FACT SHEETS |
BACKGROUNDERS |
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 |
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. |
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 |
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. |
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 |
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. |
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. |
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.
|
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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United States-Canada-Mexico Trade and Migration
By Megan Davy and Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 11, October 2005 |
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Backlogs in Immigration Processing Persist
By Kevin Jernegan, Doris Meissner, Elizabeth Grieco, and Colleen Coffey
Fact Sheet No. 10, June 2005 |
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Legal Immigration to US Still Declining
By Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 9, October 2004 |
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Health Insurance Coverage of the Foreign Born in the United States: Numbers and Trends
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet No. 8, June 2004 |
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Immigrants and US Labor Unions: A New MPI Fact Sheet
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet No. 7, May 2004 |
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International Agreements of the Social Security Administration
By Deborah Meyers
Fact Sheet No. 6, January 2004 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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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