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Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights
Mar 31, 2025
In a recent post we quoted a journalist describing the Republican Party as anti-immigration. Many of our readers wrote back angrily to say that the Republican party is only opposed to immigrants who are present illegally.
But that's not true. And we're not shy of telling it like it is.
Recent Republican legislation and executive orders have sought to limit legal immigration, limit benefits for legal immigrants, and limit the rights of legal immigrants. Here are just some examples.
Limiting Legal Forms of Immigration
Immigrants may currently apply for asylum no matter how they enter the United States if they are seeking protection because they have suffered persecution or fear that they will suffer persecution. It's not unusual for asylum seekers to arrive between official ports of entry, look for Border Patrol agents and turn themselves in so that they can begin the asylum process. H.R. 871: RULES Act by Republican Rep. Anna Luna would make only entry at ports of entry an acceptable way to apply for asylum.
The Trump Administration ended Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitian who through designations during the Biden Administration were able to obtain work permits and deportation protection.
And on January 20, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced it was shutting down the CBP One app causing thousands of people who were trying to enter the U.S. legally to lose their appointments.
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There are several ways to be born or become a citizen, but one is in the Constitution: The Constitution's 14th Amendment reads, "All persons born ... in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Now Republicans are trying to change what "jurisdiction" means, contrary to the plain meaning of the word. On January 20, President Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to not "recognize" the citizenship of individuals born to parents either temporarily (e.g. with a visa) or unlawfully in the country, if they don't have citizenship another way. S. 304: Birthright Citizenship Act of 2025 and its companion legislation in the House, introduced by Republicans, would do the same, and dozens of similar bills have been introduced by Republicans over the last two decades. In unrelated but contradictory remarks, Trump's Secretary of Homeland Security said of her department, "We have jurisdiction over people who live here, people who leave here, and people who come here. ... I tell people we have jurisdiction over everything."
Limiting Access to Benefits to Legal Immigrants
President Trump signed an executive order purporting to make English the official language of the country, though the president has no specific power to do so, and the executive order's only directive is merely that federal agencies won't provide language assistance to non-English speakers seeking federal services, which had been required since the 1990s. Around 15% of United States citizens speak a language other than English at home, as of course do many lawfully present immigrants (not to mention that in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory inhabited by U.S. citizens, Spanish is the predominant language). Republicans have been proposing bills in Congress to make English the official language for decades.
H.R. 746: America First Act by Republican Reps. Jodey Arrington and Chip Roy would deny numerous federal benefits for health, child care and school meals, housing, and natural disasters to non-citizens and their children not only to those present unlawfully but also to those present legally through Temporary Protected Status and asylum. (It also would deny benefits to unlawful immigrants who themselves arrived in the country as children but now may be adults.)
Limiting the Rights of Legal Immigrants
You've probably read about the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and lawful permanent resident (i.e. green card holder) who was born a Palenstinian refugee in Syria and led pro-Palestinian protests here. He's being detained with the intention of deportation. But he hasn't been charged with a crime. It's expected that the Trump Administration will cite protest activities that would be protected by the First Amendment if he were a citizen but may not protect him from deportation. It's not clear how courts will rule on it. If they rule against Khalil, First Amendment rights will be significantly curtailed for immigrants.
The Washington, D.C. municipal government and municipalities in California, Maryland and Vermont allow non-citizens to vote in local elections. It sounds odd today, but it was actually normal for non-citizens to be permitted to vote through the early 20th Century. Republicans in Congress have sought to block D.C.'s municipal governmentfrom doing so.
Look, we know that politicians' have sometimes said that their goal is to remove incentives for illegal immigration. But we have always reported not on what politicians say but what they do. And what the policies in this article would do is limit legal immigration, reduce benefits for legal immigrants, and limit the rights of legal immigrants. And while obviously not all Republican officials have supported all of these policies, as a whole the party has clearly adopted an anti-immigration stance.
Recent Republican policies and proposals limiting legal immigration and legal immigrants' benefits and rights was originally published by GovTrack.us and is shared with permission.
Joshua Tauberer is the founder of GovTrack.us and created the site initially as a hobby in 2004.
Amy West has been the GovTrack research and communications manager since February 2017.
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Indoor Air Pollution Causes Millions of Deaths Each Year
Mar 29, 2025
After losing my kidney to cancer, I made a disturbing discovery: household air pollution might have contributed to my illness.
According to researchers, plastics in our air and household items could be linked to kidney problems. While I may never identify the exact cause of my cancer, research shows that indoor air pollution is responsible for an estimated three to five million premature deaths worldwide each year. It’s connected to heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be taking action to protect everyone from toxic chemicals indoors. In February 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin identified clean air, land, and water as top priorities. However, by March 2025, the EPA’s mission had shifted to making cars cheaper, homes less expensive to heat, and businesses more affordable. Yet even without these misguided goals, the EPA lacks adequate testing and regulations and allows manufacturers to use new chemicals without testing until harm is proven; this helps manufacturers by putting the rest of us at risk.
The EPA must establish a national Clean Indoor Air Act (CIAA) to combat indoor air pollution and require testing and regulation of toxic chemicals before they enter the market. A national CIAA could be cost-effective, reduce illness, and save lives, ensuring a healthier and safer future for everyone. Just as the Clean Air Act (CAA) has been crucial in addressing outdoor pollution, a similar approach is necessary for indoor air quality.
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The CAA has effectively regulated emissions since 1967, saving over $2 trillion in healthcare costs while providing benefits 30 times greater than its expenditures. Similarly, improving indoor air quality can reduce illnesses and deaths. However, unlike outdoor air pollution, no federal laws currently address polluted indoor air, highlighting the need for a similar approach.
In contrast to the EPA’s inaction, states like California have proactively addressed these issues. California identified 874 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer, disabilities, or reproductive harm. These chemicals are commonly found in household products like food, furniture, and cosmetics. The air inside our homes can be up to ten times more toxic than outside air, leading to serious health issues like respiratory problems and chronic diseases. Air pollution is a significant cause of trachea, bronchus, and lung cancer, with particulate matter being the second leading risk factor after smoking.
Reducing the use of solid fuels for cooking and heating has helped, but using new synthetic materials in flooring, carpets, and wall coverings has increased indoor pollution. These materials are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), harmful gases in some household products released by chemicals. VOCs are harmful particles and gases that cause health problems like eye irritation, nausea, and cancer. The American Lung Association warns that VOCs are the primary cause of poor indoor air quality and can harm our health.
In 2025, France banned toxic polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs) from cosmetics, ski wax, and clothing, creating an opportunity for the United States to take similar action. PFAs are also known as “forever chemicals.” Some states, like California, have acted to regulate these chemicals, and the EPA should do the same. In January 2025, California banned twenty-four toxic “forever chemicals” in personal care products, cosmetics, and clothing. These chemicals include mercury and formaldehyde, which are PFAs.
Although the EPA has issued some guidelines for certain toxic chemicals, it must do more. A 2024 study shows the need for a nationwide act to protect public health and indoor environments.
A National Clean Indoor Air Act (CIAA) could be cost-effective, reduce illness, and save lives. The CIAA must require testing and regulations for human health safety for 1) new toxic chemicals before being allowed into the marketplace and 2) existing toxic chemicals to be limited or removed from the marketplace, as testing dictates.
While the EPA starts regulating, there are ways to identify some of the chemicals in our indoor spaces. The Consumer Products Information Database offers information on its website about chemicals in everyday products and how they might affect our health. Clearya, a mobile app, helps buyers scan labels for toxic ingredients in personal and household products when shopping. Some of this is in our hands. But we must hold our leaders—and the EPA—accountable for the air we breathe. Clearly, they have work to do.
Carole Rollins has been an environmental educator for 35 years. She has a Ph.D. in environmental science and has taught environmental education at the University of California at Berkeley. Carole has received the White House Millennium Green Award and the National Endowment for the Arts Public Education and Awareness Award.
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President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Kid Rock watch a UFC event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16.
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The Care and Feeding of a Superpower
Mar 23, 2025
The Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, led by an unelected billionaire and supported by the Donald Trump administration, continues its bulldozer approach to our federal government. As we careen forward, an essential food for thought is an awareness of the global and historical perspectives that underscore how our current leaders' strategies align with a playbook for the final chapter of previous global powers.
When we think of global dominance, we often think of military strength and the size of a superpower’s budget. What we think less of is the importance of perception or the significance of the cultural aspects of power. The USAID spreads the impression of a peaceful and protective United States, dispersing resources and building a global community with the US at the helm. President Kennedy began the USAID in 1961 with an Executive order. Research shows that USAID has continuously had bipartisan support and a tremendous impact, makes up less than 1 percent of our budget, and is a major player within the United Nations Developmental Programme.
Military and financial power alone does not make a global power. To preserve a respectable image, we need soft power. We need to be viewed as morally good, akin to what public intellectual Slavoj Žižek calls global capitalism with a human face. The United States has leaned into this strategy. We are a military giant, and still, people worldwide view us as democratic and politically stable.
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Sociologists have long shown the importance of this balancing act. When antagonistic forces are the foundation of a system, something must entice those with less power to cooperate or submit rather than revolt. Workers who receive benefits are less likely to strike. Those living in proximity to the toxic outputs of oil refineries are less likely to critique the company when it also invests in healthcare and education for the community.
The United States grew into its role as a world power politically and economically, and, like the British, Dutch, and Spanish empires before it, may be destined to lose this status eventually. In The Long Twentieth Century, the late scholar Giovanni Arrighi analyzed empires and how they transition. Their decline follows a pattern. One part of this order is that an empire’s ambitions exceed its tangible resources, and over-extension predates its decline. Trump’s colonial tendencies, for example, when he states he wants to take over Greenland, The Panama Canal, and Gaza, echo exactly the overextending vibe of world leaders pre-collapse.
We are the emperor who quickly drops clothing. It’s inefficient to waste food, medical trials, people, or allies. As a superpower, appearing secure, functional, and stable is valuable. The United States is seeking expansion, and at the same time, its leaders are dismantling its systems internally. And these things matter. We don’t live in a peaceful world, and global leaders vie for power. There are those who would appreciate the internally initiated demise of the United States.
To be sure, the waning of US global dominance is likely inevitable. The contradictions of Trump and Musk’s decisions to eliminate USAID inefficiently and dismantle the federal workforce while simultaneously making large power grabs, such as seeking additional territories and mineral rights, could speed up this descent.
There may be nothing that can make a superpower become self-reflective enough to be sustainable. It is unlikely that the Trump administration will reinstate robust foreign aid and federal workers nor invest in sustainability-oriented policies such as the Green New Deal. But we live in an era where we are increasingly aware of Adrienne Marie Brown’s emergent strategy. What if our leaders could turn towards more evolved skills and sustainable actions, such as prioritizing the care of people and our planet overfeeding a no-boundary endless treadmill of greed chasing? Perhaps the asymmetry inherent to empires is not meant to last, but perhaps humanity can. We need leaders who understand that global sustainability, and thus solidarity, are the best renewable resources.
The global political economy is not a high-stakes card game. It is the context and backbone of our only shared reality. And it’s time for its parameters to evolve from a dog-eat-dog mentality to a regenerative one. We need leaders who value non-alternative facts and our future, who believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and who trust our scientists. We need a government that can imagine and work towards a better world where education is broadly funded, federal employees keep their jobs, we appropriately tax our wealth hoarders, and at our core, we strategize for liberation for all rather than domination for some.
Our world's systems may not be a card game, but it would behoove our leaders to understand not only the art, but also the science and history of their dealings and the systemic risks of bad faith plays.
Megan Thiele Strong is a Sociology professor at San José State University, a Public Voices Fellow at The OpEd Project, and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.
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Trump’s cuts at the FAA could underscore the risks of shrinking government
Mar 23, 2025
WASHINGTON – After recent layoffs of employees at the Federal Aviation Administration and a string of aviation incidents, passengers and experts expressed concerns that U.S. airlines’ excellent safety record could be at risk.
About 400 probationary workers were removed from the FAA beginning on February 14, just weeks after the DCA midair collision on January 29 that left 67 dead. On February 17, at least 18 people were injured when a Delta Airlines flight from Minneapolis crash-landed upside down on a runway at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
The layoffs are part of an extensive effort spearheaded by the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, to consolidate the federal government. Some experts cautioned that given the high profile of aviation safety, cuts at the FAA could demonstrate the perils of shrinking government.
While no air traffic controllers were laid off, aviation safety experts warned that cuts could further strain the agency, which has long suffered from staffing shortages.
So far, some 400 of about 45,000 FAA employees have been laid off, according to a post on X by Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. Of them, 132 belong to the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS), a union representing about 11,000 FAA employees, according to Dave Spero, the organization’s president.
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Aeronautical safety specialists, maintenance mechanics, and employees in aviation safety assistance roles were among those who were terminated, according to Spero. Although no air traffic controllers were laid off, Spero emphasized that these roles are critical positions within the FAA.
The impact of recent layoffs
Experts said these layoffs will only worsen pre-existing staffing problems.
“I don't want to sound hyperbolic, but the system is operating under a lot of dynamic stresses. As it is, with the normal staffing problems, with the normal retirement challenges and things like that that are going on, this is going to make it so much worse,” said Philip Mann, a former FAA certified technician and aviation safety expert.
Following the DCA midair collision, Americans’ confidence in air travel dipped slightly, with 64% of U.S. adults saying plane travel is very or somewhat safe, down from 71% last year, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll. Public faith in the federal government’s ability to maintain air safety also dropped slightly.
Still, experts stressed that the National Airspace System and commercial flight in the U.S. is still the safest way to travel.
However, Mann commented that many of those laid off worked to maintain air traffic controllers' systems, which could cause system outages similar to weather delays that travelers are used to. Since air traffic will only be able to manage a lighter load of aircrafts, an increase in flight delays is a very possible consequence of the layoffs.
“There won't be more crashes,” he said. “There will be fewer airplanes flying.”
A former air traffic controller echoed Mann’s outlook on the layoffs.
“To an extent, it could slow things down, but at the same time, it's not an immediate safety risk,” said the former air traffic controller, who recently resigned and asked to remain anonymous while searching for other work.
The former air traffic controller said they see a benefit in smaller government.
“I'm a fan of downsizing government,” they said. “I do think that there's a lot of bloat in certain areas, but I guess my balanced opinion is that it stinks that the people that are getting harmed by it are people that just show up to their job every day.”
Congress examines the future of FAA infrastructure
Spero appeared as a witness at a House Subcommittee on Aviation hearing aimed at addressing a need for the modernization of the U.S. air traffic control system.
Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Troy E. Nehls (R-Texas-22) opened the hearing by emphasizing the importance of upgrading technology and improving hiring at the FAA.
“This moment in time represents a unique opportunity for the members of this subcommittee and all aviation stakeholders to coalesce around a common goal: meaningful air traffic control modernization that will benefit the flying public and all users of the National Airspace System,” Nehls said.
Spero emphasized a need for adequate staffing and better management of aging equipment systems within the agency. In an interview following the congressional hearing, Spero reiterated his union members' critical role in the agency and the dangers of gambling with future safety by terminating employees.
“Without us, you can't even go into a terminal radar approach control and turn on the light. We provide all of the power and electronics to make that stuff happen,” he said.
What Americans need to know
Despite recent air accidents, experts emphasized that air travel still remained safe.
“I think everyone has heightened awareness because of the Washington, D.C., midair collision accident, but I do not see some nefarious trend or anything,” said Jeff Guzzetti, an aviation safety consultant and former Chief Accident Investigator at the FAA.
However, other experts are concerned about the recent accidents.
“I think the media tends to try to sensationalize things and make a problem, but a problem doesn't exist without foundation,” said Rich Martindell, an aviation safety consultant and a retired Air Force aircraft accident investigator.
With safety and operations under scrutiny, many aviation experts cautioned against more layoffs.
“It's too early to tell what these FAA layoffs will do to safety, but I do hope that they stop. The FAA has perennially been understaffed and at this point in time. With the public having such attention on aviation safety, it's not a good look for the administration to target the FAA for any of these workforce reductions,” Guzzetti said.
Mann underscored that people’s lives are at risk.
“I will argue that there is no such thing as a job in the Department of Transportation, which includes the FAA, that does not somehow impact either safety directly, or it impacts the people who do impact safety directly.”
Lenna Peterson covers politics for Medill on the Hill. She is a junior at Northwestern University pursuing a double major in journalism and history and a certificate in Holocaust studies. While in Evanston, she serves as an executive producer, reporter and anchor for Northwestern News Network. From Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Peterson interned on the Copywriting Team at Rocket Mortgage this past summer.
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