E.g., 04/17/2024
E.g., 04/17/2024
Immigration Policy & Law

Immigration Policy & Law

Civil Liberties
Comprehensive Immigration Reform
DREAM Act/Deferred Action
Employment-Based Immigration
Family Reunification
Integration Policy
International Students
Legalization/Regularization
Selection Systems
Visa Policy
_ImmigrationPolicy+Law

Immigration legislative and administrative policies, legal statutes and court decisions, and regulations collectively shape nations' immigration systems—from visa allotments and immigrant-selection mechanisms to immigrant integration programs, border controls, and more. As international migration has increased in size and spread and as a number of nations are more flexibly adjusting their immigration systems, the research offered here examines the many permutations of immigration policy and law, often with a comparative lens.

Recent Activity

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Reports
July 2018
A Needed Evidence Revolution: Using Cost-Benefit Analysis to Improve Refugee Integration Programming
By  Meghan Benton and Paul Diegert
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Reports
July 2018
The Impact of Populist Radical-Right Parties on Immigration Policy Agendas: A Look at the Netherlands
By  Tjitske Akkerman
Travel ban protest at the Supreme Court
Articles
June 29, 2018
In Upholding Travel Ban, Supreme Court Endorses Presidential Authority While Leaving Door Open for Future Challenges
By Muzaffar Chishti, Sarah Pierce, and Laura Plata
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Reports
June 2018
The Growth of the Radical Right in Nordic Countries: Observations from the Past 20 Years
By  Anders Widfeldt
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Reports
June 2018
After the Storm: Learning from the EU Response to the Migration Crisis
By  Elizabeth Collett and Camille Le Coz
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Commentaries
June 2018
Europe Pushes to Outsource Asylum, Again
By  Elizabeth Collett and Susan Fratzke
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Commentaries
June 2018
Far from a Retreat, the Trump Administration’s Border Policies Advance its Enforcement Aims
By  Sarah Pierce
Deferred Action Summit
Commentaries
June 2018
A Narrower Path in the House for Most DREAMers
By  Julia Gelatt and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto

Pages

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Fact Sheets
June 2007
How Changes to Family Immigration Could Affect Source Countries' Sending Patterns
By  Julia Gelatt
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Policy Briefs
May 2007
Proposed Points System and Its Likely Impact on Prospective Immigrants
By  Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Jeanne Batalova and Julia Gelatt
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Policy Briefs
May 2007
Immigration and the 2007 French Elections
By  Hiroyuki Tanaka
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Policy Briefs
March 2007
Trends in the Low-Wage Immigrant Workforce
By  Randy Capps, Michael Fix and Karina Fortuny
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Books
February 2007
Securing the Future: U.S. Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
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Policy Briefs
October 2006
New Estimates of Unauthorized Youth Eligible for Legal Status under the DREAM Act
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
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Reports
September 2006
Immigration and America's Future: A New Chapter
By  Doris Meissner, Deborah W. Meyers, Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Michael Fix
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Reports
September 2006
America's Human Rights Challenge: International Human Rights Implications of U.S. Immigration Enforcement Actions Post-September 11
By  Susan Gzesh

Pages

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.

Feature
March 1, 2005
Promise and Prospects of the UN's Convention on Migrant Workers
MPI's Jennifer Yau explains the convention's main points and why so few countries have signed it.
Feature
August 1, 2004
U.S. Supreme Court Affirms Rights of Non-Citizen Detainees
MPI Senior Policy Analyst Muzaffar Chishti looks at the wider implications of the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the rights of "enemy combatants."
Feature
June 1, 2004
Temporary Movement of Labor Fuels GATS Debate
Oonagh Sands of the Center for Strategic and International Studies tackles the Mode 4 aspect of global trade talks, under which individuals enter another country’s job market to provide services.
Feature
November 1, 2003
Germany's High Court Allows Teacher to Wear Muslim Headscarf
Veysel Oezcan of Humboldt University Berlin reports on a key ruling affecting integration, religious freedom, and educators.

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Recent Activity

Reports
July 2018

A Needed Evidence Revolution: Using Cost-Benefit Analysis to Improve Refugee Integration Programming

European countries have ramped up their investments in helping refugees find work and integrate into society. Yet little hard evidence exists of what programs and policies work best. This report proposes a new framework for thinking smartly about integration programming, using cost-benefit analysis to look beyond short-term, economic outcomes to also measure indirect benefits through a social-value concept.

Reports
July 2018

The Impact of Populist Radical-Right Parties on Immigration Policy Agendas: A Look at the Netherlands

While commentators proclaimed the 2017 Dutch election results a rebuff of radical-right populism, this report makes clear that electoral success is not the only way to influence policymaking. Taking the Netherlands as a case study, it examines how radical-right parties in Western Europe have shaped immigration policy agendas and outcomes by rewriting narratives and forcing mainstream parties further to the right.

Articles
June 29, 2018

In Upholding Travel Ban, Supreme Court Endorses Presidential Authority While Leaving Door Open for Future Challenges

Though the Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major victory by upholding its much-contested travel ban, less noted has been the fact that the ruling left an opening for future challenges to the policy of barring groups of foreign nationals from the country. This Policy Beat explores the evolution of the travel ban, the justices' arguments for and against, and changes in visa grants from travel-ban countries.

Reports
June 2018

The Growth of the Radical Right in Nordic Countries: Observations from the Past 20 Years

Though hardly new to most Nordic countries, radical-right parties have grown in popular support and political power in recent years. This report analyzes the role immigration has played in their rise and recent electoral fortunes in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. It also examines the strategies other parties have adopted in an attempt to limit their growth.

Reports
June 2018

After the Storm: Learning from the EU Response to the Migration Crisis

As maritime arrivals climbed in 2015, EU policymakers struggled to mount a coordinated response. A range of ad hoc crisis-response tools emerged, but many officials worry that if another migration emergency were to hit Europe, the European Union may still be unprepared. This report traces the evolution of the EU response to the 2015–16 crisis and lays out recommendations to lock in progress and shore up weaknesses.

Commentaries
June 2018

Europe Pushes to Outsource Asylum, Again

European leaders have settled on a recurring proposition to address the ongoing political crisis on migration: the creation of asylum processing centers beyond EU borders. The plans championed by various EU leaders are diverse, the details fuzzy. What they have in common is a near-universal focus on shifting responsibility for dealing with refugees and migrants upstream, as this commentary examines.

Commentaries
June 2018

Far from a Retreat, the Trump Administration’s Border Policies Advance its Enforcement Aims

Even as some pundits assess President Trump's temporary end to family separation as a defeat, the deeper reality is being lost: The administration’s plan to detain all asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, including families, is now on its way to completion. The “catch-and-release” that Donald Trump rails against is, at least in part, effectively over for now, though the price tag is a long way from being tallied, as this commentary explains.

Commentaries
June 2018

A Narrower Path in the House for Most DREAMers

In exchange for resolving the status of DREAMers, the White House and its congressional allies are demanding billions of dollars for a border wall and additional enforcement, sharp limits on asylum, cuts to legal immigration, and more. But what would the two bills expected to be voted on by the House do in terms of extending temporary or permanent status to DREAMers? This commentary offers estimates.

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