Los Angeles on the Leading Edge: Immigrant Integration Indicators and Their Policy Implications
By Michael Fix, Margie McHugh, Aaron Matteo Terrazas, and Laureen Laglagaron
April 2008
As Los Angeles makes the transition from being a city of immigrants to one dominated by their US-born children, it can serve as a policy laboratory for other cities facing the need to better integrate immigrants into US classrooms, workplaces, and civic life. MPI’s report details the imperative for integration policies that will benefit immigrants and the broader US society alike.
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Weaknesses in the Visa Waiver Program
Testimony of Susan Ginsburg, Director of MPI's Mobility and Security Program, before the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security
Feb. 28, 2008

Role of Foreign-born Voters in Elections
Election profiles for Texas and Ohio, as well as the 48 other states and the District of Columbia, examine voter registration by nativity, providing breakdowns for foreign-born citizens as a share of total state population, their turnout in the 2004 general election, and ethnicity.

Behind the Naturalization Backlog
By Claire Bergeron and Jeremy Banks
Fact Sheet No. 21, February 2008
The processing time for naturalization applications has risen dramatically since mid-2007, to an 18-month average, as the federal government has struggled to cope with a surge in applications driven in part by a substantial fee increase. More than 460,000 people filed naturalization applications in July 2007 right before the fee hike took effect — fully one-third of the nearly 1.4 million applications that were filed during the entire fiscal year. This MPI fact sheet examines the causes, context, and concerns surrounding the backlog.
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Language Portal: A Translation and Interpretation Digital Library
National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, February 2008
The Language Portal is a digital library of nearly 600 resources relating to the use of language access services in social services and public safety agencies. The Portal includes legal guidelines, service models, master contracts for service providers, hourly translation and interpretation rates for different languages, pay differentials for multilingual staff, and sample translated documents. The Portal was created to provide “one-stop shopping” for the many local government administrators, policymakers, and others who are looking for ways to provide high-quality and cost-effective translation and interpretation services.

The Iraqi Refugee Crisis: The Need for Action
By Kelly O'Donnell and Kathleen Newland
Report, January 2008
As border restrictions both within and outside Iraq tighten and sectarian violence persists, the options for Iraq's estimated 4.5 million internally and externally displaced appear bleak. MPI's report on the Iraqi refugee crisis examines the situation in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon, as well as the response of the United States and select EU Member States.
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Secure Borders and Open Doors: Preserving Our Welcome to the World in an Age of Terrorism
Report of the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee, January 2008
The Secure Border and Open Doors Advisory Committee, created by the US Secretaries of Homeland Security and State in December 2006, has included 44 policy recommendations on travel and border issues in this report. MPI Senior Fellow Susan Ginsburg co-chaired the committee's Visa Policy and Processing Working Group.

Europe’s Disappearing Internal Borders
By Hiroyuki Tanaka and Trinidad Macias
Fact Sheet No. 20, December 2007
The Schengen Area allows European Union citizens and third-country nationals in 15 Schengen Member States to, in almost all cases, travel freely to another Schengen Member State. On December 21, 2007, the Schengen Area will enlarge to include nine of the 10 countries that entered the European Union in 2004. This MPI fact sheet provides 10 key facts about the expanding Schengen Area.
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Testing the Limits: A Framework for Assessing the Legality of State and Local Immigration Measures
By Cristina Rodríguez, Muzaffar Chishti, and Kimberly Nortman
Report, December 2007
In 2007 alone, the 50 state legislatures have considered over 1,000 pieces of legislation regulating immigrants and immigration. This paper provides a framework for assessing the legal validity of five of the most common or high-profile measures that address unauthorized immigration specifically.

Room for Progress: Reinventing Euro-Atlantic Borders for a New Strategic Environment
By Deborah W. Meyers, Rey Koslowski, and Susan Ginsburg, October 2007
Ever-increasing economic and political integration of the European Union and deeper economic and security partnerships among the United States, Canada, and Mexico are creating new models of border management. At the same time, concerns about terrorism, illegal migration, and transnational criminal enterprises are eliciting greater strategic reassessment of, and investment in, border and immigration policies. A new MPI report describes recently established US and EU enforcement agencies, benefits and limitations of new information technology, and contentious developments surrounding visa-free travel policy.
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