FACT SHEETS |
Relief from Deportation: Demographic Profile of the DREAMers Potentially Eligible under the Deferred Action Policy
By Jeanne Batalova and Michelle Mittelstadt
As many as 1.76 million unauthorized immigrants under age 31 who were brought to the United States as children, a population known as DREAMers, could gain a two-year reprieve from deportation, according to updated MPI estimates that reflect more detailed eligibility guidelines for the deferred action policy being implemented by the Department of Homeland Security. The Fact Sheet offers estimates on the age, educational attainment, state of residence, country and region of birth, workforce participation, and gender of prospective beneficiaries.
Download Fact Sheet | Press Release |
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Through the Prism of National Security: Major Immigration Policy and Program Changes in the Decade since 9/11
By Michelle Mittelstadt, Burke Speaker, Doris Meissner, and Muzaffar Chishti
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 prompted the profound realignment of the US immigration system, with national security and enforcement the dominant lens through which programs and budgets have been shaped over the past decade. The post-9/11 era has witnessed the largest government reorganization since World War II; increased information sharing and data collection across international, federal, state, and local law enforcement and intelligence agencies; the broad use of nationality-based screening and enforcement initiatives; the expansion of immigrant detention policies; and exponential increases in funding for homeland security-related immigration programs. This Fact Sheet details the policy, programmatic, budget, and manpower changes that have happened in the immigration arena as an outgrowth of the 9/11 attacks.
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Foreign-Born Veterans of the US Armed Forces
By Iris Ho and Aaron Terrazas
Fact Sheet No. 22, October 2008
As the United States prepares to commemorate Veterans Day, an MPI analysis finds there were about 645,000 foreign-born veterans of the US armed forces in 2007, representing nearly 3 percent of all surviving US veterans. The Fact Sheet, using data from the US Census Bureau's 2007 American Community Survey, provides a demographic portrait of the foreign-born veterans' countries of origin, states of residence, and periods of service.
Fact Sheet | Press Release
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.
Fact
Sheet | Press
Release |
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.
Fact
Sheet | Press
Release |
Variable
Impacts: State-level Analysis of the Slowdown in the Growth of
Remittances to Mexico
By Aaron Matteo Terrazas
Fact Sheet No. 19, September 2007
In 2006, Mexico received an estimated $24.5 billion in remittances -- 11.3 percent
of the total $276 billion in remittances worldwide. While migrant remittances
to Mexico grew an average of 19.1 percent annually between 2003 and 2006, however,
they increased by just 0.6 percent in the first half of 2007 compared to the
first half of 2006. A new MPI fact sheet provides a first look remittances to
Mexico by state for 2003 to 2007, highlighting the states that may be most severely
affected by a slowdown in money coming in from migrants abroad in the first six
months of 2007.
English | Español | Press
Release |
How Changes to Family Immigration Could Affect Source Countries' Sending Patterns
By Julia Gelatt
Fact Sheet No. 18, June 2007
The proposed Senate bill would substantially revise the family-based permanent immigration system. The current system allocates about two-thirds of permanent visas to family members while the Senate bill, which includes changes to family categories and a new points-based system, would likely result in less than half of all visas going to family members. At the same time, using the points system, the share of visas going to employment-based immigrants would increase from less than one-fifth currently to about two-fifths. |
Document Security Provisions: What's in the Cards?
By Dawn Konet
Fact Sheet No. 17, June 2007
This Fact Sheet provides a chart of the security features -- from photos and fingerprints to holograms and lamination -- of documents issued by government agencies and used by US residents to work, travel and verify their identities. While some of the other commonly used documents have had their security features steadily improved, there have been no significant changes to the Social Security card, one of the most commonly used to show work eligibility. |
Actual Immigration to the United States:
The Real Numbers
Fact Sheet No. 16, May 2007
While official figures show annual permanent immigration to the United States averaging about 1 million a year, actual annual immigration to the United States is about 1.8 million people. True numbers of people who enter the United States each year and ultimately remain permanently include not only those coming through official permanent immigration channels, but also those entering through certain temporary immigration streams, and those entering or remaining in the United States without authorization. |
Immigration Fee Increases in Context
By Julia Gelatt and Margie McHugh
Fact Sheet No. 15, February 2007
US Citizenship Immigration Services has announced plans for an 80 percent increase in naturalization application fees. The fact sheet details the increased fees' implications for US immigrants and provides background on USCIS' call for higher fees. |
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
By Julia Gelatt and Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 13, November 2005
According to Department of Homeland Security data, in Fiscal Year 2005 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, while the level of temporary visitors rebounded to near pre-9/11 levels. |
Legal Immigration to the United States Up from Last Year
Information on US immigration in FY 2004
By Julia Gelatt and Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 12, November 2005 |
Immigration Facts: Immigration Enforcement Spending Since IRCA
By David Dixon and Julia Gelatt
Task Force Fact Sheet No. 10, November 2005
This study of appropriations finds that from 1985 to 2002, funds for border control jumped from $700 million to $2.8 billion per year; funds for detention and removal skyrocketed from $192 million to $1.6 billion, while funds for interior investigations rose from $109 million to only $458 million. |
United States-Canada-Mexico Trade and Migration
By Megan Davy and Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 11, October 2005 |
Backlogs in Immigration Processing Persist
By Kevin Jernegan, Doris Meissner, Elizabeth Grieco, and Colleen Coffey
Fact Sheet No. 10, June 2005 |
Legal Immigration to US Still Declining
By Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 9, October 2004 |
Health Insurance Coverage of the Foreign Born in the United States: Numbers and Trends
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet No. 8, June 2004 |
Immigrants and US Labor Unions: A New MPI Fact Sheet
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet No. 7, May 2004 |
International Agreements of the Social Security Administration
By Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 6, January 2004 |
What Kind of Work Do Immigrants Do? Occupation and Industry of Foreign-Born Workers in the United States
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet No. 5, January 2004
View Graphs |
The Foreign Born in the U.S. Labor Force
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet No. 4, January 2004
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US-Mexico-Canada Trade and Migration
By Rebecca Jannol, Deborah Meyers, and Maia Jachimowicz
Fact Sheet No. 3, November 2003 |
Unauthorized Immigration to the United States
By MPI Staff
Fact Sheet No. 2, October 2003
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US Immigration Since September 11, 2001
By Elizabeth Grieco, Deborah Meyers, and Kathleen Newland
Fact Sheet No. 1, September 2003 |
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INSIGHTS |
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Regularizations in the European Union: The Contentious Policy Tool
By Kate Brick
Though contentious, regularization (typically referred to in the US context as legalization) remains a frequently utilized policy tool to address the European Union’s unauthorized immigrant population. Since 1996, over 5 million people have been regularized through a variety of methods, which this Insight details. This work informed the Transatlantic Council on Migration meeting, “Restoring Trust in the Management of Migration and Borders.” The resulting Council Statement, authored by MPI President Demetrios G. Papademetriou, offers a menu of policy options and actions governments can take to build a “whole-of-system” approach to controlling illegal immigration while also creating the political space necessary for reforms of their immigration systems.
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E-Verify: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Proposals for Reform
By Marc R. Rosenblum
With Congress likely to consider new mandates involving E-Verify, the currently voluntary employment eligibility verification system, this Insight examines the strengths and weaknesses of E-Verify, which has grown dramatically in recent years. It also discusses proposals for reform, including adding biometric screening to the system.
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The Demographic Impacts of Repealing Birthright Citizenship
By Jennifer Van Hook with Michael Fix
Repeal of birthright citizenship for the US-born children of unauthorized immigrants would expand the unauthorized population by at least 5 million over the next four decades. Employing standard demographic techniques, this analysis suggests that there would be 4.7 million unauthorized immigrants as of 2050 who had been born in the United States — 1 million of them with US-born mother and father — if birthright citizenship were denied to children born to parents who are both unauthorized immigrants. While some policymakers are discussing changes to birthright citizenship as a means to reduce illegal immigration, the report makes clear such a move could in fact significantly increase the size of the unauthorized population.
Download Report | Press Release
DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries
Slightly more than 2.1 million unauthorized immigrant youth and young adults could be eligible to apply for legal status under the DREAM Act legislation pending in Congress, though perhaps fewer than 40 percent would obtain legal status because of barriers limiting their ability to take advantage of the legislation's educational and military service routes to legalization. This MPI analysis offers the most recent and detailed estimates of potential DREAM Act beneficiaries by age, education levels, gender, state of residence and likelihood of gaining legalization.
Download Report | Press Release |
BACKGROUNDERS |
The Redesigned Citizenship Test: High Stakes
By Laureen Laglagaron and Bhavna Devani
MPI Backgrounder No. 6, September 2008
More than a decade in the making, the redesigned citizenship test required for use after October 1, 2008 is supposed to provide a more meaningful opportunity for applicants to demonstrate knowledge about US history and civics, and allow the government more standardized test administration. This MPI Backgrounder details the redesign process, examines whether the government met its goals, and provides policy recommendations.
Backgrounder | Press Release |
Social Security “No Match” Letters: A Primer
MPI Backgrounder No. 5, October 2007
A US District Court Judge has ruled that a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regulation regarding Social Security Administration (SSA) “no match” letters cannot be implemented. This MPI Backgrounder shows that, based on 2006 information, the DHS procedures would have affected more than 1.5 million workers, with approximately 1 million concentrated in ten states. |
Proposed Points System and Its Likely Impact on Prospective Immigrants
By Demetrios Papademetriou, Jeanne Batalova, and Julia Gelatt
Backgrounder No. 4, May 2007
This MPI Backgrounder provides data on the foreign born in the United States related to the immigrant selection criteria expected to be part of the points-system proposal. These include age, educational attainment, occupation, English proficiency, and labor force participation -- factors that may be given more emphasis than extended family relationships. |
Immigration and the 2007 French Presidential Elections
By Hiroyuki Tanaka
Backgrounder No. 3, May 2007
As Nicolas Sarkozy takes office as the president of France, this backgrounder examines the French immigration system, Sarkozy's influence on recent legislation, and how his stance on immigration has differed from that of the other top Presidential contender, Ségolène Royal.
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France's New Law:
Control Immigration Flows, Court the Highly Skilled
By Kara Murphy
Backgrounder No. 2, November 2006
France's immigration and integration law, adopted on July 25, 2006, aims to overhaul France's immigration system by giving the government new powers to encourage high-skilled migration, fight illegal migration more effectively, and restrict family immigration. |
New Estimates of Unauthorized Youth Eligible for Legal Status under the DREAM Act
By Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
MPI Backgrounder No. 1, 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 MPI estimates. |
Documentation Provisions of the Real ID Act
By Kevin Jernegan
Task Force Backgrounder, November 2005
The Real ID Act seeks to meet the US security imperative to have a reliable system for confirming and individual’s identity, prevent fraud through counterfeit-proof identification cards, and capitalize on possible gains from information-sharing among multiple federal and state law enforcement agencies. However, concerns range from cost issues to the difficulty of constructing safeguards against misuse of the data by both criminal elements and the government. |
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