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Michael Fix
Experts & Staff
Photo of Michael Fix

Michael Fix

Senior Fellow

Michael Fix is a Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, and previously served as its President. He joined MPI in 2005, as Co-Director of MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy and later assumed positions as Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and CEO. 

Mr. Fix’s research focus is on immigrant integration and the education of immigrant children in the United States and Europe, as well as citizenship policy, immigrant children and families, the effect of welfare reform on immigrants, and the impact of immigrants on the U.S. labor force.

Media Requests
Michelle Mittelstadt
+1 202-266-1910
[email protected]

General Inquiries
+1 202-266-1941

Prior to joining MPI, Mr. Fix was Director of Immigration Studies at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, where his focus was on immigration and integration policy, race and the measurement of discrimination, and federalism.

Mr. Fix is a Policy Fellow with IZA in Bonn, Germany. In December 2013, he was nominated to be a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on the Integration of Immigrants into U.S. Society, which produced a seminal study on the integration of immigrants in the United States.

Previously, he served on the National Academy of Sciences’ Committee on the Redesign of U.S. Naturalization Tests and on the Committee on the Health and Adjustment of Immigrant Children. He also served as a member of the Advisory Panel to the Foundation for Child Development’s Young Scholars Program. In 2005 he was appointed to the State of Illinois’ New Americans Advisory Council, and in 2009 to the State of Maryland’s Council for New Americans.

Mr. Fix received a JD from the University of Virginia and a bachelor of the arts degree from Princeton University. He did additional graduate work at the London School of Economics.

Bio Page Tabs

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Fact Sheets
January 2016
By  Randy Capps, Michael Fix and Jie Zong
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Fact Sheets
October 2015
By  Randy Capps and Michael Fix
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Reports
June 2015
By  Randy Capps, Kathleen Newland, Susan Fratzke, Susanna Groves, Michael Fix, Margie McHugh and Gregory Auclair
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Reports
March 2015
By  Randy Capps, Michael Fix and Chiamaka Nwosu
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Reports
March 2014
By  Sarah Hooker, Michael Fix and Margie McHugh
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Reports
June 2013
By  Sarah Hooker, Margie McHugh, Michael Fix and Randy Capps

Pages

A woman walks alongside a train in Mexico.

In recent years, women from Central America have begun to make up a greater share of migrant apprehensions in Mexico and at the U.S. Southwest border. Systemic insecurity, poverty, and corruption are among the factors driving women and others to flee. This article explores the increase in female migration from Central America and the challenges these women face on their journey.

Contrary to a widely held view, not all immigrants have little education. About one in three immigrants is a person with either a U.S. or foreign college degree.

Michael Fix and Randy Capps of the Urban Institute explore the changing student population and the trends shaping U.S. urban schools' response to educational reforms such as the No Child Left Behind Act.

Photo of woman walking around a school campus.
Commentaries
November 2021
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
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Commentaries
February 2021
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
HealthCare BrainWaste Commentary CDC
Commentaries
December 2020
By  Michael Fix, Jeanne Batalova and José Ramón Fernández-Peña
LatinoMentalHealth commentary December2020
Commentaries
December 2020
By  Randy Capps and Michael Fix
SNAP commentary USDA Flickr
Commentaries
August 2019
By  Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Mark Greenberg
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Commentaries
September 2018
By  Julia Gelatt, Michael Fix and Jennifer Van Hook
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Commentaries
August 2018
By  Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Mark Greenberg
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Commentaries
December 2017
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
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Commentaries
June 2017
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
Constitution
Commentaries
August 2015
By  Michael Fix
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Commentaries
September 2014
By  Sarah Hooker and Michael Fix
EventPH 2014.3.20 Education for the Future Georgia Gwinnett College
Audio
March 20, 2014

MPI experts, along with representatives from Gwinnett County Public Schools and the University of Georgia's Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education, discuss the educational experiences of Georgia’s first- and second-generation immigrant youth and where Georgia’s ambitious education reforms have met—or failed to meet—the needs of this growing population. 

EventPH 2014.02.19 A Transatlantic Conversation Managing Migration in the Era of Mobility2
Video, Audio
February 19, 2014

This discussion explores how the 2014 Greek Presidency of the European Union and the United States can work to address the challenges of managing migration while meeting humanitarian obligations and nurturing economic growth.

Video, Audio
December 4, 2013

The winners of the Migration Policy Institute's 2013 E Pluribus Unum Prizes, honoring exceptional immigrant integration initiatives in the United States, discuss their work at an award ceremony on December 4, 2013 in Washington, DC.

2013.10.21_HumanRights
Video, Audio
October 21, 2013

In this panel discussion, Morten Kjaerum, Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), discussed the state of rights protection in Europe as well as his agency’s role in this evolving arena, and speakers discussed shared challenges and opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic.

2013.8.14 DACA google SarahHooker
Video, Audio
August 14, 2013

During this online chat, MPI researchers discuss their findings in an MPI brief, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals at the One-Year Mark: A Profile of Currently Eligible Youth and Applicants, that provides the most up-to-date estimates of the current and prospective DACA population by educational attainment, English proficiency, state of residence, country of origin, age, gender, labor force participation, poverty, and parental status.

Pages

Testimony
July 2006

Michael Fix, Vice President and Director of Studies, and Co-Director, National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means.

Recent Activity

Policy Briefs
November 2018

Most recent U.S. legal permanent residents could have found themselves at risk of green-card denial had they been assessed under a proposed Trump administration public-charge rule that would apply a significantly expanded test to determine likelihood of future public-benefits use. This analysis finds the effects would fall most heavily on women, children, and the elderly, while potentially shifting legal immigration away from Latin America.

Commentaries
September 2018

In a commentary, MPI and Penn State researchers explain why an academic article suggesting the unauthorized population is significantly higher than previously estimated derives from seriously flawed assumptions. The researchers, who peer-reviewed the analysis, find the authors overestimate successful illegal crossings by misapplying data from the 2000s to the 1990s, when crossing patterns were much different.

Commentaries
August 2018

A Trump administration “public-charge” rule expected to be unveiled soon could create the potential to significantly reshape family-based legal immigration to the United States—and reduce arrivals from Asia, Latin America, and Africa—by imposing a de facto financial test that 40 percent of the U.S. born themselves would fail, as this commentary explains.

Reports
August 2018

Economists project a shortage of 5 million U.S. workers with postsecondary education and training by 2020. Yet 2 million immigrant college graduates in the United States are either unemployed or work in jobs that require no more than a high school degree. How can this skill underutilization, known as "brain waste," be remedied? MPI asked the experts, and this report summarizes their discussion and recommendations.

Video, Audio, Webinars
June 12, 2018

This webinar highlights findings from an MPI report examining the potential impacts of expected changes to the public charge rule by the Trump administration. Leaked draft versions suggest the rule could sharply expand the number of legally present noncitizens facing difficulty getting a green card or extending a visa as a result of their family's use of public benefits. The rule likely would discourage millions from accessing health, nutrition, and social services for which they or their U.S.-citizen dependents are eligible.

Reports
June 2018

According to leaked drafts, the Trump administration is considering a rule that could have sweeping effects on both legal immigration to the United States and the use of public benefits by legal immigrants and their families. This report examines the potential scale of the expected rule’s impact, including at national and state levels and among children, as well as Hispanic and Asian American/Pacific Islander immigrants.

Articles

In recent years, women from Central America have begun to make up a greater share of migrant apprehensions in Mexico and at the U.S. Southwest border. Systemic insecurity, poverty, and corruption are among the factors driving women and others to flee. This article explores the increase in female migration from Central America and the challenges these women face on their journey.

Policy Briefs
December 2017

Enactment of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 introduced opportunities to use federal funds to strengthen the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce as a means of better meeting the needs of the growing and increasingly diverse young child population.

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