E.g., 04/23/2024
E.g., 04/23/2024
North America

North America

North America is a dynamic migration region, with the United States home to more immigrants than any other country in the world, the Mexico-U.S. corridor the globe's top migration corridor, and Canada a leading destination for migrants. Research collected here focuses on everything from visa policy and border management to immigrant integration, national identity, the demographics of immigrants in the region and their educational and workforce outcomes, and ways to more effectively use migration policy as a lever for national and regional competitiveness.

Recent Activity

Cover imgage for ESSER brief
Policy Briefs
July 2023
By  Jazmin Flores Peña, Julie Sugarman and Lorena Mancilla
Cover image for At the Breaking Point report
Reports
July 2023
By  Muzaffar Chishti, Doris Meissner, Stephen Yale-Loehr, Kathleen Bush-Joseph and Christopher Levesque
Graphic image of man's hand touching screen with word skills
Commentaries
July 2023
By  Kate Hooper, Jeanne Batalova and Julia Gelatt
Varias personas portan una bandera gigante de Colombia en un desfile en Washington, DC.
Articles
People carry a giant Colombian flag at a parade in Washington, DC.
Articles
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a conference in Tampa.
Articles
A refugee family in Phoenix.
Articles

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Cover image Cultural Competency Secrets to Success with Immigrant and Refugee Families
Policy Briefs
May 2022
By  Chris Estes, Devin Deaton, Aparna Jayashankar and Margie McHugh
Cover image for Growing Language Skills with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting
Policy Briefs
May 2022
By  Chris Estes, Devin Deaton, Aparna Jayashankar and Margie McHugh
Cover image for Better Responses to Differing Immigration Statuses: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Work
Policy Briefs
May 2022
By  Chris Estes, Devin Deaton, Aparna Jayashankar and Margie McHugh
Cover image for Building Trust with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Work
Policy Briefs
May 2022
By  Chris Estes, Devin Deaton, Aparna Jayashankar and Margie McHugh
Cover image for COVID-19 and the State of Global Mobility in 2021
Reports
May 2022
By  Meghan Benton, Samuel Davidoff-Gore, Jeanne Batalova, Lawrence Huang and Jie Zong

Pages

A border checkpoint between Canada and the United States.

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.

Venezuelan migrants at the Colombian border.

Political and economic crises, new free-movement arrangements, and other trends are transforming countries across Latin America and the Caribbean, a region once known primarily for its emigration. The number of immigrants living in the region has nearly doubled since 2010, an incredible change in a short period of time. This article makes sense of a profound transition underway in the Western Hemisphere.

Migrantes venezolanos en la frontera colombiana.

Los países de América Latina y el Caribe están siendo transformados por crisis políticas y económicas, nuevos acuerdos de libre circulación y otras tendencias. La cantidad de inmigrantes que viven en la región casi se ha duplicado desde 2010, un cambio increíble en un corto período de tiempo. Este artículo da sentido a una profunda transición en curso en el hemisferio occidental.

An intern examines a newborn baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Nearly 2.8 million immigrants worked in the U.S. health-care sector in 2021, representing disproportionately high shares of physicians, surgeons, and home health aides. This article offers a demographic and socioeconomic profile of foreign-born workers in health care.

The U.S. Supreme Court.

Virtually all major U.S. immigration policy reforms have faced lawsuits in recent years, giving federal judges wide latitude to shape national policy. The situation, which began during the Obama administration and has escalated, is a byproduct of congressional inaction and the emergence of immigration as a political wedge issue. This article tracks the trend, which has added new volatility to the immigration system, and places it in context.

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FamilySnapBenefits
Commentaries
August 2018
By  Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Mark Greenberg
BorderPatrol UAC water
Commentaries
June 2018
By  Jessica Bolter and Doris Meissner
goodlatte
Commentaries
June 2018
By  Jessica Bolter and Sarah Pierce
Deferred Action Summit
Commentaries
June 2018
By  Julia Gelatt and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto
WhiteHouse
Commentaries
January 2018
By  Julia Gelatt and Sarah Pierce
_DREAMer
Commentaries
December 2017
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
UndocumentedYouthApplyForDACA
Commentaries
November 2017
By  Julia Gelatt and Randy Capps

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Video, Audio
November 9, 2021

One out of four U.S. children has an immigrant parent. On this webinar, speakers explore the intersections between the immigration and child welfare systems, along with promising state and local practices that child welfare agencies can take to improve their responsiveness to the needs of these families and promote the well-being of these children.

Expert Q&A, Audio
November 5, 2021

In this World of Migration podcast episode, Margie McHugh, director of MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, chats with Ivana Tú Nhi Giang about the important role of integration, for immigrants themselves and the broader society, and the varying degrees of intentionality in integration policy design around the world.

Video, Audio
November 2, 2021

This webinar examines how the pandemic upended school life, the challenges for high school English Learners (ELs), state- and district-level efforts that can help ELs recover academically and address mental health needs, and the results of new research on the postsecondary aspirations of immigrant-background Latina/o students following the pandemic. 

Expert Q&A, Audio
October 29, 2021

The architecture of the U.S. legal immigration system rests on a 1965 law and was last significantly updated in 1990. While there is widespread agreement that the existing framework does not align with the needs and realities of the 21st century, Congress has proven unable to enact significant legislative reform over the past two decades. How have debates on immigration changed and is achieving bipartisan consensus on this highly charged issue possible today?

Expert Q&A, Audio
October 20, 2021

People on all sides of the policy debate largely agree that the U.S. immigration system is broken. What should a 21st century system that works in the national interest look like? And is this vision achievable amid current political realities?

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Recent Activity

Articles

Venezuelans comprise one of the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the United States, nearly tripling in size from 2010 to 2021. Much of this migration has been fueled by crisis in Venezuela, where political unrest and economic strife have caused millions to flee since 2015, most remaining in Latin America. Venezuelan immigrants are far more likely than the overall foreign- and U.S.-born populations to have a college degree. Take an in-depth look at this immigrant population.

Articles

Many refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants do not trust humanitarian actors, are unable to access assistance, or did not have support when they needed it. This article, featuring findings from a large-scale survey involving more than 16,000 migrants in countries around the world, provides an overview of these challenges.

Articles

At his term's midpoint, President Joe Biden has relied on executive action to advance his immigration agenda more than his predecessors, including Donald Trump. Yet many of the changes to interior enforcement, humanitarian protection, and other areas have been overshadowed by the record pace of arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border, which has presented the administration with major policy and operational challenges.

Reports
January 2023

Although nearly all countries adopted travel measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, national approaches have varied considerably and often been controversial. In many cases, decisionmakers failed to clearly communicate the rationale for using certain measures. This report looks at how governments and international organizations approached travel-related risk analysis, and what it would take to do this more strategically in future public-health emergencies.

Articles

The number of Chinese immigrants in the United States had grown swiftly for decades but shrank amid the COVID-19 pandemic. As a whole, Chinese immigrants tend to have more education and higher salaries than other immigrants, although they are less likely to be fluent in English. This article provides a sociodemographic profile of Chinese immigrants in the United States, their top destination globally.

Articles

Every year, thousands of migrants ordered deported from EU Member States, the United States, and elsewhere are not returned to their origin countries. Why? One reason is the multiple nations that refuse to cooperate on readmitting their nationals abroad. This article explores the motivations behind countries’ lack of cooperation and how deporting states have responded.

Expert Q&A, Audio
December 15, 2022

As the planet’s temperature warms, award-winning environmental journalist Gaia Vince thinks humanity is facing a chaotic century of mass migration spurred by climate change? In this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration, she contemplates a future in which hundreds of millions of people move from one part of the globe to another.

Fact Sheets
December 2022

College-educated immigrants are more likely to have advanced degrees than their U.S.-born peers with college degrees. But their educational levels have not always translated into similar occupational gains: They are more likely to be overeducated for their positions. Drawing on PIAAC data, this fact sheet sketches educational characteristics, monthly earnings, skill underutilization, and job quality for immigrant and U.S.-born college graduates alike.

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