With foreign student visas at Harvard and elsewhere in the news, today’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy features Andrew Arthur, the Center for Immigration Studies fellow in law and policy, providing a crash course on the subject. He explains the foreign student admissions process, the responsibilities of schools certified to enroll foreign students, and recent policy issues. With over one million foreign students studying (and working) in America, this episode covers the national security implications of not having proper knowledge of who is being brought in and what they are doing while in the U.S.

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This week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy features a discussion of a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies, which reveals that both immigrant and U.S.-born women are having fewer children than they did 15 years ago. Based on data from the 2023 American Community Survey (ACS), collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, the report finds that although immigrant women continue to have somewhat higher fertility rates than their U.S.-born counterparts, the gap is small.

Guest Steven Camarota, the Center’s Research Director and co-author of the report, highlights a critical reality: Immigration, while adding to population growth, does not significantly slow the aging of the population or reverse declining birth rates.

The Center for Immigration Studies hosted a panel discussion examining how immigration is used as a political, economic, and strategic tool by governments, non-state, and sub-state actors worldwide. Whether through mass migration crises, policy-driven border surges, or the manipulation of refugee flows, immigration has become a powerful geopolitical weapon and a means of waging hybrid warfare. Examples have included Cuba’s use of the Mariel boatlift in 1980 or the more recent efforts by Belarus to coordinate illegal immigration to the EU.

This panel explored the concept of immigration warfare – how immigration is leveraged to gain political leverage; influence legislation, elections, and the economy; shape public opinion; and even destabilize a country. Discussion also covered how nations can respond to this growing challenge. The discussion is an activity of the International Network for Immigration Research (INIR), a collaboration among independent policy organizations on three continents sharing the perspective that each sovereign nation has the right to pursue its chosen immigration policies.

Former Czech President Václav Klaus joins the Center for Immigration Studies podcast to discuss migration, national identity, and the importance of the nation-state. An economist and longtime advocate for national sovereignty, President Klaus challenges prevailing European views on immigration, multiculturalism, and the European Union.

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This week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy discusses the Trump Administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act (AEA), a rarely-used provision in U.S. law passed in 1798 that gives the president the authority to swiftly remove citizens of countries of wartime foes or countries who have made a “predatory incursion” into our territory. Last month, President Trump issued a proclamation invoking the AEA to apprehend, restrain, secure, and remove certain documented members of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).

Guest host and CIS Director of Policy Studies Jessica Vaughan interviews George Fishman, CIS Senior Legal Fellow, who has been writing about the possible use of the AEA since 2023. Three main questions are highlighted during the podcast:

Fieldwork undertaken by the Center for Immigration Studies reveals a border now under control, offering clear evidence that the border crisis was never an unstoppable force but rather the result of policy decisions.

Last week the Center sent analysts to the Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector and across the border to Tijuana, and to the El Paso Sector and across the border to Juarez. These two border sectors had some of the heaviest migrant traffic over the last few years, but now the numbers have plummeted.

The latest episode of the Center for Immigration Studies podcast series features a discussion between guest host Marguerite Telford, the Center’s Director of Communications, and Steven Camarota, the Center’s Director of Research.

Camarota’s interview highlights a recently released analysis that examines the size and growth of the foreign-born population in the January Current Population Survey, the first government survey to be adjusted to better reflect the recent surge in illegal immigrants. The analysis finds that the foreign-born or immigrant population (legal and illegal together) hit 53.3 million and 15.8 percent of the total U.S. population in January 2025 — both new record highs.

This week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy reminds listeners of the threats that made President Trump’s recent Executive Order, “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” necessary. The Center for Immigration Studies maintains a comprehensive database detailing examples of preventable federal government vetting failures which resulted in the entry of individuals who posed a threat to national security. Todd Bensman, the Center’s national security fellow, has recently added new cases into the database, highlighting the need for the improvement of U.S. vetting processes. “The Center’s database offers valuable insights for preventing future threats,” said Bensman. “I hope this crucial tool for understanding past failures will be useful to the Trump administration’s renewed robust security vetting efforts.”

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In the latest episode of Parsing Immigration Policy, Victor Davis Hanson, a Hoover Institution fellow, discusses the changes in U.S. immigration policy under President Trump with Mark Krikorian, the Center for Immigration Studies’ executive director. The discussion begins with acknowledging how the political landscape for Trump 2.0 differs greatly from the first Trump administration, giving President Trump maneuvering room to make major immigration policy changes.

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The latest episode of “Parsing Immigration Policy” highlights skilled immigration policies, their impact, and ways to improve the legal immigration programs. Featuring Dr. Norman Matloff, emeritus professor at UC Davis and a leading expert on the H-1B visa program, this episode breaks down how current policies are reshaping the U.S. labor market, undercutting American workers, and benefiting major tech companies at the expense of bringing the true “best and brightest” to the U.S.

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Immigration was a defining issue in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and within his first week in office, he took swift action to fulfill his promises. In this week’s episode of Parsing Immigration Policy podcast, Center for Immigration Studies experts analyze the nine immigration-related Executive Orders issued in his first week in office, shaping the direction of U.S. immigration policy.

Andrew Arthur, Fellow in Law and Policy, and Elizabeth Jacobs, Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy, provide an in-depth breakdown and analysis of these executive actions and their broader impact on immigration policy.