E.g., 04/17/2024
E.g., 04/17/2024
International Program

International Program

Image of female worker at the Boqueria market in Barcelona making a crepe
Marcel Crozet/ILO

Spain and the United States both receive their greatest number of immigrants from Latin America, and have worked collaboratively together on displacement crises and other migration issues. As shared immigration challenges dominate debate on both sides of the Atlantic, Spain can serve as a vital bridge in the policy conversation, this commentary notes.

Volunteer hands out food to migrant workers returning to their hometowns in Vietnam
IOM/Red Cross Vietnam

The COVID-19 pandemic both shocked the global mobility system and reaffirmed the centrality and resiliency of human mobility. Four years on, public and political attention to COVID-19’s unprecedented consequences for cross-border movement has waned. Yet if countries are to manage mobility more effectively in future public-health crises, this is an important moment for reflection and learning, as this issue brief explores.

A woman in Nigeria smiles while using her mobile phone
iStock.com/Wirestock

Remittances are a vital lifeline for migrants’ families around the world and an important source of revenue for many low- and middle-income countries, especially in times of crisis. As more people turn to digital financial technologies for these money transfers, this shift holds the potential to shake up the rigid remittance industry and boost development benefits. But it also brings new challenges, as this report explores.

Three refugee students at airport security check
© UNHCR/Alessandro Penso

Travel documents are critical facilitators of mobility. But for refugees, who cannot safely use a passport issued by their origin country, the lack of a usable travel document can shut them out of work, study, or other opportunities beyond their first country of asylum. This policy brief examines alternative documents that can facilitate refugees’ movement, key barriers to acquiring them, and strategies for overcoming these challenges.

Ukrainian adults and children arrive at a train station in Hungary
IOM/Muse Mohammed

The massive and rapid displacement of Syrians, Venezuelans, and Ukrainians presented neighboring countries with an impossible task: providing legal status and assistance, even though their asylum systems lacked the capacity to handle such a large influx. This report examines the costs and benefits of the flexible approaches taken to providing status in these three cases, identifying lessons for future crises.

A migrant worker cuts through a metal rod at a construction site in Qatar
Apex Image/ILO

With more people moving abroad for work and events such as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar highlighting the risks migrant workers can face, questions about how international recruitment occurs have received increased scrutiny. This policy brief explores the notable progress that has been made in establishing fair and ethical recruitment standards, and identifies key areas for future attention by governments, employers, and recruiters.

Recent Activity

Pages

Laying the Foundation for Regional Cooperation: Migration Policy and Institutional Capacity in Mexico and Central America
Reports
April 2021
By  Andrew Selee, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Andrea Tanco, Luis Argueta and Jessica Bolter
coverthumb_covid19 global mobility 2020
Reports
April 2021
By  Meghan Benton, Jeanne Batalova, Samuel Davidoff-Gore and Timo Schmidt
coverthumb_bridge fimer ground
Reports
March 2021
By  Camille Le Coz, Samuel Davidoff-Gore, Timo Schmidt, Susan Fratzke, Andrea Tanco, Maria Belen Zanzuchi and Jessica Bolter
coverthumb_covid19 return reintegration
Policy Briefs
February 2021
By  Camille Le Coz and Kathleen Newland
coverthumb_global compacts migration refugees
Policy Briefs
December 2020
By  Lena Kainz, Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan and Kathleen Newland

Pages

Luxury cars in front of a hotel on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah.

Migrant millionaires are once again on the move, though headed to new destinations amid fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While wealthy new arrivals can help provide a healthy tax base and invest in local economies, they can upset housing markets and exacerbate wealth disparities, as this article describes.

A collage of Ukrainians in Poland.

Poland hosts millions of Ukrainians who fled Russia’s invasion. While the new arrivals have tended to have been greeted warmly, many have questions about the future. As the months pass, many displaced Ukrainians wonder when and if they will return to their native country. This article, based on interviews with dozens of displaced Ukrainians in Poland, examines their experiences.

A view of Barcelona.

Spain has an unconventional immigration system. The national government is primarily responsible for border control, granting legal status to migrants, and other issues, but integration is mostly handled by regional and local governments, allowing for some pioneering policies at the subnational level. This article explores what this system has meant for Catalonia and its capital, Barcelona, which have been considered to be a model throughout Europe.

A man presents cash inside a passport

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 ushered in renewed scrutiny of citizenship by investment programs, which allow wealthy Russian investors and others to become citizens of foreign countries. Some nations are now re-evaluating these "golden passport" schemes, which they developed to boost their economies. This article discusses the history of these programs and their evolution, why they have become controversial, and the main beneficiaries.

A farmer in Spain stacks boxes of grapes.

Romanians comprise the second largest immigrant community in Spain. This population grew at a dramatic rate during the early 2000s, driven by a variety of economic, policy, and other factors. The number of Romanian immigrants peaked in 2012 and has steadily declined ever since. This article analyzes the drivers behind the growth and relative decline of this population and its role in the Spanish labor force.

Pages

International Migration Review Forum 2022 Official Side Event
Video, Audio
May 17, 2022

Organized on the margins of the first International Migration Review Forum, this official side event looks at effective practices and programs to build socially cohesive and inclusive societies—including lessons from post-conflict settings on how to build intergroup trust. Discussants focus on successful development interventions and offer examples of why some promising ideas may have fallen short in practice.

Nigerian Ministry of interior launched IOM’s Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS) in Abuja airport.
Video, Audio
May 10, 2022

Marking the launch of an IOM-MPI report, this webcast examines the state of mobility across world regions into the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic—what travel restrictions remain, what policy adaptations have occurred, and how do systems improve for the next public-health crisis.

Displaced Ukrainians who have just crossed the Medyka border in Poland getting assistance from IOM
Video, Audio
May 4, 2022

Experts consider what is known about public opinion and narratives on refugees, looking at the Ukrainian and Syrian crises, and how post-crisis solidarity can be harnessed towards sustainable protection.  

Emergency department. Centre Hospitalier de la Région d'Annecy (CHRA)
Video
April 28, 2022

Held immediately after the European Union unveiled its skills and talent package, this MPI Europe webinar explores how Europe can address its labor market needs at a time of great upheaval, and the role that immigration and immigrant integration policy can play in helping propel Europe’s economic recovery.

Expert Q&A, Audio
March 29, 2022

Do host communities respond differently to people migrating because of environmental impacts compared to refugees fleeing war or migrants seeking work? Research discussed on this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration suggests the answer is yes.

Pages

Recent Activity

Articles

Budgets for border security and interior immigration enforcement have been on the rise in places including the United States and the European Union. The spending is a result of the heightened focus on securitization by the Global North and has led to a ballooning private industry. This article explains the trend.

Expert Q&A, Audio
May 23, 2023

MPI's Lawrence Huang discusses COVID-19 mobility restrictions in China and the Asia Pacific—and what this all means for future public health crises—with Dr. Karen Grépin, a health policy professor at the University of Hong Kong.

Reports
May 2023

Los países de América Latina y el Caribe han aprovechado, de manera pragmática, una variedad de herramientas políticas para otorgar estatus legal a al menos la mitad de los más de 6 millones de venezolanos desplazados en la región. Este informe explora hasta qué punto los venezolanos desplazados han podido obtener un estatus legal en los 15 principales países receptores, su acceso al mercado laboral y a servicios públicos, y dónde persisten brechas.

Reports
May 2023

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have pragmatically tapped a variety of policy tools to provide legal status to at least half and as many as two-thirds of the more than 6 million displaced Venezuelans in the region. This report explores the extent to which Venezuelans have been able to obtain legal status in the top 15 host countries, their access to labor markets and public services, and where gaps remain.

Articles

Algeria and Morocco sit along a crucial migration corridor between Africa and Europe and have often been defined by their rivalry. Although both have been reluctant to welcome large numbers of sub-Saharan African migrants, their motivations have been different. And historically, their approaches to emigration have been a study in contrasts. This article explores the factors driving migration policy in these two countries.

Commentaries
May 2023

Amid a potentially dramatic rethink in the U.S. approach to management of migration from the Western Hemisphere, the creation of Regional Processing Centers (now known as Safe Mobility Offices, or SMOs) across Latin America will be central to the post-Title 42 strategy, as this commentary explains.

Articles

Palestinians constitute the world’s longest protracted refugee situation and largest stateless community. Yet their plight has often been eclipsed by more recent displacement crises and dismissed as unsolvable. Other factors have contributed to Palestinian refugees’ situation, including the near impossibility of obtaining citizenship in many host countries and precarious funding for support, as this article explains.

Articles

The revised U.S.-Canada Safe Third Country Agreement closes what critics call a loophole that incentivizes unauthorized border crossings of asylum seekers. While responding to Canadian concerns of increasing irregular arrivals from the United States, the change—taken in tandem with U.S. moves at the U.S.-Mexico border—suggests that the Biden administration increasingly wants to rely on neighboring countries to respond to rising asylum claims.

Pages