The Trump administration, which returned to the White House in January 2025, has once again placed immigration policy at the center of the American agenda with a series of measures that have drawn international attention.
The suspension of the refugee program, decided through an executive order immediately after inauguration, blocked thousands of pending applications, leaving families and host communities in uncertainty. Shortly afterward, the Department of Homeland Security reactivated the Migrant Protection Protocols, better known as Remain in Mexico, forcing non-Mexican asylum seekers to stay in Mexico throughout the entire examination of their claims.
In June, Presidential Proclamation No. 10949 introduced a new travel ban, restricting or prohibiting entry from nineteen countries, a clear return to nationality-based policies. At the same time, an order issued on April 28 targeted so-called “sanctuary cities,” requiring them to comply with federal immigration demands under threat of losing funding and facing criminal action.
These measures are consistent with a firm line that prioritizes closing borders and expelling those who have no legal right to stay. Yet this approach, while producing immediate numerical effects, does not create a sustainable model.
The United States today appears to swing between indiscriminate admission and mass deportation, without defining what should happen to those who remain legally on its territory. It is precisely here that space opens up for a new paradigm.
“Integration or ReImmigration” means moving from a policy that merely says “no” to entry, to a more structured vision that requires those admitted to follow a binding path of integration. It is not just about deterring irregular flows, but about tying the right to remain to concrete obligations: learning English, participating in civic education programs, entering the labor market, and respecting the fundamental rules of coexistence.
Those who demonstrate integration consolidate their stay; those who refuse or evade this obligation are directed toward a process of reimmigration—organized and dignified, but firm in principle.
Trump’s measures—whether the travel ban, the suspension of the refugee program, or the confrontation with sanctuary cities—show a growing awareness of the need to restore order to the immigration system.
However, they remain rooted in a purely defensive logic. What is missing is the dimension of mandatory integration, the one element that can transform migrants from a potential problem into a verifiable resource.
This is precisely where the “Integration or ReImmigration” paradigm can become a model for the United States: not only rejecting, but also selecting, binding, and, when necessary, returning.
A country that built its identity on the integration of generations of immigrants cannot rely on emergency solutions. Walls, deportations, and bans may contain flows, but they cannot govern them.
America now has the historic opportunity to shift to a system where rights are not granted automatically but are conditional on a serious path of responsibility and obligations.
Only in this way can it transform its tradition as a “nation of immigrants” into a modern project of mandatory integration and, when necessary, reimmigration.
Avv. Fabio Loscerbo
Lobbyist in migration and asylum – Transparency Register of the European Union, ID 280782895721-36