draconian strategy of enforcement. Harris did move right on immigration. During a CNN Town Hall just weeks before the election, she refused to directly answer a question on whether she supports the border wall due to her support for the bipartisan immigration bill which earmarks funding for it (despite calling it stupid when Trump initially proposed it). Preston also correctly highlights inaccuracies in public perception of immigration enforcement under Trump and under Biden, but this doesn’t change the fact that Harris does support some elements of Trump’s border policy. Preston also mentioned that Harris’ support of the Senate bill is mainly tactical to show that she is willing to compromise and work across the aisle, and can also be the tougher border cop. Unless there was a substantial difference between what she was saying publicly at town halls and rallies and what she was telling advisors privately, it seems that her support for this bill is more than just tactical.

I know the articles on structure are for class, but I liked this quote from the New Yorker piece: “To lack confidence at the outset seems rational to me. It doesn’t matter that something you’ve done before worked out well. Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you.” I was also reflecting on the “considerable tension between chronology and theme” and that chronology usually wins. Even when quoting sources, I often find it easier to start with chronological order then move quotes around based on theme.

Peter Hessler’s piece in which he followed a trash collector in Cairo was really interesting in that it showcases a perspective that not many people think about: the collector is able to learn so many intimate details about people’s lives just by collecting their trash. This piece also raised some questions for me regarding the line between the professional relationship between a journalist and a source and the personal relationship which can allow for stronger character building. In the case of the trash collector, it seemed that the author had a close personal relationship which included visiting him in his home many times and having casual conversations in which they asked each other about their kids for instance. He also joined him on his trash collection route. This somewhat blurs the lines between professional and personal relationships, but I think it allowed the writer to gain a much better understanding of the person he is writing about.

The piece about Iraqi-centric clubs in Damascus is another example of how immersing yourself in a setting as a journalist can help you pick up on small details through observation or conversation. It’s also important to recognize that this might mean being in environments in which you stand out or might feel uncomfortable for a variety of reasons (the piece mentioned discomfort due to language skills, but this can apply to other contexts as well). I can only imagine how challenging it is to be in certain places to report a story and to develop a more intimate understanding of the characters you are righting about by immersing yourself into their world and going where they would go.

Lastly, the piece about the Syrian intelligence officer is very interesting, especially when it comes to the level of access that’s required to get some of the information and context presented in the piece. I would be very curious to know how a reporter uncovers something such as someone acting as a double agent for multiple intelligence agencies given the level of secrecy required to maintain an identity like that in the first place. It is also interesting to note that this piece was still successful in painting a picture of the characters and his complexities without the same intimate understanding which comes from accompanying the character or “embedding” as in the previous two pieces.

The Foreign Affairs article highlighted the limitations of international legal systems in trying the crime of aggression since the international avenues for trying this crime are less clear than the jurisdiction of the ICC for example. After the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals were disbanded, no international court had jurisdiction over the crime of aggression. This article demonstrates two key points for me. The first is the limitation of international legal systems. The crime of aggression cannot be applied against nationals of nonparties due to the concession made at Kampala. One alternative workaround mentioned in the article is for a few states to create an ad hoc court (or for the crime to be tried domestically in Ukraine), which can both be very long processes that take a lot of time. The second and related key point is that the role of journalism is in some ways to be “faster” than the legal system by documenting and gathering evidence of war crimes and aggression as they occur in real time. In other words, it’s an additional form of accountability which should not “wait” for the long and drawn out legal processes.

Citizen journalism and open-source investigations can contribute to this goal. For example, the TIME article on Ukraine crowdsourcing digital evidence of war crimes is a good example of allowing citizens to document alleged war crimes so that authorities can later hold the perpetrators responsible. It helps that Ukraine adapted already widely-used government apps for this purpose, and that there is an organized effort to gather this information into one database. The article notes that international war crimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute, so it’s still unclear what the effect of these efforts will be in terms of prosecution. However, these documentation efforts are still useful on their own in terms of countering potential Russian misinformation about what’s happening on the ground, as noted by a Ukrainian officials defending the use of these digital tools. The Record’s article also demonstrates that use of newer tools can help answer questions that were previously either impossible or very difficult to answer when it comes to investigating mass graves. It also suggests that mass surveillance changed from being something that was solely in the purview of governments to something that is more open-source due to the digital era.

Bellingcat’s investigation into the downing of Malaysia airlines flight MH17 over Ukrainian airspace is great example of open source investigations being “ahead” of legal processes while helping with the conviction years down the line. As of the time of publication of The Record article, there was still no verdict on the case of the three Russians and Ukrainian accused of downing the plane. However, a verdict did come later that year. Although it took more than eight years between the incident and the verdict, there is no doubt that Bellingcat’s effort of looking through social media posts in eastern Ukraine and eventually finding intercepted calls helped make this verdict possible or at least faster than it might have been without the open source investigation.

At a campaign rally in Arizona on Thursday, Donald Trump continued his attacks on illegal immigration and his criticism of the Biden-Harris administration’s handing of the border. He said the US is “like a garbage can for the world.”

With Election Day just over a week away, Trump has been focusing on anti-immigration rhetoric as he tries to win over additional voters in this final stretch of the campaign trail, especially in swing states. Though he continues his anti-immigration rhetoric at his rallies, he has not shared many details on how he plans to accomplish his sweeping immigration proposals.

What would immigration under a second Trump term actually look like? What policies would he realistically be able to implement, and what broader impacts will they have on immigrant communities already in the United States?

At another Arizona rally earlier this month, Trump mentioned his proposal to hire an additional 10,000 agents to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, with no plan for how he will accomplish that or how he will get funding for this proposal. Trump has also proposed mass deportations of millions of people and building new detainment centers.

According to the New York Times, Trump will have a very difficult time getting the resources to implement his proposed policies. Many candidates, especially Donald Trump, rely on hyperbolic rhetoric on the campaign trail to energize their base without any realistic details on how they will put their proposals in action.

Stephen Miller, who oversaw border policy during Trump’s first term and is expected to take on that role again if Trump is re-elected, said at the Conservative Political Action Committee earlier this year that the administration would bring back Safe Third agreements, Remain in Mexico, and Title 42. He also mentioned creating large staging grounds for removal flights.

Safe Third agreements, Remain in Mexico, and Title 42 were all used during the first Trump presidency to curtail immigration. Safe Third agreements with countries in Central America required asylum seekers traveling through those countries to first seek protection there before they get to the U.S.-Mexico border. Remain in Mexico is is a Department of Homeland Security policy which required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico until their U.S. court date. Title 42 is a policy that was revived during the COVID pandemic which allowed for turning away migrants arriving at the southern border on the basis of public health concerns. This policy ended in 2023 by the Biden administration with the end of the pandemic.

According to WBUR, for the first three years of the Biden presidency, there were roughly 2 million illegal border crossings a year, and that number fell drastically with tightened border controls and significantly limited asylum claims. During the Trump presidency, those numbers remained below a million each year.

Daniel Kanstroom, an immigration law expert at the Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy and co-director of the Boston College Center for Human Rights and International Justice, says he thinks it will be very difficult to implement something like Trump’s mass deportation proposal.

“There really is no way to implement this kind of a massive program without creating what amounts to a police state,” he told WBUR. “You’re going to have to be checking everybody’s I.D.’s. How do you tell who is an immigrant and who is a citizen? People don’t come with labels on their foreheads.” Kanstroom added that he does not think it is possible to identify the immigration status of 11 million people.

This does not mean that there will be no changes at all to immigration policy, or that there won’t be other devastating consequences. There could still be an increase in detention, deportation, and family separation, in addition to fear within immigrant communities.

One thing we know based on previous border crackdowns is that stricter immigration enforcement does not necessarily deter  migrants who want to cross the border. Anuj Gupta, CEO of The Welcoming Center (TWC), says the grit and perseverance of migrants who go through difficult journeys to get to the United States shows that they are determined to make it to their final destination. He says the U.S. should welcome people with that level of grit and determination.

“The issue is not that people want to come to this country,” he says. “The problem is that we don’t have a system to accommodate them.”

As a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization, TWC provides community support and a wide range of services for migrants, including language training, entrepreneurship support, and leadership workshops. Elizabeth Jones, Strategy and Impact Director, says preparing for the possibility of a second Trump presidency means responding to changing community needs and emphasizing wellness, while maintaining TWC’s current programming.

“We need to provide a way for people to be able to express their fears,” she says. “Wellness will be threatened.”

The New Yorker book review mentions that “the American immigration system is a victim of its own dysfunction”.  It discusses how backlogs in asylum cases incentivize people to stay in the country, and draconian border laws increase the population of undocumented immigrants. This statement about the dysfunction of the system can also extend to the broader history of the problem at the border because the United States directly contributed to many of the conditions in Central America which are leading people to want to migrate. State repression and crackdowns beget more state repression and crackdowns, and simply redirect the problem rather than solving it; deportations resulting from collaborative crackdowns led by law enforcement and immigration enforcement planted some of the seeds for the problem at the border which is prompting more crackdowns to control the problem.

The Atlantic piece about the Darien gap shows just how much people are willing to sacrifice to make it to the United States. Before Dickerson went down to make the trip, she was told that she could take measures to make it safer, but ultimately, “survival requires luck”. Her takeaway was that making the migration process more difficult does not mean that fewer people will migrate. It just means that cartels and other dangerous groups step in and profit from the process, and many migrants will die. The UN migration officials sent to bus stops and other checkpoints leading up to the Darien gap were ineffective at convincing people to turn back. It is somewhat expected that once people are set on making it to the US and are determined to make the journey regardless of the dangers that lie ahead, there is little that can be done to convince them to change their minds. Additional enforcement attempts by Panama border officials also do not do much to discourage immigration; migrants simply warn each other down the line as they are approaching the border and learn to avoid the officials.

The New Yorker article mentions that there are generally two categories of people who try to come into the country without permission: those who offer themselves up for arrest and apply for asylum (which have increased since 2021) and those who sneak in and try to evade capture. The increase in the number of people who claim that they will face violence or persecution if they return home and are coming from places as far as China is another illustration of the fact that deterrence is not effective at reducing the influx of migrants at the border. A more effective approach would be to facilitate the legal pathways of migration to reduce the number of people who remain undocumented in the country or are waiting for years (in some cases over a decade) for their asylum hearings. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to figure out which asylum seekers are playing by the rules, according to the article. It is interesting that some officials think that more lenient policy is the reason behind more migrants crossing the border because they think the system is gameable.

Azmat Khan’s investigation demonstrates the importance of information the public about the impacts of American wars on civilians. By speaking directly to victims of airstrikes, like the Saad family, Khan and her team humanized the civilians harmed by the war and continued to experience trauma for years after the war disappeared from the frontlines of American consciousness and public discourse. Sharing the victims’ stories also shows that there are very specific examples of the contrast between the official government narrative in reality, which cannot be denied based on evidence from eyewitnesses and family members. For instance, Younes Mahmood Thanoun was a victim of a strike which was only supposed to target one car but hit three because of an intentional decision to save more precise and lower collateral weapons for future strikes. The Pentagon concluded that there was no evidence of wrongdoing in this instance.

One of the most obvious reflections on Khan’s investigation is the striking similarity between what happened in Iraq and what is happening now in Gaza in terms of the underestimation of civilian harm and the contrast between the official narrative and realities on the ground. This particular quote stood out to me: “The air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government’s image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs.” Khan’s work and stories of victims she was able to share demonstrate this reality for Iraq, but this quote can almost be pasted with little change into a story about Gaza. The State Department’s official narrative and regular press briefings emphasize that they are putting pressure to reduce civilian harm and that strikes are carried out with precision, with civilian deaths as an unintended side effect, but the numbers and reports coming out of Gaza suggest that this is inaccurate.

This piece also sheds some light on both the role and challenges of investigative journalism – the second part to the series mentioned that it took years of negotiation and FOIA requests to obtain certain documents and information, and that on the ground data collection was interrupted by the pandemic. I also know and follow Lila Hassan, one of the research assistants who contributed to this project, and she often shares on her platforms how difficult it is and how much persistence is required to get access to documents from government sources. It is necessary work to hold officials accountable and shed light on the hypocrisy between the public narrative and what actually happened, but the reality is that it can also take years for this accountability to take place. It was also insightful to learn about some of the measures Khan took while visiting 50 sites in Mosul to ensure that the information she receives is accurate and that prior notice does not bias the work.

A new survey by Pew Research Center shows that 85% of Latino voters view immigration as one of the top five issues “very important for their vote” in this year’s presidential election. Latino supporters of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris prioritize different issues.

Latino Trump supporters cite immigration as a top issue important to their vote (71%), following the economy (93%) and violent crime (73%). By contrast, only 51% of Latino Harris supporters cited immigration as important for their vote, the second lowest share among the ten issues included in the survey.

Wyatt Browne, who co-leads Princeton Students for Immigrant Empowerment, said he thinks Latino Trump supporters prioritize immigration due to the long-standing trope of immigrants being detrimental to the economy and “stealing what was meant to be yours.”

“Given the economic state of the country and the fact that a lot of people are feeling the squeeze on their finances and are feeling the squeeze on accessing social services,” he said. “Maybe for immigrant voters who did things ‘the right way’, that rhetoric holds weight.”

Browne said immigration policy is one of the many large differences between the two candidates, even with Harris’ backtracking on her previous stance of decriminalizing illegal border crossings. He also said it makes sense for voters to prioritize the economy and use it as a frame for their stances on immigration.

“I think immigration is really tightly intertwined with people’s vision of the economy,” he said. “That’s one way immigration will impact the election.”

Latino Harris supporters are also more likely than all Harris supporters to cite immigration as a top issue. Latino Harris supporters cite the economy (80%), health care (78%), and gun policy (66%) as the three top issues impacting their vote.

According to Pew Research Center, the results of the survey suggest that preferences of Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election look similar to their preferences in 2020. In 2024, 36.2 million Latinos are eligible to vote, a 4 million increase since 2020.

Patricia Fernández-Kelly, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for Migration and Development at Princeton University, said it is important to point out that the Pew survey asks about people’s views on the importance of immigration, but this captures two types of people. The first is people who believe immigration is too high and should be curtailed, and the second is people who see immigration as good for the country and are concerned about the curtailment of immigration.

“The poll results tell an important story, but it’s not the whole story,” she said.

Roberto Suro, a professor of journalism and public policy at University of Southern California, told NBC News that Harris’ overall polling with Latinos show she had “righted the ship.”

“Harris has made up most of the ground that Biden lost in the last year,” he said. “But it’s still very much a horse race and she’s not necessarily ahead.”

According to the Migration Policy Institute, the number of immigrants in the U.S. as well as their share of the U.S. population have both increased steadily since 1970. In addition, one in ten eligible voters in the US are naturalized citizens, according to Pew.

Overall support for immigration into the U.S. declined in recent years. A Gallup poll from July revealed that 55% of U.S. adults would like to see immigration to the U.S. decrease, the highest percentage since 2001. Although the desire for decreased immigration varies by party, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents are all more likely to favor less immigration. Only 16% of respondents want to see immigration increase, the lowest levels since 2009.

Fernández-Kelly said her research shows that this anti-immigration sentiment is present even among immigrant populations. The longer an immigrant stays in a country, the more they absorb some of the attitudes of the larger population.

“Older immigrants from anywhere, the longer they have resided in the country, the less sympathetic they are going to be towards more recently-arrived immigrants,” she said. “Even fairly recently arrived immigrants don’t want other immigrants, even from their own country.”

This anti-immigrant sentiment comes despite what she described as evidence of a positive effect of immigration on the economy.

“Immigrants tend to be looking for opportunities for employment,” she said. “Immigrants, even those who are undocumented, pay into the treasury of the United States.”

She also said the immigration process in the U.S. is complicated and lacks coordination, and will continue to be a point of contention.

“Immigration is important,” she said. “I highly doubt immigration is going to stop having salience in this country.”