Does the United States Really Want or Need Immigrants?

The ongoing saga of a wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the El Salvadoran maximum security prison has been on the minds of many, and most certainly people who have opted, legally or illegally, to come to the United States.

The United States had long been seen as a desirable place to come for a host of reasons. While never easy, the country’s history and recent past projected a sense of, “yes, come and contribute.”

This has changed within the last 100 days, as the Trump Administration pursues very different policies and actions, all backed by statements from the President and the Executive Branch.

The Current U.S. Situation

These days, immigration writ large has been in the headlights of U.S. news coverage for multiple reasons: Trump has been regularly talking about the so-called hordes of illegals with criminal intent or acts, and the anti-immigrant attitude is across much of the Administration.

Here are some examples that illustrate the situation well:

Monitoring of visa compliance and academic activities has been dramatically increased, creating an atmosphere of fear, deterring scholars who were concerned about being targeted or deported. Earlier in April 2025, many international students were stripped of their visas. The White House has asserted that some of these immigrants threaten national security; while for now, the previously terminated legal statuses of hundreds of foreign students have been restored, the Trump administration is developing its policy for potentially ending them in the future.
There are likely to be significant reductions in U.S.-financed programs promoting international collaboration in research and education, limiting opportunities for foreign educators to come to the U.S. for research purposes; proposed budget cuts would terminate the 80-year-old Fulbright scholarship program, along with the State Department’s other educational and cultural programs.
Educators, researchers and others are now increasingly choosing to go elsewhere, not to the United States and it is already happening on a global scale:
- The president of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore sees it as a “golden opportunity” for Asian universities.
- President Macron of France describes French universities as the “scientific asylum” for researchers fleeing the US, the time is right, he says, to “Choose France for Science.”
- The British head of a big new research facility, the Ellison Institute of Technology, is quoted as saying, “I’ve got the best guys in the best universities in America all saying, ‘When can we move?’”
- The Economist reports that of those who in the past would have chosen America, now they might opt to move to “Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan among the top five alternatives, Canada would benefit most.”

Collaboration between U.S. researchers and other countries is dwindling due to fears surrounding immigration policy and research funding; for example, this is how Australians see it:

“The Trump Administration is apparently seeking to impose its own recently adopted policies with parties across the world, and in doing so is rejecting the importance of international collaboration and of diversity, equity and inclusion in research projects and contributions.”

U.S. universities are finding significant declines in international applications, and not just from China, which affects the quality of the student body and reduces tuition revenues; the number of international students enrolling in U.S. institutions from March 2024 to March 2025 declined by 11%, potentially costing the American economy up to US$4 billion.

Strict new regulations on the H-1B visa program, crucial for skilled foreign workers, have also meant increased scrutiny of applications, longer processing times, and heightened requirements for employers, making it difficult for institutions to sponsor foreign talent; Trump has considered a “merit-based” lottery system that prioritizes those with the most advanced degrees and highest salaries. This would exclude early-stage companies and further benefit large tech companies.

The global picture and what governments might do differently

Political refugee crises: While this article focuses on migration and immigration policies, another related aspect that is not discussed here is political refugee flows into the United States and elsewhere, and how vulnerable they are to summary deportation and/or imprisonment, regardless of their temporary status.

More broadly, refugee numbers have been growing worldwide, from 14.38 million in 2014 to 37.9 million people in 2024, an increase of over 160% in a decade. And in 2024, nearly half of the world’s refugees came from just three countries: Syria, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, in that order.

Migration and Migrants: Two years ago, migrants amounted to about 184 million people — 2.3% of the world’s population. Almost half are in low- and middle-income countries.

That year, a World Development Report provided an interesting analysis of who migrants are, why immigrants leave, what they potentially bring, and how governments can better deal with the opportunities and challenges migration presents.

While there is no one policy that fits all, the authors propose aspirational approaches to be tailored to individual countries and regions. The diagram below is a way to understand the broader picture, showing that “distinct groups of migrants require distinct policy responses.”

This diagram supports a set of core messages from the report:

The primary distinction between a migrant and a non-migrant is the citizenship (or lack thereof) of the destination country and the associated rights that accompany it; once a migrant is naturalized, they are no longer a migrant.
The complexity and necessity of cross-border movements should be recognized: many countries, at all income levels, are both the origin and destination of migrants simultaneously.
Migrant skills and attributes can match the needs of a destination country; such movement of people can be a significant net gain to the destination country.
Migration needs to be strategically managed by the governments of both the origin and destination countries, making labor migration an explicit part of their development strategy.
Cross-border movements need to be managed by organizing regional and global responses to address refugee movements and reduce the need for distressed movements.

The US refugee and migration policies are neither beneficial to it nor are they sustainable.

For the United States, the above-cited 2023 World Bank Development Report, “Migrants, Refugees, and Societies,” contains much wisdom that could inform current policy reforms.

That said, it is challenging to determine whether, when, or how the Executive Branch or Congress will heed voices advocating such forward thinking, as they are largely underrepresented or silent in policy debates and proposed legislative actions.

The loss is to this country and the world at large.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com — Cover Photo Credit: K E.