Feature Articles

The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that includes a points system for permanent immigration. MPI's Demetrios G. Papademetriou outlines how points systems work, which countries have used them, their political benefits, and trends in points-system use.

In the United States, the academic success of children of Chinese and Korean immigrants usually is attributed to either their culture or the U.S. immigration system, which favors skilled migrants. Min Zhou and Susan S. Kim of the University of California, Los Angeles compare the after-school institutions in these communities to explain the effect of ethnicity on educational outcomes.

Since 2003, the Netherlands has instituted a variety of integration-related reforms to make sure new immigrants speak Dutch and understand Dutch society. But the political climate changed in 2006, and the new government is taking a broader approach as Chavi Keeney Nana explains.

There is an ongoing debate over the children born to Europe's guest workers of the 1960s and 1970s: Can they move up the educational ladder, or will they form a new underclass in Europe's largest cities? Maurice Crul of the University of Amsterdam compares outcomes for second-generation Turkish children across five countries.

Since 2000, Mexico has further intensified efforts to detain and deport irregular migrants. Gabriela Diaz and Gretchen Kuhner investigate the experiences of women migrants, the majority of them from Latin America, who have been detained in Mexico en route to the United States.

Mexico has often been cited as a successful example of the positive relationship between migration and development. But Raúl Delgado-Wise and Luis Eduardo Guarnizo show why Mexico's model is unsustainable.

India receives more remittances than any other country in the world. MPI's Muzaffar Chishti explores the factors responsible for remittance growth in the last 15 years.

The addition of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union means another round of anxieties about labor migrants. Catherine Drew and Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah of the Institute for Public Policy Research in London explain how this enlargement is different from the historic one in 2004 and why most EU Member States favor temporary restriction.

Nebraska's foreign-born population grew faster than that of any other Midwestern state between 1990 and 2000. Lourdes Gouveia and Mary Ann Powell of the University of Nebraska at Omaha shed light on the second generation's progress in the country's heartland.

The Effect of U.S. Elections on Immigration Reform

In today's immigration debates, some insist the United States has always been a nation of immigrants while others believe illegal entry and threats to national security are unprecedented. Donna R. Gabaccia of the University of Minnesota shows how time shapes understanding of current immigration trends.