RESEARCH/PUBLICATIONS
FINAL REPORT
Shared Challenges and Opportunities for EU and US Immigration Policymakers
By Philippe Fargues, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Giambattista Salinari, and Madeleine Sumption
This final report summarizes and reflects upon the key findings of the Improving EU and US Immigration Systems: Learning from Experience comparative research project undertaken by the Migration Policy Institute and the European University Institute through a grant from the European Commission. The project focused on developments in Europe and the United States in eight key areas – employment, economic growth, human rights, security, immigrant integration, demographics, development, and cooperation with immigrant-sending countries. This final report highlights the lessons to be learned from both similar and divergent experiences on either side of the Atlantic, sketching opportunities for future reform, as well as ways in which the European Union and the United States could improve their cooperative relationship.
Download Report
Migration and Development Policy: What Have We Learned?
By Kathleen Newland
Migration and development have become a pressing policy priority on the global agenda over the past decade, and a number of revisions to conventional thinking on the subject have gained traction and yielded innovative — albeit in many cases yet unproven — policies and programs. This brief identifies critical lessons from the past decade of policy experimentation and offers some recommendations for policy moving forward.
Download Brief
Climate Change and Migration Dynamics
By Kathleen Newland
Climate change is a new driver of human migration, and is expected by many to dwarf all other factors in its impact. But while there is growing concern about climate change, far less agreement exists about what kinds of effects will be felt where, by whom, and precisely when. Human displacement is a result of a complex mix of factors, and some of the more commonly repeated predictions of the numbers of people who will be displaced by climate change are not informed by a full understanding of the dynamics of migration. This report analyzes the salient mechanisms of displacement: sea level rise, higher temperatures, disruption of water cycles, and increasing severity of storms. It also examines the ensuing migration responses and proposes recommendations to offset the severity of displacement.
Download Report
The Economic Integration of Immigrants in the United States: Long- and Short-Term Perspectives
By Aaron Terrazas
The United States has provided excellent economic opportunities for generations of immigrants, who are set to play an increasingly significant role in the US economy in coming decades as more baby boomers retire. Because many immigrants are concentrated in low-wage or low-skill jobs, the 2007-09 economic crisis accentuated their vulnerabilities in the labor market, with a risk that the crisis could prove to be a turning point in their future upward socioeconomic mobility. While historically, in the absence of government integration policies, the workplace has played a key role in immigration integration, it remains unclear if this approach will continue to ensure strong economic integration moving forward.
Download Report
Scientists, Managers, and Tourists: The Changing Shape of European Migration to the United States
By Madeleine Sumption and Xiaochu Hu
Once the dominant immigrant stream into the United States, European migration to the country has fallen sharply since World War II, a result of economic, demographic, and policy trends across the Atlantic. Today’s migration from European Union Member States is characterized by highly skilled immigrants who are more educated, earn better wages, have greater English proficiency, and are more strongly represented as scientists, professionals, and businesspeople than other immigrant groups. European migration has maintained a relatively low profile in immigration policy debates, however the Europe-favoring Visa Waiver Program has figured prominently into the immigration policy arena because of its relation to enhanced border security.
Download Report
Mexican and Central American Immigrants in the United States
By Kate Brick, A. E. Challinor, and Marc R. Rosenblum
The Mexican and Central American immigrant population in the United States has increased by a factor of 20 since 1970 — a period during which the overall US immigrant population increased four-fold. This report examines the age, educational, and workforce characteristics of immigrants and the second generation from Mexico and Central America, finding that these immigrants are younger, more likely to be male, and more likely to be married with children than the US born or other immigrant groups. A high proportion are unauthorized, with key implications for their economic and social status and the overall immigration debate.
Download Report
The Role of Civil Society in EU Migration Policy: Perspectives on the European Union’s Engagement in its Neighborhood
By Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan
Civil society provides a crucial link between governments and the communities they represent — infusing policy processes with grassroots knowledge to which governments may not otherwise have access and lending legitimacy to government actions. But thus far, civil-society organizations have had a limited role in European policy debates. As the European Union seeks to reach out to developing regions in its “neighborhood” of nearby countries, it has emphasized the importance of involving civil society in both agenda-setting and implementation. Yet EU policymakers have not clearly articulated how this engagement might be structured. In effect, the question is not whether to engage, but how to do so.
Download Report
Improving Immigrants’ Employment Prospects through Work-Focused Language Instruction
By Margie McHugh and A. E. Challinor
Immigrants’ employment prospects depend on their underlying levels of education and technical skills as well as their ability to communicate as needed in the host-country language. Since basic language courses do not impart the host-country language skills necessary for success in the workplace, many governments on both sides of the Atlantic are eager to expand work-focused language training. Yet implementing effective employment-focused language systems is difficult, as policymakers must find ways to design cost-effective programs that are sufficiently tailored to the needs of a wide range of occupations and that take account of immigrants’ underlying literacy skills and their financial and family circumstances. This policy memo explores the different approaches to providing work-focused language training that have developed in Europe and the United States.
Download Memo
New Streams: Black African Migration to the United States
By Randy Capps, Kristen McCabe, and Michael Fix
The United States has a long history of Black immigration driven by the slave trade of past centuries, but free Black immigration from Africa is a relatively recent phenomenon. Black Africans are among the fastest-growing groups of US immigrants, with about 1.1 million now living in the United States. Black Africans, who are much more likely than other groups to be admitted as refugees or through the diversity visa program, generally fare well on integration indicators. Overall, they are well educated, with college completion rates that greatly exceed those for most other immigrant groups and US natives.
Download Report
Opportunities for Transatlantic Cooperation on International Migration
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Madeleine Sumption
The transatlantic relationship is among the most significant partnerships between wealthy nations in immigration policy. While cooperation between the European Union and United States is, of course, far surpassed by the intra-EU or US-Canada relationships, the sheer size of the North Atlantic economic space and the number of workers and travelers who circulate within it make dialogue on migration both necessary and inevitable. This policy memo explores opportunities for cooperation regarding travel and border security, labor mobility, and other areas.
Download Memo
Emerging Transatlantic Security Dilemmas in Border Management
By Elizabeth Collett
The sheer volume of global travel, which has risen exponentially since the 1960s, puts border management systems under constant pressure. Beyond that growth, border management systems have had to contend with additional risks associated with these movements. Mass-casualty terrorist attacks, rising illegal immigration, and human trafficking have exposed weaknesses in states’ ability to manage their borders effectively. This policy memo examines the infrastructure and policy developments – and challenges – that have occurred in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic, discussing the differing nature and prioritization of those policy challenges.
Download Memo
Eight Policies to Boost the Economic Contribution of Employment-Based Immigration
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Madeleine Sumption
Immigration can be a powerful tool for supporting a country’s economic growth and prosperity, but its success in accomplishing that objective depends on well-designed and carefully implemented immigration policies that deliberately and strategically facilitate immigration’s economic contribution. This policy memo, drawing on experiences from Asia, Europe, North America, and the Pacific region, presents eight strategies to create effective and efficient economic-stream immigration systems.
Download Memo
Migration and Development: Policy Perspectives from the United States
By Aaron Terrazas
As migration has become an increasingly visible global phenomenon in recent decades, there has been heightened interest in the complex relationship between migration and the development prospects of migrants’ countries of origin. While individual migrants and their families tend to benefit from the decision to seek opportunities abroad, the consequences for migrant communities and countries of origin are more ambiguous. This report examines the evidence and whether there is any role for US policymakers to play.
Download Report | European Report
Rethinking Points Systems and Employer-Selected Immigration
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Madeleine Sumption
Advanced industrialized economies typically have used one of two competing models for selecting economic-stream immigrants: Points-based or employer-led selection. Increasingly, however, they are creating hybrid selection systems, implement the best ideas from each model. The result: Selection systems that have much of the flexibility of points systems while also prioritizing employer demand.
Download Report
Policies to Curb Unauthorized Employment
By Madeleine Sumption
Illegal immigration is driven in large measure by illegal employment. Lower wages aren’t the only reasons why employers turn to unauthorized workers: Illegal hiring can also allow them to evade costly regulations and taxes and to have greater flexibility in working hours and employment length. This memo outlines the three major lines of attack policymakers can use to craft a coherent strategy to reduce illegal employment: Employer sanctions, realistic legal channels to admit needed workers, and domestic labor market reforms.
Download Report
The Faltering US Refugee Protection System: Legal and Policy Responses to Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Others in Need of Protection
By Donald M. Kerwin
While generous in many respects, the US refugee protection system has become less robust over the last two decades amid heightened security reviews, inadequate coordination between government and NGOs, and unresolved policy tensions between the goals of protecting the most vulnerable and of refugee integration. This report examines US legal and policy responses to those seeking protection in the United States and addresses the barriers, gaps, and opportunities that exist in the refugee protection regime.
Download Report | European Asylum Report
The Role of Immigration in Fostering Competitiveness in the United States
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Madeleine Sumption
Immigration is an indispensable piece of any strategy to boost economic growth and prosperity. The United States has a natural advantage in attracting the world’s most talented workers. But employment-based immigration makes up too small a proportion of overall US permanent immigration, and US policy is inflexible in the face of changing circumstances, including the growth of other skill-focused immigration programs across the developed world. This report examines effective strategies to ensure that immigration policy facilitates US economic growth, innovation, and competitiveness.
Download Report | European Competitiveness Report
Immigrants in the United States: How Well Are They Integrating into Society?
By Tomás R. Jiménez
Even though immigration is intertwined with the history of the United States, fears about immigrants' ability to integrate remain an area of concern. Yet an examination of immigrants’ integration across five major indicators – language proficiency, socioeconomic attainment, political participation, residential locale, and social interaction with host communities – shows they are integrating reasonably well. Remarkably, the process has unfolded almost entirely without policy intervention. The author examines the laissez faire policy approach to integration, raising concerns about how the state of public education and size of the US unauthorized population may remain powerful barriers to immigrants' full social, economic, and political integration.
Download Report | European Integration Challenges Report
Pay-to-Go Schemes and Other Noncoercive Return Programs: Is Scale Possible?
By Richard Black, Michael Collyer, and Will Somerville
For decades, some immigrant-receiving countries have experimented with policies designed to encourage unauthorized immigrants to leave without the cost, legal barriers, and political obstacles that result from removals or forced returns. These initiatives – known as pay-to-go, noncoercive, voluntary, assisted voluntary, or nonforced returns — generally offer paid travel and/or a financial incentive in order to persuade target populations to cooperate with immigration authorities. The authors examine the programs’ long history of failure on the ground, but conclude that such initiatives could be an important part of the policy toolkit to reduce illegal immigration with proper experimentation and evaluation.
Download Report
Obstacles and Opportunities for Regional Cooperation: The US-Mexico Case
By Marc R. Rosenblum
US-Mexico relations on migration, dating back to the 1890s, have gone through several distinct phases: from an era of laissez faire policies to the Bracero Program, from a more unilateral US policy approach to Mexico’s “policy of no policy” stance, and to the current post-9/11 enforcement focus. This report traces the evolution of bilateral migration relations and offers some lessons for the US-Mexico relationship going forward. The history suggests that cooperation, while difficult, is not impossible and can offer benefits for both countries.
Download Report
Transatlantic Cooperation on Travelers’ Data Processing: From Sorting Countries to Sorting Individuals
By Paul De Hert and Rocco Bellanova
This report details the post-9/11 programs and agreements implemented by US and European governments to identify terrorists and serious transnational criminals through the collection and processing of increasing quantities of traveler data. The report analyzes how governments, which once focused their screening primarily on a traveler’s nationality (“sorting countries”), increasingly are examining personal characteristics (“sorting individuals”).
Download Report
The Evolution of Border Controls as a Mechanism to Prevent Illegal Immigration
By Rey Koslowski
This paper analyzes how the challenges in achieving effective US border control have increased dramatically within recent decades and particularly since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The author examines the programmatic and funding responses US policymakers have put in place — including the Secure Border Initiative, the Visa Waiver Program, US-VISIT, and registered-traveler programs — and traces their evolution and effectiveness.
Download Report
The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development, and evaluation of
migration and refugee policies at the local, national, and international levels.
