I cannot resist posting on the TaxProf Blog on the topic of immigration law, law schools, and the “Trump bump.”

The Trump administration kept immigration in the daily news in 2025. As an aside, I just completed teaching an Immigration and the Supreme Court one week course at the University of Cincinnati College of Law and found it exhausting just keeping up on immigration developments that week alone — the firestorm in Minneapolis (the aftermath of the killing of Renee Good, racial profiling and other suits challenging the immigration enforcement operations, threats of invocation of the Insurrection Act, etc.), suspension of immigrant visas for nationals of 75 nations (including Russia, Brazil, and much of Africa and the Caribbean), lifting of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somalians, threats to defund so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, and more. Law students for now seem much more interested in immigration law than in past years and are on top of contemporary developments in immigration.

Law schools over the years have done a lot to incorporate immigration into the law school curriculum. Some law schools have developed reputations in the field. Here, here, here, and here are different lists of top immigration law schools. Immigration law clinics have been established in law schools across the country. Most law schools have one or more faculty members specializing in immigration law.

Part of the dramatic law school applications increase has been attributed to national politics. As JD Journal explains, “[t]he second term of President Donald Trump has renewed political urgency for many. According to Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law, prospective students are energized to protect key issues such as civil liberties, immigration rights, and environmental protections. Georgetown Law’s admissions dean, Andy Cornblatt, observed [that] with many young adults [have] express[ed] a desire to use legal tools to shape policy outcomes. This so-called `Trump bump’ echoes a similar trend during Trump’s first presidency.“

What impact, if any, will the law student interest in immigration law and the Trump bump have on law schools? More immigration specialty courses? More immigration clinics? More externships with nonprofits doing immigration legal work? I will find it interesting to see how law schools and students respond to the convergence of contemporary developments.