2025

Falling birth rates in the U.S. have raised concerns that the current total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen "below replacement" level. In reality, the relationship between current fertility rates and population decline is not straightforward.

Immigration. Abortion. Anti-Trans laws. Student debt. Reversing the falling fertility rate. All these topics have been the subject of intense debates in the past several years, and some have been the subject of executive orders and new actions by the Trump administration in his first 50 days in office. In this symposium, the Council on Contemporary Families brings together leading experts on these topics to discuss how these policies affect families, and what to expect in the second Trump administration.

This research explores the intensification of anti-immigrant policies in the United States, particularly under Donald Trump’s presidency, which weaponized the “Immigrant Threat Narrative” to justify mass deportations, family separations, and harsh enforcement tactics. Drawing from community-based research with undocumented Central American mothers in Washington, DC, findings reveal widespread fear, depression, and material hardship resulting from immigration enforcement actions.