A July 2025 CBS/YouGov ballot requested People, “Do you approve or disapprove of the Trump administration’s program to find and deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally?”
The respondents have been divided, with 49% of People approving and 51% disapproving.
However, as I’ll clarify, that survey query addresses solely a part of the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
I’m a lawyer and former adviser to senior state officers in Florida, and to the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. I additionally educate human rights and nationwide safety programs at Florida State College, together with an interdisciplinary seminar referred to as Refugees, Asylees & Migrants.
Immigration points are advanced. Discussing them is difficult, since key phrases are sometimes conflated and confused.
Clarifying these phrases and their authorized implications might help guarantee persons are speaking about the identical issues – no matter whether or not they agree about who must be within the nation.
Some key immigration-related phrases
Let’s begin with phrases describing completely different facets of immigration.
Immigrant is a typical time period which means a overseas nationwide who intends to stay within the U.S. or one other nation the place they weren’t born.
Migrant is a generic time period that doesn’t have any particular authorized which means and is usually used incorrectly as a synonym for immigrant.
Immigrants are thought-about documented in the event that they’ve been issued an immigrant visa or a inexperienced card, thereby attaining lawful everlasting resident standing. Inexperienced playing cards and visas might be revoked – usually a consequence of sure legal convictions. Visas permit overseas nationals to journey to a U.S. port of entry and request permission to enter however don’t assure entry.
A lawful everlasting resident typically can apply for U.S. citizenship after 5 years. This course of is called naturalization. In fiscal yr 2024, 818,500 folks have been naturalized.
As soon as naturalized, revocation of U.S. citizenship – or denaturalization – is uncommon, historically ensuing from fraud, omission in the course of the utility course of or different extraordinary causes. Between 1990 and 2017, about 11 folks yearly had their naturalized citizenship revoked.
In Could 2025 – a typical month representing among the most up-to-date information out there – about 47,000 immigrants entered the U.S. with one of many many sorts of immigrant visas. For instance, the visas could also be used for family-based immigration, together with official marriages to U.S. residents and worldwide adoptions. Immigrant visas are additionally out there for employment-based immigration, together with overseas nationals who make investments substantial capital within the U.S. financial system.
An array of nonimmigrant visas
Other than immigrant visas, a wide range of nonimmigrant or non permanent visas can be found.
As an example, there are visas for worldwide college students, though the Trump administration has expressed its intention to considerably limit availability.
There are visas to facilitate journey and tourism, enterprise, non permanent staff, and for these with extraordinary skills or achievements.
There are particular visas for victims of human trafficking and different crimes who help legislation enforcement.
There are even visas to facilitate worldwide sports activities competitions.
In fiscal yr 2024, the U.S. issued a file 8.5 million customer visas. Stays are typically restricted to 6 months.
As well as, guests from greater than 40 nations are allowed to journey to the united statesfor tourism or enterprise for as much as 90 days with out acquiring a visa.
Considerably, a overseas nationwide coming into the U.S. with a customer visa, also called a vacationer visa, isn’t licensed to work.
What it means to be ‘undocumented’
The time period undocumented basically refers to individuals who didn’t receive a inexperienced card or a visa – or stayed within the U.S.
after their paperwork expired. An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants dwell within the U.S.
Individuals in Los Angeles rally in assist of undocumented immigrants.
Noah Berger/AP Picture
Visa “overstays” symbolize roughly 40% of the undocumented inhabitants. As a matter of legislation, such overstays are civil reasonably than legal violations.
Attracting extra political consideration are overseas nationals who cross U.S. borders exterior of a licensed checkpoint with out asserting a reputable claims for asylum. The Border Patrol recorded an historic excessive of 249,741 encounters with such migrants in December 2023. That determine dropped 77% by August 2024, in response to a Pew Analysis Heart evaluation.
The Trump administration’s deployment of the U.S. navy on the border has reportedly additional diminished the variety of encounters to the bottom degree in many years, however questions concerning the legality of the deployment stay unanswered.
The Trump administration can be encouraging voluntary departure by providing journey help and $1,000 to “illegal aliens” who self-deport.
Being undocumented might be authorized
Being undocumented doesn’t essentially imply a overseas nationwide is within the U.S. illegally.
Some overseas nationals are admitted into the nation with out documentation. Asylum-seekers, also called asylees, are folks fleeing persecution of their dwelling nations. They often should current themselves to federal immigration authorities at a port of entry, or after coming into the nation by different lawful means, and finally substantiate their claims.
The Trump administration’s motion to ban asylum on the U.S.-Mexico border was lately restricted by a federal appellate court docket. The court docket’s determination successfully curtails the administration’s observe of deporting folks to locations the place they could possibly be tortured or persecuted, topic to any additional consideration by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
Migrants escaping determined financial circumstances are usually not eligible for asylum.
Refugees, like asylum-seekers, are fleeing a well-founded worry of persecution of their dwelling nations and are protected beneath the 1951 Refugee Conference as amended by its 1967 Protocol. This identifies 5 types of persecution for reduction – race, faith, nationality, membership in a selected social group, or political opinion. In 1980, Congress handed and President Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act, which included these worldwide requirements into U.S. legislation.
In contrast to asylum-seekers, refugees apply for reduction and substantiate their claims by the United Nations. They often don’t get to decide on whether or not or the place they might be resettled.
Refugees and other people granted asylum might search lawful everlasting resident standing and finally apply for U.S. citizenship.
In 2024, the U.S. accepted about 100,000 of an estimated 43 million refugees worldwide. Refugees are among the many 122 million estimated to be forcibly displaced worldwide.
With restricted exceptions, the Trump administration has suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and narrowed reduction for girls in search of safety from home and sexual violence of their dwelling nations.
Humanitarian parole and TPS
Overseas nationals admitted into the U.S. as humanitarian parolees are undocumented initially, however their presence is allowed.
The federal authorities has traditionally used humanitarian parole to facilitate the admission of individuals from nations confronting important violence or different compelling humanitarian crises when different processes are unavailable, overwhelmed or just too gradual.
For instance, the U.S. launched a brand new humanitarian parole initiative in late 2022 to confess overseas nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Humanitarian parole additionally was used to confess overseas nationals following U.S. intervention in Vietnam and in Iraq after 9/11; after American troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021; and following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
These granted non permanent protected standing, or TPS, by the federal government department are additionally believed to face extraordinary risks in the event that they return to their dwelling nations. Nevertheless, TPS might be granted solely to overseas nationals who’re already current within the U.S.
Usually, the federal government department has discretion to rescind each humanitarian parole and TPS, topic to sure rule-making necessities, if it concludes recipients can return safely to their dwelling nations.
The Trump administration signaled its intent to terminate humanitarian parole and TPS broadly.
DACA recipients, or Dreamers, who arrived within the nation with out authorization as kids, symbolize one other protected class of undocumented overseas nationals legally residing within the U.S. Nevertheless, their standing is unsure as a consequence of ongoing litigation.
