Cecilia Esterline

Immigration Policy @NiskanenCenter. Opinions are my own.

[Cecilia Esterline @CecEsterline]

NEW RESOURCE: I just launched a new data hub for legal immigration analysis. If you’re looking for trends in USCIS processing times, consular wait times, PERM processing times, and more– it’s now all in one place. @NiskanenCenter

[Cecilia Esterline @CecEsterline]

Congress can make real improvements to the OPT program while still allowing the businesses who play by the rules to access a legitimate talent pipeline. I outlined my recommendations for increased accountability and oversight for @NiskanenCenter below. https://t.co/L9YeemSKK2

[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement @ICEgov]

📺WATCH: New ICE HSI data shows rampant foreign student fraud — ICE director says these probes are only the beginning.

➡️We’ve identified over 10,000 foreign students who claim to be working for highly-suspect employers.

➡️We’ve discovered empty buildings and locked doors at addresses where hundreds of foreign students are allegedly employed.

➡️We’ve found phantom employees; those with employment authorizations who never showed up at work.

[Cecilia Esterline @CecEsterline]

All this, and more, is included in the latest release on my @NiskanenCenter data page.

[Cecilia Esterline @CecEsterline]

Last week I told @washingtonpost that visa issuance statistics alone can't tell us if lowered interest in coming to the U.S. or actual policy change has driven the latest declines. However, there are other data points worth watching.

[Cecilia Esterline @CecEsterline]

Tourism continues to lag behind previous levels. February 2026 marked a modest increase over February 2025 but still trailed behind February 2024 by nearly 38,000 visitors.

[Gil Guerra @gildeguerra]

Excited to share my debut piece for @CityJournal, "How Well Do Americans Understand the Melting Pot?". In it, I examine the areas of the country that had the best assimilation outcomes 100 years ago (measured by 2nd-gen outmarriage), and use those findings to identify challenges to assimilation today. 🧵

[Gil Guerra @gildeguerra]

See these findings in an interactive data site I built for my latest Points of Entry post here: https://t.co/maOfDag7Qu

[Gil Guerra @gildeguerra]

If you found this interesting, I hope you'll read the full post and subscribe to Points of Entry here: https://t.co/I57Rp3E0h2

[Gil Guerra @gildeguerra]

You can explore the data for yourself in this interactive dashboard: https://t.co/TmGIp2Zl74

[Gil Guerra @gildeguerra]

Very excited to share that I'm launching a Substack called "Points of Entry" with the @NiskanenCenter. My first post is about what census data on how 19 million second-generation Americans married during the first great migration wave of 1880-1930 tells us about assimilation 🧵

[Cecilia Esterline @CecEsterline]

Drop in international students: For the first time since the Trump administration took office, the number of active SEVIS records dropped year over year. In October, we had 10,370 fewer active SEVIS records overall and 13,226 fewer active STEM records compared to last year.

[Niskanen Center @NiskanenCenter]

This is a big deal.

This pilot program represents years of advocacy that have come to fruition and could serve as a model for other specialty boards.

[Niskanen Center @NiskanenCenter]

It adopts a key recommendation from @lawsonhmansell and @CecEsterline.

Read their full policy framework here: https://t.co/yVNuVu1y6b

[Niskanen Center @NiskanenCenter]

Cecilia's distilled the newest USCIS data (processing for Apr–Jun) so that you don't have to. We're seeing:

→ Almost 11.6 million pending cases
→ 60,000+ unopened files
→ 538% more asylum denials than the same time last year