Alex Nowrasteh

Supporters of the RAISE Act are counting on the media, voters, and policy makers to focus on talking points supporting the bill rather than its actual substance.  Those supporters want the debate over this bill to be “...

On July 9, 1868, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution became law and granted birthright citizenship to all those born in the United States who are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. government. The purpose of the...

Regardless of the constitutionality of the President’s executive order, the potential for abuse should be obvious to all. Arbitrary visa bans for uncertain periods are no way for the government of a developed nation to run...

President Trump said that he wants a merit-based immigration system that “nations around the world, like Canada, Australia, and many others have.”

Border apprehensions of illegal immigrants are substantially down in the first few months of the Trump administration. In fact, the border apprehension figure for the month of March is only 16,600, the lowest monthly figure...

The United States allows in about a million lawful permanent residents a year, the largest number of any country, but that is a small percentage of the almost 325 million people who already live in the United States – about...

Last week Cato published a new immigration research and policy brief called “Criminal Immigrants: Their Numbers, Demographics, and Countries of Origin” that estimates the illegal immigrant incarceration rate—a subject lo...

We need a ground-up rethinking of our entire immigration system. A new system ought to be flexible, embrace America’s traditional openness, and have clear and simple exclusions that are easily enforceable.

Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and David Perdue (R-GA) recently introduced the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act.  If it were to become law, RAISE would cut legal immigration by 50 percent over the...