Randy Capps
Randy Capps was Director of Research for U.S. Programs at MPI. His areas of expertise include immigration trends, the unauthorized immigrant population, immigrants in the U.S. labor force, the children of immigrants and their well-being, and immigrant health-care and public benefits access and use.
Prior to joining MPI, Dr. Capps was a researcher in the Immigration Studies Program at the Urban Institute (1993-96, and 2000-08).
He received his PhD in sociology and his master of public affairs degree from the University of Texas.
Explore Content by Randy Capps
Showing 11-20 of 74 total results
How the Fear of Immigration Enforcement Affects the Mental Health of Latino Youth
The prevalence of mental-health symptoms among Latino high school students, immigrant and U.S. born alike, is closely related to their fears of immigration enforcement. And the situation may have worsened since the researchers sampled this population, given the COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic hardship have increased the stress on Latino communities that have been hit disproportionately hard, as this commentary explores.
What Is Immigration Policy Expected to Look Like in a Biden Administration?
What would Biden’s immigration agenda mean for asylum, enforcement, and legal pathways?
An Early Readout on the Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Crisis: Immigrant Women Have the Highest Unemployment
Immigrant women in the United States faced the steepest job losses in the COVID-19 recession, with unemployment peaking at 18.5 percent in May 2020.
Navigating the Future of Work: The Role of Immigrant-Origin Workers in the Changing U.S. Economy
Immigrant-origin workers drove 83 percent of U.S. labor force growth from 2010 to 2018 and face similar automation and job-decline risks as their native-born peers.
Immigration Enforcement and the Mental Health of Latino High School Students
Surveys of Latino high school students in 2018–19 found widespread enforcement fears, with more than half meeting clinical thresholds for anxiety, PTSD, or depression.
A Rockier Road to U.S. Citizenship? Findings of a Survey on Changing Naturalization Procedures
A 2019 survey found stricter USCIS scrutiny, rising naturalization processing times, and proposed fee hikes made U.S. citizenship harder for immigrants to attain.
Millions of U.S. Citizens Could Be Excluded under Trump Plan to Remove Unauthorized Immigrants from Census Data
The Trump administration's plan to exclude unauthorized immigrants from the 2020 Census data used to reapportion 435 congressional seats among the 50 states could misclassify as many as 20 million U.S. citizens, as the result of expected data-matching errors. The effects of this exclusion could be most pronounced in low-income urban and rural communities, reducing their voting power relative to more affluent ones, as this commentary explains.
COVID-19 and Unemployment: Assessing the Early Fallout for Immigrants and Other U.S. Workers
Immigrants—especially Latina workers—suffered steeper early COVID-19 job losses than U.S.-born workers, driven largely by industry concentration.
Barriers to COVID-19 Testing and Treatment: Immigrants without Health Coverage in the United States
Some 7.7 million uninsured noncitizens faced barriers to COVID-19 testing and treatment in 2020, with millions excluded from Medicaid due to immigration status restrictions.
The Public-Charge Rule: Broad Impacts, But Few Will Be Denied Green Cards Based on Actual Benefits Use
While the Trump administration public-charge rule is likely to vastly reshape legal immigration based on its test to assess if a person might ever use public benefits in the future, the universe of noncitizens who could be denied a green card based on current benefits use is quite small. That's because very few benefit programs are open to noncitizens who do not hold a green card. This commentary offers estimates of who might be affected.
