Tightening of the United States Migration Policy in the Light of its Genesis and International Law

INTRODUCTION. With the steady increase in the number of migrants and forcibly displaced persons, migration has the potential to both contribute to the development of States and create problems for all parties involved. The United States of America is a country created by migrants. For a long time, it occupies the first place in the list of countries in the world in terms of the number of people on its territory who do not have citizenship of the host State. This indicates a special interest in the experience of migration policy and legislative regulation of migration in the United States. The article presents an analysis of the development of migration policy and migration legislation in the United States in the 17-21st centuries. Special attention is paid to the use of such measures of restriction and control of migration, as the detention of migrants and refugees. The norms in force are correlated with obligations of the USA under international law.
MATERIALS AND METHODS. The work is based on the study of the US legislation in the field of migration and forced displacement, on analysis of international legal acts concerning migration, forced displacement and human rights protection, on the use of scientific literature in Russian and English, as well as statistical and other sources on the topic of the study. General scientific and specific scientific methods of cognition are applied: system approach, analysis, synthesis, formal-legal, historical-legal, and comparativelegal methods.
RESEARCH RESULTS. The study reveals that the migration policy and legislation of the United States of America have gone through several stages in their development, during which the attitude towards immigrants changed from encouraging immigration to introducing severe restrictions. The international legal framework concerning migration and forced displacement that has been formed to date does not fully bind the United States due to the state's participation in a small number of applicable international treaties, and the obligations that apply to the United States are not fully implemented.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. The tools for implementing the US migration policy were characterized by significant diversity and included both methods acceptable from the point of view of contemporary international law and those that did not fully correspond to it, including detention and subsequent deportation of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, as evidenced by monitoring the United States’ implementation of their international legal obligations by the Charter-based (through the Universal Periodic Review) and treaty-based (primarily through the consideration of periodic reports) human rights protection bodies. At the same time, the extremely tough measures announced and already taken by D. Trump in 2025 do not radically change the vector of development of the migration policy, law and practice of the United States, as the USA have long since moved away from liberality and softness in establishing the conditions for entry into its territory and stay on it of migrants and refugees.

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