We Unitarians understand that our shared covenant is not just an internal dialog but also a conversation with the world. The spark to right action is inclusion, expressed in our covenant. This leads to community, then to the safe and culturally prosperous city, then to a safe and more culturally prosperous society. No matter what is said in Washington to fracture America, we are masters of our covenant. And we choose inclusion.

The America that we know best is a society that practices the arithmetic of addition. In truth, our inclusion of people from other countries is part of our inclusion of all others here. That is, our approach to immigration should be in part informed by our advocacy of civil rights over the past 70 years. The immigration act of 1965 was in some respect an extension of the civil rights movement. Civil rights are expressed in the courts, but are expressed more fundamentally in recognizing the other, and in championing the value of lifting all boats in all aspects of life.

Any democracy is founded on the principle of self-determination. Our Unitarian covenant is an expression of this principal. We need, as Unitarians, to say to other Americans that inclusion of others from other countries works.

Including is how we strive to act. It strengthens our self-determination. To say this is not a wistful remembrance of past waves of immigration. We are speaking about today’s world. We as Unitarians not just here but nationwide, are called upon to speak truth for inclusion for our country.

From my reflection at the North Chapel, Woodstock, Vermont, July 8, 2018

If the Hispanic population is going to retreat from supporting President Trump – which was noted in the November elections, Miami (city and metro area) will most likely show up as a bell-weather. It may have in the December 9 election for mayor. (Here I track Hispanic national voting since 2016.)

The residents of the City (70% Hispanic) overwhelmingly elected Eileen Higgins (“La Gringa”) as mayor, the first Democrat and non-Hispanic to win the mayoral race since the 1990s and the first woman ever.  Higgins ran openly as a Democrat, notable in that the Congressional delegation in greater Miami is heavily Republican, and Trump won Miami-Dade County in 2024 with 64% of the Hispanic vote (Harris won the City, barely.) As a mayoral candidate she mostly stayed away from addressing immigration policy for the most part, but said in her victory comments, “We are facing rhetoric from elected officials that is so dehumanizing and cruel, especially against immigrant populations. The residents of Miami were ready to be done with that.” (AP, here)

Greater Miami is about six million in population. the City itself has about 450,000 residents. The Congressional district most worth watching is F27, held by Maria Elvira Salazar, It is about one quarter within the City limits. Salazar  is the most outspoken Republican politician in the country in objecting to the administration’s mass deportation policy.  On December 7, Salazar said, “Freezing asylum, green card, and citizenship processes is not the answer. It punishes hardworking, law-abiding immigrants who followed every step of the legal process. That is unfair, un-American, and it goes against everything this country stands for.” (Go here.) Salazar’s district includes a large number of persons whose origins are in three of the 19 countries barred from entry – Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela.

The City is 70% Hispanic, 14% white, 12% Black.  It is behind El Paso in Hispanic concentration (81%) but with a much larger metropolitan area, the Miami area is much the greater national nexus of Hispanic population and political force. (Greater El Paso has one congressional district while greater Miami has 3 or 5 depending on how to measure the metropolitan area.)

Cuban-origin persons make up roughly half of the City’s Hispanic population – a small share of the 900,000 Cubans in greater Miami. Venezuelans have risen in the past few decades to about 6% of the City’s Hispanic population. Over the past 10-20 years the Cuban presence as declined somewhat due to migration into the suburbs, while Colombians, Dominicans, Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans, Hondurans have increased.

On July 10, 1858, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech in Chicago as part of the extended Fourth of July celebrations common to that era. He addressed the question of American identity at a time when the nation was grappling with both slavery and unprecedented immigration.  In his speech, Lincoln transformed American nationality from a matter of national ancestry into a matter of creed—that adherence to the principles of the Declaration created a bond more powerful than bloodlines. He reimagined America as a nation bound by shared commitment to universal human equality.

Lincoln spoke in a city that had elected a Know-Nothing mayor just three years earlier and where xenophobic sentiment against Catholic immigrants ran high. Over the past 25 years, a surge of non-English immigration occurred, raising the percentage of all persons born outside the U.S. from about 2% to about 10%, with much of the migration geographically concentrated.

Between 1831 and 1840, immigration more than quadrupled to a total of 599,000, including about 207,000 Irish and about 152,000 Germans. Between 1845 and 1855 alone, 1.5 million people fled Ireland for the U.S. in the wake of the potato famine. In 1845 – 1855, more than a million Germans came to the United States.  By 1850, around 90% of the population was native-born, down from 98% in 1830. These immigrants settled in concentrated patterns across the nation: the Irish congregated in northeastern cities where they landed, particularly Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Germans, often arriving with more resources and in family groups, spread across the Midwest to cities like Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, and established farms in the Upper Ohio and Mississippi River valleys U.S.

Lincoln offered a revolutionary argument that effectively elevated these recent German and Irish Catholic arrivals to equal status with the English-origin population at the founding of the Republic. He defined Americans not by ethno-nationalism but by sharing a democract creed. His words:

“If they look back through this history to trace their connection with those days by blood, they find they have none, they cannot carry themselves back into that glorious epoch and make themselves feel that they are part of us, but when they look through that old Declaration of Independence they find that those old men say that ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,’ and then they feel that that moral sentiment taught in that day evidences their relation to those men, that it is the father of all moral principle in them, and that they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

The number of unauthorized persons in the U.S. on December 2000 was 11-12 million. The number as of end of October 2025 is about 14 million. Below is how I arrived at this estimate.

Governmental and non-governmental organizations have differed by a lot on how many unauthorized persons are in the U.S. The disparity is due to several factors, including vague counts of persons permitted to enter temporarily under Biden and pure guesses (using modelling) as to those truly undocumented. 

Prior to the Biden administration there was a consensus that about 11-12 million persons were in the United States.  That included DACA recipients (about 600,000) and asylum applicants.  Both categories are persons here without legal status; their deportation was suspended.   There were small numbers of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and humanitarian parole.

During the Biden administration the following happened to swell the total number. The accounting expressly included persons whose legal status is vulnerable, asylum applicants, TPS and humanitarian parole (DACA numbers did not materially change). It is important to keep in mind that estimates of total “unauthorized” include these categories. They are in fact documented. The core number of truly undocumented – that is without any temporary protection – may be around 10-11 million.

The Biden years saw:

*Those crossing illegally or overstaying temporary visas – I see no count for these. A guess: upwards of 250,000 a year, or 1,000,000 in total

*Increase in asylum cases: about 2,500,000 million

*Temporary protected status: about 500,000 + additional

*Humanitarian parole: about 600,000

LESS those deported /removed or self-deported under Biden: roughly 1,500,000. This assumes a number who left voluntarily, as has been the pattern for decades.

Thus, total in December 2000: 11-12 million

Change under Biden: 4.6 million less 1.5 million = 3.1 million

Total in December 2024: about 14.5 million

In the first nine months of the Trump administration – DHS’s released estimates have been deemed unreliable. Assume 400,000 have been deported and a large number self-deported. The removal of TPS status does not by itself cause the total number to go down. Assume the arrival of undocumented persons is relatively very low, say 100,000.

Thus, as of October 31, 2025: about 14 million.

Here is an informative estimate of the number of unauthorized as of mid 2023. Here is Pew’s estimate for 2023.

Is ICE driving Hispanics to vote for Democrats? If so, how serious is the loss of Hispanic support for Republicans for the November 2026 elections?  This is the first of several posts about the Hispanic vote.

Trump’s immigration policy has split the electorate between poles. Many Republicans think that Trump has not gone far enough. Democrats – too far. (This is an April 2025 poll.)  I’m looking here at sentiment among Hispanics, interested in how this issue may be contributing to a wave of Hispanics who voted for Trump in November 2025 and are shown to switch to Democratic candidates in this week’s November 4 elections.

Polls taken through mid 2025 consistently show among Hispanics relatively high levels of concern about deportation and criticism of ICE action – but I have not seen any report on if concern about the economy and concern about immigration law enforcement stack up relative to each other in impact on voters. Polls such as this one fairly consistently report that Hispanics are more concerned aout their economic well being than about immigration – especially as immigration is typically characterized as legalization of unauthorized persons. What we don’t know is if a combination of fear and anger may touch visceral emotions and spur Hispanics to vote (their rate of voting is low, that is for a follow up posting) and to vote against Republicans.

Opposition to ICE enforcement

June – July polls by various sources show that 60-70% of Hispanics disapprove of ICE raids and other enforcement measures.  Among Asians and Blacks, adverse reaction is slightly less. But notably among Whites, as many support ICE raids as oppose them.

Fear of deportation

Through the 2000’s and 2010, roughly half of Hispanics said to Pew Research pollsters that they were worried that a family member or some one close to them might be deported.  In March 2025 Pew found that 51% of foreign-born Hispanics and 36% of U.S. born Hispanics were worried. 50% of the 18- 49 year old age group were worried.

In a Pew poll in June 2025, 47% of Hispanic adults, 15% of White adults (non-Hispanics, 26% of Black adults, and 29% of Asian adults were worried.

We take from this that a lot of Hispanics are worried about deportations, including many long time residents. For example, 29% of Hispanics both of whose parents were born here – that is, third generation Hispanic immigrants, are worried.