Many Americans say they would prefer to vote for candidates with centrist (moderate) preferences. Yet very few Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress run for office on moderate campaign platforms or behave as moderates in office. Why don’t more candidates respond to the public’s demands for moderate issue positions?

Although public debate often treats unauthorized immigration as strictly a border issue, millions of people without legal status live and work far from U.S. points of entry. In this brief, we examine who is living in the U.S. without authorization and where they live.

Border security has been a defining issue in American politics for decades. The 2025 Budget Reconciliation legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), implements significant changes in U.S. border policy. In this brief, we describe these new initiatives and update our data on border encounters.