Chapter 31 — Exercises

These exercises ask you to do what political analysts do: pull primary data, examine your local context, and steel-man positions you may disagree with. As with the rest of the book, the exercises are graded on the quality of analysis, not on the conclusions reached.

Exercise 31.1 — Pull recent border statistics

Go to the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) website (cbp.gov/newsroom/stats) and pull the monthly enforcement statistics for the most recent twelve months available. The data are released in a "Nationwide Encounters" table that breaks down apprehensions by sector, demographic, and disposition.

Build a simple table with the following columns:

  • Month (most recent twelve)
  • Total southwestern-border encounters
  • Encounters processed for expedited removal
  • Encounters released into the interior pending immigration-court hearings
  • Encounters by single adults vs. family units vs. unaccompanied minors

Write a one-page analysis (~600 words) addressing:

  1. What is the trend over the twelve-month period? Are encounters rising, falling, or stable?
  2. What is the disposition mix — what share of encounters result in removal vs. release?
  3. How does the most recent month compare to the same month a year earlier?
  4. What conclusions can you draw, and what conclusions are not warranted by the data alone?

The analysis should distinguish between what the data show and what the data do not show. Note in particular: encounters are not the same as successful entries; encounters do not include visa overstays.

Exercise 31.2 — Foreign-born population in your state

Go to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey data portal (data.census.gov). Search for "foreign-born population" filtered to your state. Pull the following data:

  • Total foreign-born population (number and percentage)
  • Top five countries of origin for foreign-born residents
  • Industry distribution of foreign-born workers
  • Educational attainment of foreign-born population
  • Comparison to the state's native-born population on the same metrics

Then identify the three industries in your state most dependent on immigrant labor (use the industry distribution data). For each, briefly research how the industry has responded to recent immigration enforcement changes (news coverage, industry association statements, employer surveys).

Produce a 700–900-word memo titled "Immigration in [Your State]: A Sectoral Analysis" addressing:

  1. The demographic profile of your state's foreign-born population.
  2. The principal sectors that employ immigrant workers.
  3. The likely operational effects of large-scale interior enforcement on those sectors.
  4. The political position of your state's congressional delegation on immigration enforcement, drawn from voting records (GovTrack.us).

The memo should be analytical, not advocacy.

Exercise 31.3 — Trace a current immigration case

Identify a single immigration case being litigated as you read this chapter. Examples include: a birthright-citizenship challenge in your circuit; an asylum-eligibility case at the Board of Immigration Appeals or Circuit level; a sanctuary-jurisdiction dispute; an expedited-removal expansion case.

Locate primary documents: the original complaint, the most recent ruling, and any pending appeals. Most federal cases have docket information available through CourtListener (courtlistener.com) or PACER. Immigration administrative cases are harder to access but appear in EOIR's published decisions.

Produce a case brief of approximately 500 words covering:

  • Parties: who is suing whom?
  • Procedural posture: what court, what stage of litigation?
  • Legal claim: what statute, regulation, or constitutional provision is at issue?
  • Government's position: what does the executive branch argue?
  • Challenger's position: what does the other side argue?
  • Most recent ruling: how did the most recent court rule and on what grounds?
  • Likely path forward: where does the case go next, and what is the likely outcome?

Avoid editorial language. The brief should be readable by someone who agrees and someone who disagrees with the eventual outcome.

Exercise 31.4 — Steel-man both pro-restriction and pro-expansion

Write two short essays, each approximately 500 words.

Essay A. Steel-man the pro-restriction / immigration-restrictionist position. Present its strongest version — drawing on writers including George Borjas, Reihan Salam, Yuval Levin, and the Center for Immigration Studies. The essay should articulate the rule-of-law concern, the labor-market concern, the public-services concern, and the cultural-cohesion concern as a serious advocate would present them. The essay should not be straw-mannable and should not include reductio-ad-absurdum versions of the position.

Essay B. Steel-man the pro-expansion position. Present its strongest version — drawing on writers including Bryan Caplan, Alex Nowrasteh, Cato Institute economists, and Cristina Rodríguez. The essay should articulate the humanitarian concern, the economic-growth case, the demographic-crisis argument, and the rule-of-law-via-sensible-paths argument as a serious advocate would present them.

Each essay should be persuasive in the voice of the position it represents. Then write a brief third section (~200 words) identifying:

  • One argument from each side that you find persuasive even if you do not agree with the overall position.
  • One argument from each side that you find weakest, and why.

The exercise tests intellectual range. Submission is graded on whether the essays could be mistaken for a sincere advocate's writing — both of them.

Exercise 31.5 — Democracy Audit on immigration impact in your district

Conduct a Democracy Audit on immigration policy as it operates in your congressional district. The audit has five components.

Component 1: Demographics. Pull district-level data from the Census Bureau on foreign-born share, country-of-origin distribution, and industry employment of foreign-born workers. Note any difference between your district and the state averages.

Component 2: Representative's record. Pull your representative's voting record on the most recent five immigration-related votes (use GovTrack.us). For each, note the bill or amendment, the vote outcome, and your representative's vote. Annotate with the position-clusters identified in the chapter (restrictionist, comprehensive-reform, pro-expansion, mixed).

Component 3: Local enforcement actions. Use local news archives to identify any immigration-enforcement actions in your district in the past two years: ICE raids, work-site enforcement, sanctuary-jurisdiction disputes, asylum-related events, deportations.

Component 4: Local response. Identify the principal local advocacy organizations on immigration in your district — both pro-restriction and pro-immigration — and the local employer groups that have taken public positions.

Component 5: Policy salience. From local news coverage and your representative's public statements over the past year, assess: how salient is immigration in your district's politics? Is it the top issue, an important issue, a peripheral issue?

Produce a 1,200-word audit. Conclude with a brief assessment of how representative democracy is functioning in your district on this issue: are constituent preferences (as inferred from demographic and economic structure) reflected in your representative's positions? Is there a mismatch?

Exercise 31.6 — The cost-benefit framework

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) publishes fiscal-effect estimates for immigration legislation. Pull the CBO scoring for one of the following:

  • The 2013 Senate immigration bill (S. 744)
  • The Bipartisan Border Security Act (the 2024 Lankford–Sinema–Murphy proposal)
  • The most recent congressional immigration proposal scored by CBO

The score is published as a "cost estimate" with both budgetary and economic-effects sections. Read the full document.

Write a 500–700-word analysis covering:

  1. The budgetary effect (revenues, outlays, deficit impact) over the ten-year window.
  2. The economic effect (labor force, GDP, wages).
  3. The assumptions on which the score depends — particularly the assumed labor-force-participation rates, wage distributions, and behavioral responses to enforcement.
  4. The principal sources of uncertainty in the estimate.

Distinguish CBO's empirical analysis from the policy advocacy that has used (or critiqued) the analysis. Each side of the immigration debate cites or attacks CBO scoring depending on whether the conclusions favor their position. Your analysis should be agnostic.

Exercise 31.7 — Operational vs. rhetorical

Choose any one immigration policy from the past decade — DACA, Migrant Protection Protocols, Title 42, the wall construction under Trump-1 or Trump-2, the family-separation policy of 2018, or the expedited-removal expansion of 2025.

Write a 600–800-word analysis distinguishing:

  • The rhetorical framing of the policy by its supporters.
  • The rhetorical framing of the policy by its opponents.
  • The operational reality of the policy: what was actually implemented, at what scale, with what measured effects.

The exercise asks whether the rhetorical positions match the operational realities. Often they do not. Note both sides' overstatements where the data show overstatement; note both sides' accurate descriptions where the data confirm accuracy.

Exercise 31.8 — A comprehensive proposal of your own

Draft a Term Sheet for a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. The Term Sheet should be approximately 1,200 words and should cover, at minimum:

  • Border enforcement provisions: what enforcement authority is provided, with what funding and timelines?
  • Interior enforcement provisions: what changes to ICE operations, sanctuary-jurisdiction policy, and employment verification?
  • Legal-immigration reform: changes to numerical caps, country caps, employment-based admissions, family categories?
  • Pathway provisions: who, if anyone, gets a pathway to legal status, on what conditions, over what timeline?
  • Asylum reform: changes to the credible-fear standard, immigration-court capacity, removal authority?

The Term Sheet should be a bargain you yourself could vote for — meaning the trade-offs reflect your own values judgments. Then add a one-paragraph political-economy assessment: which constituencies of which party would oppose your proposal, and how would you address that opposition?

The exercise tests whether you can move from analysis to policy design. Submission is graded on coherence (does the bargain hold together?) and on honesty (do the trade-offs reflect what would actually be required?). It is not graded on whether the grader agrees with your values.

Exercise 31.9 — The asylum interview as policy

Read three published transcripts or extended summaries of credible-fear interviews — these are available through advocacy-organization publications, EOIR public records, and journalistic accounts. The interviews should span different country-of-origin claims (e.g., one Central American claim of gang persecution, one Venezuelan political-opinion claim, one claim from an unrelated origin and ground).

For each interview, identify:

  • The legal claim — which protected ground (race, religion, nationality, political opinion, particular social group)?
  • The factual basis — what events does the applicant describe?
  • The asylum officer's reasoning — what was the credible-fear determination, and on what basis?
  • The likely outcome at a full hearing — given the factual record, what is your best-guess prediction of how an immigration judge would rule?

Write a 700–900-word memo titled "The Asylum Interview as Policy Instrument" addressing:

  1. How does the credible-fear interview function in the asylum system?
  2. What kinds of cases pass the credible-fear threshold? What kinds do not?
  3. Where does the system filter claims — at credible-fear, at the full hearing, at appeal, at removal?
  4. What changes to the interview process or the standard would meaningfully change outcomes, and in which directions?

The memo should examine the operational reality of the system rather than the abstract policy debate. Asylum is decided on cases, not on principles. The exercise asks what the cases actually look like.

Exercise 31.10 — Comparative perspective

Choose one of the following peer democracies: Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, or Japan. Research that country's principal immigration policy provisions:

  • Total annual legal-immigration admissions (per capita comparison to the United States is the meaningful one)
  • The principal pathways (family, employment, refugee, point-system, other)
  • The asylum process and recent volumes
  • Any recent legislative or executive changes
  • The political salience of immigration in the country's recent elections

Write a 600–800-word comparative analysis addressing:

  1. How does the chosen country's immigration policy differ structurally from US policy?
  2. What outcomes — in terms of foreign-born share, labor-market integration, unauthorized population, public opinion — has the chosen country's approach produced?
  3. Are there elements of the chosen country's approach that would be useful to import into the US debate? What features of the US institutional context (constitutional, geographic, political) would constrain such importation?

The exercise tests whether the framing of US immigration as uniquely fraught reflects unique American circumstances or shared challenges of advanced democracies. Often the answer is some of both. The honest analysis identifies which.