- President Trump is now targeting immigrant access to banks through a new executive order. The order directs the Secretary of Treasury to issue new advisories and regulations dealing with the “risks” of lending to non-citizens, especially those without status. This is a slightly weaker policy than anticipated; previous news reports indicated that the administration would require banks to collect citizenship data on all customers, but banks pushed back on this idea. Regardless, new advisories could make banks more hesitant to open new accounts or make new loans to many immigrants, and a new regulatory regime is likely to cause further financial chaos for our communities. No new policies have been implemented yet; we expect the advisory in July and new regulations proposed in August and September.
- In an 11-10 party line vote, the Senate Budget Committee advanced a reconciliation package that would add $71.6 billion to immigration enforcement through the end of the decade. Reconciliation is a process that allows the Senate to pass funding with a simple majority, rather than having to overcome a possible filibuster. This is the same process used last summer to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which had already added $170 billion to immigration enforcement.
- On Monday, a federal judge ruled that ICE cannot make arrests at three immigration court houses in Manhattan. The judge had originally refrained from making such a decision, but changed his mind after government attorneys admitted that policies set by the president regarding courthouse arrests do not apply to immigration courts. While this ruling only applies to courthouses in Manhattan, it could pave the way for similar rulings here in Massachusetts.
- A heartbreaking recent study by the Brookings Institution found that over 146,000 US citizen children have had at least one parent deported under the Trump Administration. Just over ⅓ of these children are under 6 years old, and over 22,000 US citizen children have seen both parents deported. As the report points out, little is known about what eventually happens to these children. Some may go with their parents to a country they’ve never known, others may go live with a relative. Some wind up in foster care, placing additional strains on state systems. What we do know is that family separation does severe, wide-ranging, and long-term harm to impacted children.
- Tax experts estimate that the administration’s efforts to collect citizenship data on tax filers could cost the US up to $479 billion in lost tax revenue over the next ten years. Tax information has traditionally been protected from unrelated enforcement efforts so that the government does not dissuade individuals from paying their taxes. However, the administration’s policy change creates fear among communities that filing taxes will bring with it detention and deportation. Immigrants form a vital part of our national tax base; a February Cato Institute study found that immigrants have reduced the national debt by over $14 trillion in the last 30 years.
- The administration more than doubled the number of white Afrikaners admitted to the US as refugees, from 7,500 to 17,500. The administration has halted refugee resettlement from other countries while promoting the conspiracy theory of a white genocide in South Africa. The last fiscal year of the Biden Administration saw 100,000 refugees admitted to the U.S., although many of those already admitted are now subject to detention due to unreasonable administration policies.