>Washington Post: New Colorado Law Enhances State Protections for at-Risk Immigrants
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<Colorado strengthened its protections for immigrants on Friday, adopting legislation that reinforces its unwillingness to cooperate with the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign even as the president wields lawsuits and funding cuts in bids to bend blue jurisdictions to his will.
<The bill was signed with no fanfare by Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat who has walked a careful line during Donald Trump’s second term when it comes to illegal immigration, arguing for legal pathways while saying he welcomed federal help to deport dangerous criminals. Among other measures, the legislation prevents jails from delaying a defendant’s release for the purpose of immigration enforcement and prohibits local governments from providing individuals’ personal information to federal immigration authorities.
<“To be clear, state and local law enforcement cannot be commandeered to enforce federal civil immigration laws and taken away from fighting crime,” Polis said in a statement. But he also emphasized the ways the new provisions still allow for cooperation with federal agencies. “We are deeply committed to working with our federal partners and will continue to fully participate in federal task forces that take down criminals.”
>Prestigious Universities Pressured: Exclusion of Foreign Students Will Be a Self-Inflicted Loss for U.S.
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<The Trump administration announced that it will revoke the national certification required for Harvard University to accept foreign students. The university will no longer be able to accept new foreign students, and current international students will lose their status to stay in the United States unless they transfer to another university.
<Harvard University is one of the top universities not only in the United States but also in the world. It accepts students and researchers from more than 140 countries and regions, including 260 Japanese students this school year.
<Regarding the latest measure, the U.S. Homeland Security Department issued a statement saying, “Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country,” suggesting the possibility of imposing the same measure on other universities in the future. It is inevitable that uneasiness and anxiety will spread across the country.
<The administration cited Harvard University’s allowing the promotion of “antisemitism” on campus and its acceptance of individuals associated with the Chinese Communist Party who have been involved in the suppression of ethnic minorities, as reasons for banning the admission of foreign students.
>Visa Overstays Make Up Almost 40% Of Illegal US Entries
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<The share of people becoming undocumented immigrants in the United States not by illegally crossing a border, but by overstaying their visas was almost 40 percent of estimated new undocumented immigrants in the fiscal year 2023.
<While an estimated 860,000 new undocumented arrivals were created due to illegal border crossings that year, more than 510,000 people overstayed their visas.
<This fact has in the past called into question the effectiveness of sealing off borders to curb illegal immigration. During the first Trump term, when the construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border took central stage, the number of overstayers even slightly outnumbered that of illegal crossers. Now, the Trump administration is also attacking on the other front, this weekend warning Indians not to overstay U.S. visas or risk lifetime bans to the country.
<As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, the absolute number of Indian visa overstayers in FY of 2023 was around 19,000 - rank 7 among nations, but the highest-ranking non-Latin American or Caribbean country. In FY 2016, this was still as high as 25,000 people.
<The stock of undocumented Indian immigrants was most recently estimated at 725,000 people - rank 3 after Mexico and El Salvador.
<In terms of illegal crossers (calculated based on the most recent data on border encounters), Latin American countries and Haiti made up the top 10 of the most common nationalities illegally crossing the Southern U.S. border, with Mexicans making up almost a third of all illegal crossers.
<The prevalence of the different modes of illegal immigration has been changing in the last two decades.