Senator Markey warns of renewed anti-immigrant push by Trump administration

In a follow-up report shared exclusively with one outlet, Senator Ed Markey contends that the second Trump administration has escalated a covert campaign to reshape U.S. immigration policy. The report claims the administration is destabilizing lawful presence, widening enforcement, and redesigning adjudication to speed up removals. Key changes include a near-halt of refugee admissions, the narrowing of humanitarian safeguards, more fragile work-authorization, and a new “good moral character” requirement for citizenship that adds subjectivity.

Additionally, the administration has dismissed more than 100 immigration judges, substituting them with temporary military lawyers, and altered the composition of the Board of Immigration Appeals, which has issued precedent-setting decisions limiting due process. Markey argues these actions create a system that looks intact on paper but leaves non-citizens more vulnerable to enforcement and less able to defend against it.