U.S. Immigration Policy Program
The U.S. Immigration Policy Program provides thought leadership on ways to improve the U.S. immigration system so that it works most effectively in the national interest. To that end, its work focuses on immigration pathways to the United States and immigration enforcement policies and their impacts. It examines the complex demographic, economic, social, political, foreign policy, and other forces that shape U.S. immigration.
Program staff produce data and analyses of immigration trends and the characteristics of U.S. immigrant populations, including unauthorized immigrants. And they conduct original research on the impacts of policy change and the experiences of immigrant populations in diverse parts of the country. This work is frequently informed by private convenings of policymakers and key stakeholders. For more, click here.
Featured
The Immigration Debate America Needs—and Is Not Having
Immigration is central to America’s economic future, yet debate fixates on border crises and policy failures instead of how a modern legal…
Trump Restrictions on Legal Immigration Could Sharply Reduce U.S. Population Growth
President Donald Trump's second-term curbs on legal immigration, spanning visas, refugees, and family reunification, could meaningfully slow U.S…
More Featured Work
Key Statistics
Learn more about immigrants and immigration to the United States
14.8%
The immigrant share of the total U.S. population
Learn how this share has evolved (opens in a new tab)50.2 million
The number of immigrants in the United States
Explore Data Profiles by State (opens in a new tab)18.4%
The share of workers in the U.S. civilian labor force who are immigrants
Get the data at U.S. and state levels (opens in a new tab)
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Michelle Mittelstadt
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Showing 61–70 of 819 results
U.S. Legal Pathways for Mexican and Central American Immigrants, by the Numbers
Family ties, H-2 seasonal work visas, and humanitarian parole are the main U.S. legal pathways for Mexican and Central American immigrants.
Beyond the “Black Jobs” Controversy: Immigrants and U.S.-Born Black Workers Share a Growing Jobs Pie
The controversy over whether immigrants have taken "Black jobs" obscures the reality that U.S. job growth has been such that foreign-born workers' growing share of the U.S. labor market and expanded presence across industries do not appear to have occurred at the expense of U.S.-born Black workers. This commentary offers analysis of the U.S. prime-age workforce going back to 1990 by race and nativity.
Bridging the Gap between the Gig Economy and Migration Policy
Gig economy growth has outpaced migration policy. Visa frameworks built for traditional employment leave platform workers without protections or legal pathways, requiring the need to bridge the gap.
Diverse Flows Drive Increase in U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population
MPI estimates 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the United States as of mid-2022, up from 11.2 million a year earlier. While the country has witnessed high levels of arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border, the unauthorized population also has been marked by significant ongoing declines in the unauthorized from Mexico and other exits, as this analysis explains.
Comparing the Biden and Trump Deportation Records
Despite an enforcement record that has surpassed that of the first Trump term, the Biden administration has relied heavily on border returns over interior removals.
Leveraging Digital Skills: Immigrant-Origin High School Graduates Offer a Pool of Talent for U.S. Employers
With immigrants and their U.S.-born children expected to drive all net growth in the future labor force, there is a significant opportunity to leverage the digital skills of immigrant-origin adults to meet growing employer demand for technologically adept workers. This commentary draws on analysis of PIAAC data to study the skills of U.S. adults by immigrant generation.
A Century Later, Restrictive 1924 U.S. Immigration Law Has Reverberations in Immigration Debate
The 1924 Immigration Act's eugenics-influenced national-origin quotas reshaped U.S. demographics for decades and its core provisions still shape U.S. immigration law.
Translating Principles into Action: Countries Set New Agenda on the Los Angeles Declaration’s Second Anniversary
Two years after signing the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, governments from across the Americas met in Guatemala to assess the state of cooperation in the hemisphere. Working with nongovernmental and international organizations, they also produced an agenda for practical action for the next year, as this commentary explains.
Title 42 Postmortem: U.S. Pandemic-Era Expulsions Policy Did Not Shut Down the Border
Nearly 3 million migrant expulsions occurred under Title 42. Use of the authority to expel border arrivals, which bypassed U.S. asylum law, drove up recidivism and “gotaways.”
How Immigrants and Their U.S.-Born Children Fit into the Future U.S. Labor Market
Immigrants and their U.S.-born children have driven all U.S. labor force growth since 2000 but face the need to upskill as nearly three-quarters of jobs in 2031 will require postsecondary credentials.
