CIS Senior National Security Fellow Todd Bensman traveled to Mexico's southern border with Guatemala. A primary purpose was to assess the impacts of President Donald Trump's policies to slow the 2018-2019 mass illegal immigration from Central American countries through that key chokepoint to the American southern border.

Read: "The Trump-Defeat-Gamble: Politically 'Woke' U.S.-Bound Migrants on the Guatemala-Mexico Border Calculating a Trump Electoral Defeat"

Immigration can invigorate the country. But when it is poorly managed, it can cause social division — just as it's doing right now.

Who is lobbying for the American workers competing with the new arrivals? The answer, I learned, was no one. As the former labor secretary Robert Reich once put it, "There's no National Association of Working Poor."

A record 45.8 million foreign-born people reside in the United States. Immigrants, legal and illegal, arrive in the United States at an estimated rate of 1.5 million annually, with a resulting cultural, social, economic, and fiscal impact on the country in areas such as schools, infrastructure, and healthcare.

Mark Morgan, Acting Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was featured in an Immigration Newsmaker conversation hosted by the Center. 

Since taking his position as Acting Commissioner of CBP in July, Mr. Morgan has worked to address the southern border crisis and implemented policies contributing to a slow-down in the number of new illegal arrivals.

This report examines the cumulative impact of immigration, both legal and illegal, on the apportionment of House seats.

Apportionment is a zero-sum system; by adding more population to some states rather than others, immigration will continue to significantly redistribute political power in Washington.

Read more: Immigration and Political Power