On June 6, 2019 The Boston Foundation released “The Growing Wave of Federal Immigration Restrictions: What’s at Stake for Massachusetts?“, a report looking at the impact of the current administration’s immigration and other policy changes affecting immigrants and “mixed status” families – those comprised of U.S. citizens and noncitizens – in Massachusetts.
Although the report focuses on our New England neighbor, the same impacts are being felt in Maine, although of course on a lesser scale, due to Maine’s smaller population of immigrants in all categories. But policies such as the ban on visas from predominantly Muslim countries like Somalia, the overall drastic reduction in refugee admissions, the termination of the DACA and TPS programs, the enhanced power of immigration officials to deny routine applications for employment-based and other visas, among other changes, are all affecting Maine, dividing families and shrinking the population of immigrants who strengthen our workforce and communities.
The report is concise, clear, and worth a read, despite its Massachusetts focus.