For the Benefit of All: Strategic Recommendations to Enhance the State's Role in Integration of Immigrants in Illinois
Report of the New Americans Policy Council, Year One
By Louise Cainker, Joshua Hoyt, Lisa Thakkar, and Fred Tsao, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIIR); Julie Murray and Hiroyuki Tanaka, MPI
ICIIR, December 2006

One in Seven Mexican Workers Are in the United States
By Jeanne Batalova
MPI Fact Sheet No. 14, November 2006

Fourteen percent of the Mexican labor force -- or about one in seven Mexican workers -- were in the United States in 2005. Mexicans made up almost 5 percent of the US labor force and nearly a third of all foreign-born workers in the United States.

Legal Immigration to the United States Increased Substantially in FY 2005
Fact Sheet by Julia Gelatt and Deborah Meyers
October 2006

In Fiscal Year 2005, the most recent year for which data are available: Lawful permanent immigration grew by 17 percent and naturalizations increased by almost 13 percent from FY 2004. The number of people who adjusted their status to lawful permanent residence increased 26 percent, explaining much of the overall growth. Refugee admissions rose slightly from FY 2004, but remained below pre-9/11 levels. The level of temporary visitors rebounded to near pre-9/11 levels.

New Estimates of Unauthorized Youth Eligible for Legal Status under the DREAM Act
Backgrounder by Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
October 2006

The DREAM Act, incorporated into the current Senate bill, would immediately make about 360,000 young people aged 18 to 24 who have graduated from high school or obtained a GED eligible for conditional legal status. Those who qualify and then attend college or join the military within six years would become eligible for permanent legal status – an arrangement unprecedented in US history. Another approximately 715,000 unauthorized youth between ages 5 and 17 would become eligible for conditional and then permanent legal status under the proposed legislation sometime in the future, according to estimates in a new MPI Backgrounder.

Immigration and America's Future:
A New Chapter
Final report of the Independent Task Force co-chaired by Spencer Abraham and Lee H. Hamilton

The bipartisan group of public policy experts, immigration stakeholders, and elected officials undertook careful analysis of the economic, social, and demographic factors driving today’s large-scale immigration.

The Task Force has concluded that immigration is essential to US national interests and will become even more so in the years ahead. However, the system is outdated, overly complex, and inflexible; it no longer serves the nation’s needs. The Task Force recommends that the United States fundamentally rethink its policies and overhaul how it manages immigration to better harness the benefits and minimize the disadvantages of immigration.
Executive Summary
Resumen Ejecutivo (Español)
More information about the Task Force
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La Inmigración y el Futuro de los Estados Unidos: Un Nuevo Capítulo
Resumen Ejecutivo (Español)

¿Qué clase de política y sistema de inmigración podría aprovechar los beneficios de la inmigración para avanzar los intereses nacionales de EE.UU. en el siglo XXI?

El Grupo de Trabajo sobre Inmigración y el Futuro de los Estados Unidos fue convocado por el Instituto de Política Migratoria (MPI), con la cooperación del Manhattan Institute y las divisiones de estudios estadounidenses y del Instituto de México en el Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, para debatir este tema. El informe y las recomendaciones están basados en un cuidadoso análisis de los factores económicos, sociales y demográficos que impulsan la inmigración actual, tanto ilegal como legal, a gran escala. Su conclusión fundamental es que los beneficios de la inmigración llevan mucho más peso que las desventajas y que la inmigración es esencial para los intereses nacionales de EE.UU. y lo será aun más en los años venideros. Pero para aprovechar los beneficios, los Estados Unidos debe fundamentalmente repensar sus políticas y revisar su sistema de manejo de la inmigración.
Executive Summary (English)
More information about the Task Force
Order Online (English) US
Order Online (English) International

America's Human Rights Challenge:
International Human Rights Implications of US Immigration Enforcement Actions Post-September 11
By Susan Gzesh, Senior Lecturer and Director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago

In America’s Human Rights Challenge, the author examines how international human rights law can serve as a tool for the assessment of US immigration security measures and immigration enforcement practices post - 9/11.

From Zero Sum to a Win-Win Scenario:
A Literature Review on Circular Migration
By Dovelyn Rannveig Agunias
September 2006

Immigrants and Labor Force Trends: The Future, Past, and Present
By B. Lindsay Lowell, Julia Gelatt, and Jeanne Batalova
Task Force Insight No. 17, July 2006

The authors find that immigrants have been a driving force behind labor market growth in the United States in the past three decades. If immigration remains at current levels, immigrants and their children are projected to account for all growth in the US labor force between 2010 and 2030.

Immigrants are projected to represent a rising percent of the workforce at all skill levels, increasing from 29 percent of those with less than a high school education in 2000 to 34 percent in 2030, from 10 to 15 percent of workers with a high school degree, and from 14 to 18 percent of those with a college education. Many jobs that have the highest rate of growth (in percentage terms) will require a college education, such as computer software engineers, physical therapists, and medical scientists.  Meanwhile many jobs with the largest absolute (numerical) growth will require only on-the-job training and will have three times as many openings, for instance in medicine, home care and other services.  Particularly as the native population ages, immigrants' education and skill levels make them good matches for these jobs.
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The Impact of Immigration on Native Workers: A Fresh Look at the Evidence
By Julie Murray, Jeanne Batalova, and Michael Fix
Task Force Insight No. 18, July 2006

The authors carefully consider the extensive literature regarding the "competition question" of immigration's effects for natives. Contrary to much rhetoric in the current debate, the authors conclude that the question of whether increased immigration decreases native workers’ wages has yet to be resolved. They find that recent research diverges sharply on whether immigrants lower US-born workers' wages or, in fact, work in a complementary way to boost wages, particularly for high-skilled natives. 

Turning then to displacement, the authors note that researchers have more consistently found that there is some job displacement, or at least growing exclusion, of native workers in industries or areas with many immigrants.  This trend holds for low-skilled workers and/or African-American natives.  The authors write that changes in labor or capital, such as native out-migration or the entry of new industries into a region, can lessen the impacts of immigration on native wages or employment or spread the effects through a larger market.
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Europe and Its Immigrants in the 21st Century: A New Deal or a Continuing Dialogue of the Deaf?
Edited by Demetrios G. Papademetriou
MPI and the Luso-American Foundation, March 2006

In this volume, the Migration Policy Institute has gathered some of the leading European thinkers to offer insightful counsel and, wherever possible, solutions to Europe’s immigration challenges. The book’s contributors piece together the puzzle of a well-managed, comprehensive immigration regime, tackling issues ranging from immigration’s economic costs and benefits, to effective selection systems, citizenship, the welfare state, and integration policies that work.
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Countering Terrorist Mobility: Shaping an Operational Strategy 
By Susan Ginsburg, MPI nonresident scholar and former senior counsel for the 9/11 Commission,
January 2006

Susan Ginsburg provides a blueprint for an integrated strategy to thwart terrorists by focusing on terrorist mobility.  While all but the most recent government counterterrorism strategies since 9/11 omit mobility as a distinct element of terrorism requiring its own operational strategy, Ms. Ginsburg argues that terrorist mobility deserves comparable attention and resources to those devoted to terrorist finance and communications.  She describes the elements of a terrorist mobility strategy that can use leads generated by terrorists’ need to travel to counter their ability to enter, live in, or move within the United States and like-minded countries.
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The Growing Connection Between Temporary and Permanent Immigration Systems
By Jeanne Batalova
Task Force Insight No. 14, January 2006

The distinction between temporary and permanent migration, clearly demarcated in past decades, has become increasingly blurred. A new immigrant admissions system has emerged that is neith temporary nor permanent, but rather a transitional system that allows visa holders to prove their worth to employers and the broader economy. The author also concludes that data collection must be improved so that legislators have an accurate basis for designing improved programs and policies.
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Temporary Worker Programs: A Patchwork Policy Response
By Deborah W. Meyers
Task Force Insight No. 12, January 2006

In fiscal year 2004, the volume of admissions to the United States for temporary workers, trainees, and their dependants reached nearly 1.5 million people. Within these employment-based visa categories, temporary workers have dramatic variations of stay that range from three months to ten years, and many are transitioning to the permanent system. In the same year, more than 60 percent of new lawful permanent residents (LPRs) adjusted their status (rather than being new arrivals), and at least 10 percent of LPRs are former temporary workers. Furthermore, nearly half of all temporary worker admissions are in categories that explicitly allow adjustment.
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