E.g., 04/24/2024
E.g., 04/24/2024
North America

North America

United States
Canada
Mexico

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.

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Commentaries

Canada's New Tech Talent Strategy Takes Aim at High-Skilled Immigrants in the United States

Canada’s Tech Talent Strategy is highly unusual for its explicit targeting of visa holders in another country. Opening a dedicated stream specifically for high-skilled immigrants in the United States who hold an H-1B visa is the latest salvo in a growing global competition for talent—one in which some countries are racing ahead of the United States in terms of policy dynamism, as this commentary explores.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other leaders at the 2022 Summit of the Americas
Commentaries

The Los Angeles Declaration Could Represent a Big Step for Real Migration Cooperation across the Americas

The Los Angeles Agreement on Migration and Protection signed by leaders from 20 countries across the Western Hemisphere at the 2022 Summit of the Americas marks a significant step forward in creating a common language and a coherent set of ideas for more cooperatively managing migration movements across a region that has seen very significant mobility in recent years, as this commentary explains.

Recent Activity

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Multimedia
May 23, 2012
The Role of National Governments in Promoting Immigrant Integration
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Articles
May 16, 2012
Long-Term Impact of the Supreme Court Ruling on Key Provision of Arizona's SB 1070 May Hinge on Political Calculus
By Muzaffar Chishti, Faye Hipsman, Claire Bergeron
Articles
May 9, 2012
Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States and Europe: The Use of Legalization/Regularization as a Policy Tool
By Donald Kerwin, Kate Brick, Rebecca Kilberg
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Multimedia
May 8, 2012
Federal Update: A Conversation on Language Access with the U.S. Department of Justice
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Reports
May 2012
Profile of Immigrants in Napa County
By  Randy Capps, Kristen McCabe and Michael Fix
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Reports
May 2012
The Relationship Between Immigration and Nativism in Europe and North America
By  Cas Mudde
Articles
April 26, 2012
The 2012 Mexican Presidential Election and Mexican Immigrants of Voting Age in the United States
By David Gutierrez, Jeanne Batalova, Aaron Terrazas
10 year anniversary
Multimedia
April 19, 2012
MPI's 10th Anniversary Celebration

Pages

Policy Beat
March 1, 2005
Presidential Budget, State of the Union Address Immigration Issues
MPI's Jennifer Yau and Betsy Cooper report on the immigration provisions in the President's budget proposal, the State of the Union address, and more.
Feature
March 1, 2005
Biometrics, Migrants, and Human Rights

Rebekah Alys Lowri Thomas of the Global Commission on International Migration examines how the use of biometrics at borders may violate migrants' privacy rights.

Spotlight
February 1, 2005
Characteristics of the European Born in the United States in 2000

The European born are more likely to be proficient in English, work in higher-level occupations, and have higher earnings than the overall foreign-born population. MPI's David Dixon examines the social and economic profiles of the foreign born from Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Europe.

Policy Beat
February 1, 2005
Supreme Court Addresses Deportation Cases, DHS Undergoes Leadership and Oversight Changes
MPI’s Jennifer Yau and Betsy Cooper report on Supreme Court rulings, DHS leadership and oversight, and immigrant workers.
Spotlight
February 1, 2005
College-Educated Foreign Born in the U.S. Labor Force in 2000

The importance of knowledge, skills, and technologies in post-industrial economies has beckoned well-educated migrants to the United States. MPI's Jeanne Batalova takes a detailed look at the foreign born with a bachelor's degree or higher.

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Recent Activity

Reports
November 2018

In Search of a New Equilibrium: Immigration Policymaking in the Newest Era of Nativist Populism

In many recent European and U.S. elections, candidates touting nativist populist and anti-immigrant platforms have enjoyed rising support. As populism moves from the fringes into the mainstream, this report takes stock of the economic and social forces driving its rise, the diverse ways populists are influencing immigration policymaking, and what it will take to build a new center around immigration and integration issues.

Articles
November 7, 2018

South American Immigrants in the United States

South Americans represent a small, but growing share of immigrants in the United States, composing 7 percent of country’s total foreign-born population. Recent growth has been marked by an uptick in arrivals from increasingly failing Venezuela, with an increase of 61,000 Venezuelan immigrants from 2016 to 2017. This article offers an interesting data snapshot of South American immigrants in the United States.

Commentaries
November 2018

Asylum Reform, Not Troops, Is the Solution to Current Border Reality

Asylum reform, not the "shock-and-awe" deployment of thousands of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to deal with the migrant caravan, represents the real path to addressing the current realities of mixed economic and humanitarian migration flows, as the person who presided over the last reform of the U.S. asylum system in the mid-1990s explains in this commentary.

Video, Audio, Webinars
October 30, 2018

Surviving vs. Thriving: The Need for a Paradigm Shift in Adult Education for Immigrants and Refugees

Taking stock of weaknesses in the WIOA-driven design of most adult basic education programming, MPI analysts draw on research from the integration, adult education, and postsecondary success fields in arguing for the adoption of an “English Plus Integration” (EPI) adult education program model, and discuss strategies for implementation. 

Policy Briefs
October 2018

English Plus Integration: Shifting the Instructional Paradigm for Immigrant Adult Learners to Support Integration Success

To successfully integrate, immigrants and refugees need a variety of skills and knowledge—from English proficiency to understanding how school systems and local services work. Yet the adult education programs in place to support them have narrowed in scope. This policy brief proposes a new instructional model, English Plus Integration, to help states more comprehensively meet the diverse needs of their adult immigrant learners.

Video, Audio
October 1, 2018

15th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference

At the 15th annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference, held in October 2018, leading experts and government officials discussed the role that immigration is playing in the mid-term elections; how the courts are handling key immigration questions; and recent changes in the U.S. asylum system, border and interior enforcement, and regulations surrounding legal immigration.   

Articles
October 24, 2018

Census Citizenship Question Triggers Legal and Political Fallout

Legal and political controversy surrounds the Trump administration's decision to include a question on citizenship status in the 2020 decennial census, the first such inclusion since the 1950 census. This article examines the administration's conflicting statements about the genesis of the plan, concerns that the decision could affect the accuracy of the census, and legal challenges pending in a number of states.

Video, Audio, Webinars
October 16, 2018

The Next Frontier in Immigrant Integration Policy? Using Behavioral Insights to Foster Social Cohesion

Can people be 'nudged' into support for immigrant integration? On this webinar, speakers explored what untapped potential behavioral insights may hold for integration policy and how policymakers can start fitting this approach, which has been used in areas from tax compliance to organ donation, into their work. The webinar marked the release of the report, Applying Behavioral Insights to Support Immigrant Integration and Social Cohesion. 

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