It was the year 2015 when a flamboyant New York magnate, a reality TV star and showman by vocation, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. "Build that wall!", implored Donald Trump, more often than not crowned with his fiery red MAGA cap as a symbol of triumph, strength, and, let's not deny it, a touch of theatricality. Today, the infamous wall is less talked about, and the spotlight now belongs to a staunch campaign of mass deportations. Courtesy of the Republican, of course.
"I wouldn't want to confront Donald Trump. I would probably say something he wouldn't like at all, and I would get into trouble," says Douglas Massey (Washington, 1952). In addition to being a Sociology professor at Princeton University and a renowned demographer, he has been honored with the Princess of Asturias Award in Social Sciences 2025. "Immigration has decreased under Trump's administration, not due to deportations, but because immigrants are being persecuted as in a police state," warns the awardee. Considered one of the foremost experts in migration between the United States and Mexico, Massey receives this award as recognition of a career dedicated to the study of human mobility in America and its social implications.
After Donald Trump's reelection, what differences do you see between his first presidency and the immigration policies he is implementing now?
In this new administration, he is completely unrestrained, doing as he pleases. He is turning the United States into an autocracy. He attacks universities, destabilizes the healthcare system, attempts to nullify the Constitution, deports and even illegally transfers immigrants to third countries where they don't even belong. It is a tragedy for human rights and democracy.
Do you see a significant difference between his first presidency and the current one, in terms of immigration?
He is much more repressive towards immigrants. It is clear that this is not simply an intellectual disagreement on how much immigration the United States can tolerate, but rather rooted in racist hatred. However, Trump doesn't hate all immigrants... he says he likes Norwegians. The Latino population has been racialized for many years, and Trump builds upon that and takes it to the extreme.
What role do the Democrats play in all of this?
I don't see them organizing to combat this threat. They seem lost.
In the U.S. elections, Kamala Harris tried to distance herself from Joe Biden's immigration record. Why do you think even progressive sectors have partly adopted the right-wing narrative?
Because they have lost their way. They have shifted towards the right, even though they don't truly believe in it. It's a matter of practicality, not morality. Democrats say the border is in crisis, that it needs to be militarized. They adopt the Republican Party's discourse. But once you accept the idea that immigrants are a threat and need to be controlled, you are lost. You no longer have your own argument; you are only left to debate how much force to exert against them.
What do you attribute this attitude to? Have they stopped caring?
It's not that they don't care, but they lack a comprehensive strategy. They make the mistake of thinking that the Republican Party is an honest interlocutor. But the current Republican Party is extreme and unwilling to compromise. When Obama came to power, the first thing he did was increase deportations, thinking he could reach a middle ground. But that was never going to happen.
Despite his immigration rhetoric, support among Latino citizens for Trump has grown favorably.
It is a reaction against all the changes that American society has undergone in the last 50 years. And in that reaction, there is a strong component of sexism and racism. Different sectors of the electorate respond to different stimuli. White men respond to both racial and gender signals: they feel that women are gaining too much power, that there is too much feminism, too many immigrants. Latinos, on the other hand, do not respond as much to the anti-immigrant discourse because many are U.S. citizens and see Mexican immigrants as competition. Many respond to Trump's machismo, seeing him as "a real man," despite being a weak man.
Weak?
If he were a strong man, he wouldn't be attacking the most vulnerable elements of society to prove his strength. He is afraid.
Afraid of what?
That the myth he has built about himself is not real, that people will find out. He lives in terror that the image he has created will crumble.
You often warn that many border control policies end up being counterproductive. Why do they fail? The militarization of the border, from 1985 to today, has had the opposite effect of what was intended. When you militarize the border, crossing becomes more costly and risky. And when costs and risks increase, crossings do not decrease because immigrants stop coming; they decrease because they decide to stay in the United States. In other words, the return rate decreases, not the entry rate. This accelerates the growth of the undocumented population. Conservatives don't care; they want illegal immigration to continue because it is a very useful tool to mobilize their base.
In what sense?
They like to use illegal immigrants as puppets to agitate people. They like to portray them as criminals, as a threat. Illegal immigration from Mexico actually stopped in 2008 and became negative between 2008 and 2018: more people were leaving than arriving. So when Trump announced his candidacy in 2015 and promised the border wall, the migration flow was already negative. Building a wall in that context made no sense. But he couldn't admit it because politically it was too useful to maintain the idea of a "invasion" of Mexicans and Central Americans.
So, ultimately, it was all a matter of strategy.
Exactly. It's not that they deliberately designed that strategy, but once they realized it worked, they fully embraced it. They don't want to hear that Mexican illegal migration ended in 2008. They prefer to pretend it is still happening, that walls need to be built, more immigration agents hired, and more border patrols. And that, in addition, is big business. The Border Patrol is the largest employer along the border. ICE continues to expand. The unions of ICE and the Border Patrol contribute to the Republican Party. The entire immigrant detention system is privatized in the hands of two companies: GEO Corp and Corrections Corporation of America. It is practically a criminal industrial complex.
What parallels do you find between the U.S. and European contexts?
They are all making the same mistake: considering immigration as illogical and something that must be stopped. When, in reality, migration is a natural human instinct. Instead of seeing immigrants as a pathological circumstance, we should view them as a potential resource. Even those fleeing threats, once they escape, have no choice but to adapt and integrate quickly. That is the story of the United States: it would not have become a global power without immigration.
You say that immigration is necessary, but what happens when arrivals exceed a country's capacity to integrate newcomers, when they do not assimilate?
No country can do it alone. It has to be a collective action of all wealthy countries. The problem is coordinating among nations so that none bears an excessive burden, as it generates short-term costs that fall on receiving societies. Unless immigration is distributed equitably, it becomes burdensome for some countries. European policies are all different. They have a common basis in the EU, but in practice, they work differently in each country. I don't understand why you receive immigrants and tell them they can't work when you need them. The integration policies of most developed countries are counterproductive.
When you talk about the need for immigrants, does that also include those who arrive through irregular means?
They have the right to do so through irregular means because regular ones are closed. This is a consequence of immigration policies. If more open systems existed, people would not enter illegally. This happened with guest worker programs in Europe during the 1950s, 60s, and early 70s, which allowed for work migration, sending money back, and contributing to the development of their communities. With the recession of 1973, those programs were suspended, and workers stayed, forcing European countries to integrate them without prepared policies. Later, former colonial metropolises began receiving immigrants from their ex-colonies: when you colonize vast regions, you can't expect to leave them unchanged.
Any advice for Trump?
I would tell him that with his selfishness, he is not only going to sink the United States but also the global economy, creating a worldwide crisis. The beneficiaries will be China and, perhaps, India. He is destroying the role of the United States in the world. Whether he knows it or not.