David Atkinson: Trump’s views on immigration aren’t as bad as those in the 1920s. They’re worse. The designers of the quota system at least tried to hide their racism.

Rick Baldoz: How Republicans set the stage for Trump’s corrosive ideas on immigration: Trump’s language might be uniquely vulgar but his ideas are part of a long trend.

Fitz Brundage: Can the United States retain its humanity even in crisis? Concern for human rights has long melted away in the face of perceived threats.

Kevin Caprice: What the 2018 election means for immigrants in the U.S. For Latinos, the results could determine their safety and security in America.

Arica L. Coleman: How a business-first foreign policy triggered the migration caravans: Two centuries of U.S. intervention have destabilized Central America.

Juan David Coronado: How Donald Trump is making illegal immigration worse: The U.S. can’t keep selfishly meddling in Latin America if it expects to stop illegal immigration.

William S. Cossen: 

• Religious groups are fighting Trump’s treatment of migrant children. But they didn’t always oppose ripping kids from their parents. The change is a reason for hope.
• Donald Trump isn’t the first politician to focus on the ‘right’ kind of immigrant: How racism shaped centuries of U.S. immigration policy.

Chris Deutsch: The only real solution to the border crisis: The United States must devise a program that addresses the root causes of migration.

Jim Downs: Why Laura Bush speaking up on separating families matters so much: The language that has long been critical to covertly mobilizing activism.

Rebecca Erbelding: The Trump administration’s refugee and border policies cruelly ignore the lessons of the past: Compassion must guide how we treat families fleeing from violence.

Roberto José Andrade Franco: The dangerous game Donald Trump is playing with MS-13: Exaggerating the danger of the group only creates new problems.

Edward O. Frantz: How the border morphed from a place of possibility to a symbol of fear: President Trump has used El Paso as a site of division. But previous presidents saw it as a sign of hope.

Judith Giesberg: Jeff Sessions is wrong. Sanctuary-city advocates aren’t like secessionists. They’re like abolitionists. A history lesson for the attorney general.

Melissa J. Gismondi: The dangerous myth propping up Trump’s wall: The president leverages a savage threat to white women to justify his pet project.

Sonia C. Gomez: Why women have become targets in the immigration fight: Reproductive rights have become a major flash point in the battle over immigration.

Adam Goodman: The core of Donald Trump’s immigration policy? Fear. Trump is using a tried-and-true tactic: scaring people into leaving.

Carly Goodman:

• The shadowy network shaping Trump’s anti-immigration policies: Interconnected anti-immigrant organizations have long hidden behind neutral names while pushing nativist policies.
• Angry that ICE is ripping families apart? Don’t just blame Trump. Blame Clinton, Bush and Obama, too. The militarization of immigration enforcement.

Carly Goodman & Marisa Gerstein Pineau: Why Donald Trump could win the immigration fight: And how immigration activists can turn the tide.

Carly Goodman, S. Deborah Kang, & Yael Schacher: How advocates can defeat Trump’s latest assault on asylum seekers: Immigration advocates helped give power to asylum protections once before. They can do it again.

Matthew Guariglia: The real goal of Donald Trump’s MS-13 fearmongering: Like immigration restrictionists in an earlier era, Trump uses the fear of gang violence to crackdown on all “undesirable” immigration.

Bridgette W. Gunnels: How to force the Trump administration to follow the law on refugees: A case from the 1980s outlines our obligations.

Hidetaka Hirota: Fans of Trump’s views on immigration should remember how figures like him targeted their ancestors: Keeping the Irish poor out of America helped shape our restrictive immigration policies.

Allyson Hobbs & Ana Raquel Minian: A firsthand look at the horrors of immigration detention: A practice so cruel that the United States ended it for a quarter-century.

Jason Johnson: The truth neither side wants to admit: President Trump’s wall will work, but it will mean America has failed: While effective, walls symbolize decaying societies.

Martha S. Jones: Birthright citizenship is a powerful weapon against racism. That’s why we must protect it. Time to brush up on the 14th Amendment.

Shahrukh Khan: Why states can’t stop vigilantes terrorizing immigrants at the border.

Paul A. Kramer: Family reunification has long been a cornerstone of U.S. immigration policy: Everyone from immigration advocates to bigots and nativists valued family unity.

Carl Lindskoog: Mistreating refugee children is, sadly, all too American: But there is also a long history of resistance, reminding us that activism works to save children and families.

Mary E. Mendoza: The Trump administration is right about the problem at the border. But its ‘solutions’ would just make things worse. The border crisis is humanitarian and environmental. But a wall would make both worse.

Ron Mize: The U.S. militarized its southern border once before. It didn’t work.     

Tore Olsson: The hole in Donald Trump’s wall: As long as Americans continue to flood into Mexico, the wall will do little to deter crossings.

Jeanne Petit: Refugees or threat? How we see migrants reveals our competing visions for America. Why Americans are divided over the migrant caravans.

Christopher Petrella:

• What we get wrong about the “poor huddled masses”: We can’t fix our immigration policy without understanding its history.
• Ending DACA isn’t about the rule of law. It’s about race. The federal government has long extended amnesty to white Americans.

Paul M. Renfro: The real reason we’re locking children in cages: We don’t think nonwhite children deserve the same protections as “innocent” white ones.

Sarah Sklaw: American policy is responsible for the migrant caravan: The U.S. exacerbated poverty and violence in Latin America, driving people from their homes.

Paul B. Sturtevant: What politicians mean when they call the border wall ‘medieval’: Why calling it medieval is a selling point with some Americans.

Randa Tawil: Why Trump’s fearmongering about Muslims at the border misses the mark: There are Muslims at the border. But they’ve been there since the late 19th century.

Keren Weitzberg: Instead of building a big, beautiful wall, we should rethink our idea of borders.

Arissa H. Oh & Ellen Wu: Why immigration advocates must take back the term ‘chain migration’: The term is too valuable to let the restrictionist right hijack it.

Julia G. Young:

• Mass deportation isn’t just inhumane. It’s ineffective. Policymakers would be better off focusing on the underlying conditions that drive unauthorized immigration.
• A wall can’t solve America’s addiction to undocumented immigration: For more than 70 years, undocumented immigrants have shaped the U.S. economy.