Upper Marlboro, Maryland, U.S.A. – It seems every decade or so, fears about immigration and immigrants re-ignite, especially in countries like the United States.
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For nearly 60 years, the U.S. has been the primary destination of global immigrants, according to a 2024 World Migration Report from the International Organization for Migration.
Destination countries are nations that commonly attract migration.
Some people seek to leave their homes to escape war, famine, or unemployment. In the U.S., people come to experience the American Dream, which promises opportunity, stability, and economic prosperity.
But this dream has become harder to achieve due to changes to the political and economic landscape, and more recently the Trump administration’s crusade against immigration and federal support for marginalized groups in the U.S.
Since 1970, the population of foreign-born Americans quadrupled, with a sharp decline following Donald Trump’s second-term as the president, according to the International Organization for Migration and Brookings.
Youth Journalism International fact-checked three commonly misconstrued beliefs about immigration and its handling by the Trump administration.
“Immigrants are taking your jobs”
Economic Policy Institute researchers found that although the amount of immigrant participation in the workforce was the highest in 2023, it was not unexpected.
They compared it to the growth during 1996-2000 and 2022-2023 which had low unemployment and positive job growth for U.S. born Americans.
Immigrants typically occupy fields that face shortages like healthcare, agriculture, construction, and entrepreneurship, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, and contribute to a stronger economy.
Undocumented immigrants are being deported to their home countries
Under President Donald Trump, the United States increased the use of third-party deportations, according to the American Immigration Council. Third-party deportations are when a government sends a person to a country other than their home or past country of residence.
Throughout its history, third-party deportations in the U.S. have rarely been used. The U.S. government is required to allow people already residing in the U.S. to request their country of deportation, according to the American Immigration Council, while those who have recently entered are typically returned to their countries of origin. The U.S. is not required to fulfil the request.
By law, the government is also restricted from deporting people to countries where they risk being threatened or harmed. These people can apply as asylum seekers and stay in the U.S. as refugees if their application is accepted.
The Trump administration’s use of third-party deportation, though, undermines a person’s ability to seek asylum or appeal as it allows the government to deport them to another country that is willing to detain them or deport them elsewhere. This can include their country of origin.
The administration has made deals exceeding $32 million with five countries to accept roughly 300 deportees in countries other than their own in support of third-party deportations, according to a report by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
A Moroccan woman who sought asylum in the U.S. was deported to Morocco from Cameroon after being granted a protection order last August, according to the Associated Press.
The woman, who identifies herself as Farah, claims she faced extreme danger due to her sexuality. Farah is a lesbian, which is against the law in Morocco and socially taboo. She was deported using third-party deportation.
ICE is only detaining violent undocumented immigrants
ICE, or Immigration Customs Enforcement, is a branch of the Department of Homeland Security created to increase and maintain security in the U.S. following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. According to the department, its goal is to find, detain, and deport undocumented migrants, especially those with serious criminal offenses.
Throughout the Trump Administration’s crackdown on immigration, the department has repeatedly claimed they are aligned with this focus. But ProPublica reported that over 170 citizens were detained or arrested by ICE in 2025.
These arrests are often caused by ICE’s failure to verify the citizenship status of the detainee. There are reports and videos of ICE walking up to people and asking them about their citizenship status before forcefully handcuffing, dragging or taking them away, even when shown U.S.-issued driver’s licenses or being told about their citizenship.
Other videos via surveillance cameras show ICE agents knocking on doors, sometimes without warrants, to arrest individuals. The victims of these arrests are disproportionately Latino, with heavier ICE patrol in Latino and Black neighborhoods.
The Latino Public Policy Foundation reported that one in five arrests by ICE are Latinos without court-ordered removals or criminal pasts.
Trump expanded ICE’s power in February, allowing agents to detain refugees who don’t have green cards, or permanent residency status, after a year.
Although these refugees were granted access to the United States because they proved they faced persecution because of their ethnicity, religion, political beliefs, sexuality or affiliations, under Trump’s expansion, they will have to undergo the years-long process of declaring their circumstance over again, CBS reported.
Indigenous Americans are being detained as well, according to reporting by the Associated Press. In January, Ogala Sioux tribal leaders said four of their tribal members were in ICE detention camps, according to the AP.
In Minneapolis earlier this year, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two white American citizens, were killed by ICE within weeks of each other. Neither had a criminal record. Their deaths spurred national outrage and attention on ICE’s brutality.
These are just two Americans who have been killed by ICE. There are others, including Keith Porter Jr., a Black American man killed by an ICE agent in Los Angeles in Dec. 2025 and Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, an immigrant killed by ICE agents in Chicago last September. None had a criminal record.
The Department of Homeland Security made claims of Villegas-Gonzalez using force against ICE agents, but bodycam footage shows an involved ICE agent saying that he wasn’t harmed.
About 31 people have died in ICE custody since 2025, the highest in two decades, according to CBS. According to a report by Newsweek, the number is expected to increase because of the lack of training of ICE agents, poor medical care, food and bedding as well as a lack of showers and access to phone calls.
Dorothy Quanteh is a Senior Reporter with Youth Journalism International.
