E.g., 10/31/2020
E.g., 10/31/2020

International Program

International Program

Border Security
Immigrant Profiles & Demographics
Employment & the Economy
Illegal Immigration & Interior Enforcement
Immigration Policy & Law
International Governance
Pause
Policy Briefs
October 2020

Will International Migration Governance Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Syrian refugees receive COVID-19 tests from IOM before resettlement to Europe
Muse Mohammed/IOM

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a range of (im)mobility challenges that the international community has few tools to address. This policy brief examines the valuable guidance offered by the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration on short-term emergency response and the longer-term reopening of international migration. It also considers how the pandemic is affecting the relationship between migration and development.

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Policy Briefs
September 2020

Venezuelan Migration, Crime, and Misperceptions: A Review of Data from Colombia, Peru, and Chile

Venezuelan migrants and refugees at the border between Colombia and Ecuador
Angela Wells/IOM

More than 4 million Venezuelans have moved to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, raising concerns about how these arrivals are affecting receiving communities. Some politicians and pundits have asserted that migration is leading to an increase in crime—a claim this issue brief finds misplaced based on examination of official data from Chile, Colombia, and Peru.

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Fact Sheets
August 2020

Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Regional Profile

Venezuelans waiting at the Peru border for their documents to be processed
Muse Mohammed/IOM

As Latin American and Caribbean countries face a dual challenge—managing large-scale Venezuelan arrivals alongside the COVID-19 pandemic—reliable data on the characteristics of newcomers are essential to policymaking. This MPI-IOM fact sheet offers a profile of refugees and migrants in 11 countries in the region, including their demographics, labor market participation, remittance sending, access to health care, trip details, and intention to return to Venezuela.

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Commentaries
August 2020

When Emergency Measures Become the Norm: Post-Coronavirus Prospects for the Schengen Zone

Falk Lademann

Most EU Member States closed their borders to travel from neighboring countries in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. While internal borders in the Schengen zone largely reopened in time for summer holidays, there is a lingering sense they could snap shut anew. Though the reflexive introduction of border controls speaks to an inherent lack of trust between states, the 2015-16 migration crisis offers lessons on how to begin to rebuild trust, as this commentary explores.

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Commentaries
May 2020

The Rocky Road to a Mobile World after COVID-19

Jens-Olaf Walter

COVID-19 has chilled many forms of human movement, from travel to temporary and permanent migration, refugee resettlement, and returns, among them. While a safe restart of travel is a precondition for a return to economic and societal normalcy, restarting mobility will not be like flicking a switch, particularly amid disagreements over the costs societies can and should absorb in the name of protecting public health, as this commentary explains.

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Commentaries
April 2020

The COVID-19 Pandemic Suggests the Lessons Learned by European Asylum Policymakers After the 2015 Migration Crisis Are Fading

Nicolas Vigier

As European asylum systems are tested again by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has injected the need for social distancing during processing and in reception centers, it appears lessons learned during the 2015-16 migration and refugee crisis may be fading. Chief among them: A number of Member States have phased out their buffer capacity. This MPI Europe commentary explores the diametrically different approaches taken to asylum during the pandemic.

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Featured

Catch our new podcast, which examines the challenges facing the world as it seeks to restart travel and migration chilled by the COVID-19 pandemic. The repercussions of this dramatic halt to mobility will be profound, and will almost certainly lead to transformations that will reshape movement for the foreseeable future—maybe even permanently.

Venezuelan migrants and refugees at the border between Colombia and Ecuador
Policy Briefs

Inmigrantes venezolanos, crimen y percepciones falsas: Un análisis de los datos en Colombia, Perú y Chile

Más de 4 millones de venezolanos han migrado a otros países de América Latina y el Caribe, lo que ha generado preocupación sobre cómo estas llegadas están afectando a las comunidades receptoras. Algunos políticos y expertos han afirmado que la migración está provocando un incremento en la delincuencia, un argumento que este informe examina a través de un análisis detallado de los datos de Chile, Colombia y Perú.

Featured

The Migration Portal is the first comprehensive website that tracks developments on immigration policy in Latin America and the Caribbean, presenting authoritative research, data, and analysis produced by MPI, governments, international organizations, researchers, and civil society.

Recent Activity

Reports
November 2013
Building New Skills: Immigration and Workforce Development in Canada
By Karen Myers and Natalie Conte
Reports
November 2013
The Immigrant Workforce in Germany: Formal and Informal Barriers to Addressing Skills Deficits
By Stefan Speckesser
Reports
November 2013
Maximizing Human Capital in a Rapidly Evolving Economic Landscape (Transatlantic Council Statement)
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Multimedia
October 21, 2013
The Ongoing Challenge of Ensuring Human Rights for Migrants in the European Union and United States
Reports
October 2013
Maximizing Potential: How Countries Can Address Skills Deficits within the Immigrant Workforce
By Meghan Benton
Reports
October 2013
Immigrant Workers and the Workforce Development System in the United Kingdom
By Anne Green
Multimedia
September 24, 2013
Mexicans in Hawaiʻi: Challenges and Prospects
Multimedia
September 17, 2013
Engaging Diaspora Talent: How Countries Can Integrate their Diaspora and Development Agendas

Pages

Recent Activity

Policy Briefs
November 2013

Reaping the Benefits? Social Security Coordination for Mobile EU Citizens

This policy brief reviews the challenges that face the EU-wide social security coordination system. It argues that while improving the fairness, clarity, and public support for this system are difficult, even small concessions from the European Commission could provide an opportunity to showcase the elements that do work.
Reports
November 2013

Building New Skills: Immigration and Workforce Development in Canada

An examination of Canada's workforce development system and policies at a time of high unemployment among Canada's immigrants, this report covers why a growing number of policymakers think that the system may need reform. It also offers recommendations for more effective workforce development policies.
Reports
November 2013

The Immigrant Workforce in Germany: Formal and Informal Barriers to Addressing Skills Deficits

This report evaluates the participation of immigrants in the German workforce development system, highlighting that immigrants are less likely than nonimmigrants to engage in further education or skills training, detailing the various barriers immigrants face in accessing programs for skills development, and proposing policy reforms to reduce these barriers.
Video, Audio
October 21, 2013

The Ongoing Challenge of Ensuring Human Rights for Migrants in the European Union and United States

In this panel discussion, Morten Kjaerum, Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), discussed the state of rights protection in Europe as well as his agency’s role in this evolving arena, and speakers discussed shared challenges and opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic.

Reports
October 2013

Maximizing Potential: How Countries Can Address Skills Deficits within the Immigrant Workforce

More than ever, human capital is seen as the ultimate resource. As a result, policymakers face the challenge of ensuring that workers have the skills and abilities to find productive employment and contribute to growth, innovation, and competitiveness in constantly evolving labor markets. Migrants’ skills are often seen as an untapped resource that, with the right formula of policies, can bolster competitiveness and fuel productivity.
Reports
October 2013

Immigrant Workers and the Workforce Development System in the United Kingdom

This report, the first in a series examining workforce development systems in three countries, focuses on the increasingly employer-led and flexible UK system that operates alongside centralized immigration and employment policies.
Video
September 24, 2013

Mexicans in Hawaiʻi: Challenges and Prospects

This briefing at the State Capitol in Honolulu, organized in conjunction with the University of Hawaii at Manoa, marked the formal release of a Migration Policy Institute report that presents key demographic and socioeconomic information about the Mexican-origin population in Hawai’i.

Audio
September 17, 2013

Engaging Diaspora Talent: How Countries Can Integrate their Diaspora and Development Agendas

Diaspora engagement has become a key and accepted component in the arsenal of development strategies. The question of how to effectively and efficiently harness the force of a country’s diaspora through government intervention and policy remains one that many governments and international organizations must grapple with. Diaspora interventions tend to be organic and outside the confines of government and institutional structures.

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