International Program

Commentaries

March 2024

As Europe and the United States Face Similar Migration Challenges, Spain Can Act as a Bridge

Image of female worker at the Boqueria market in Barcelona making a crepe

Marcel Crozet/ILO

Spain and the United States both receive their greatest number of immigrants from Latin America, and have worked collaboratively together on displacement crises and other migration issues. As shared immigration challenges dominate debate on both sides of the Atlantic, Spain can serve as a vital bridge in the policy conversation, this commentary notes.

Policy Briefs

March 2024

Lessons from COVID-19: Managing Borders in the Next Global Public-Health Crisis

Volunteer hands out food to migrant workers returning to their hometowns in Vietnam

IOM/Red Cross Vietnam

The COVID-19 pandemic both shocked the global mobility system and reaffirmed the centrality and resiliency of human mobility. Four years on, public and political attention to COVID-19’s unprecedented consequences for cross-border movement has waned. Yet if countries are to manage mobility more effectively in future public-health crises, this is an important moment for reflection and learning, as this issue brief explores.

Reports

February 2024

Leaving No One Behind: Inclusive Fintech for Remittances

A woman in Nigeria smiles while using her mobile phone

iStock.com/Wirestock

Remittances are a vital lifeline for migrants’ families around the world and an important source of revenue for many low- and middle-income countries, especially in times of crisis. As more people turn to digital financial technologies for these money transfers, this shift holds the potential to shake up the rigid remittance industry and boost development benefits. But it also brings new challenges, as this report explores.

Policy Briefs

February 2024

The Mobility Key: Realizing the Potential of Refugee Travel Documents

Three refugee students at airport security check

Travel documents are critical facilitators of mobility. But for refugees, who cannot safely use a passport issued by their origin country, the lack of a usable travel document can shut them out of work, study, or other opportunities beyond their first country of asylum. This policy brief examines alternative documents that can facilitate refugees’ movement, key barriers to acquiring them, and strategies for overcoming these challenges.

Reports

January 2024

Expanding Protection Options? Flexible Approaches to Status for Displaced Syrians, Venezuelans, and Ukrainians

Ukrainian adults and children arrive at a train station in Hungary

IOM/Muse Mohammed

The massive and rapid displacement of Syrians, Venezuelans, and Ukrainians presented neighboring countries with an impossible task: providing legal status and assistance, even though their asylum systems lacked the capacity to handle such a large influx. This report examines the costs and benefits of the flexible approaches taken to providing status in these three cases, identifying lessons for future crises.

Policy Briefs

December 2023

Consolidating Gains: Lessons and Priorities for Promoting Fair and Ethical Recruitment

A migrant worker cuts through a metal rod at a construction site in Qatar

Apex Image/ILO

With more people moving abroad for work and events such as the 2022 World Cup in Qatar highlighting the risks migrant workers can face, questions about how international recruitment occurs have received increased scrutiny. This policy brief explores the notable progress that has been made in establishing fair and ethical recruitment standards, and identifies key areas for future attention by governments, employers, and recruiters.

A Haitian child looks over his mother's shoulder in Panama

Commentaries

Addressing the Next Displacement Crisis in the Making in the Americas

The next major displacement of people in the Americas is in the making, and it is going unnoticed. The response to the steady emigration from Haiti seen since a devastating 2010 earthquake has been largely haphazard and may not stand the test of new spikes as the country unravels further. This commentary suggests a way forward, based on a model used for the Venezuelan displacement crisis.

Image of passport page with variety of stamps

Articles

Top Statistics on Global Migration and Migrants

Looking for some of the most often-sought information on global migration? This statistics-rich article draws on the most current data sources to offer a primer on international migration, highlighting its types, the size of the migrant population and growth over time, and major sending and receiving countries and regions. Beyond looking at labor and humanitarian migrants and international students, the article examines remittances and more.

Recent Activity

Multimedia March 9, 2023 Migración en el Caribe: Desafíos y oportunidades para una región en transformación	Articles March 7, 2023 Crisis Prompts Record Emigration from Nicaragua, Surpassing Cold War Era By Charles G. Ripley III
Reports March 2023 Migration, Integration, and Diaspora Engagement in the Caribbean: A Policy Review By Valerie Lacarte, Jordi Amaral, Diego Chaves-González, Ana María Sáiz and Jeremy Harris	Articles March 1, 2023 Efforts to Manage Climate Migration Are Slowly Growing, but Their Focus Is Often Indirect By Lawrence Huang
Reports February 2023 External Processing: A Tool to Expand Protection or Further Restrict Territorial Asylum? By Pauline Endres de Oliveira and Nikolas Feith Tan	Articles February 7, 2023 Post-Soviet Labor Migrants in Russia Face New Questions amid War in Ukraine By Caress Schenk
Articles January 18, 2023 Amid Record Drought and Food Insecurity, East Africa’s Protracted Humanitarian Crisis Worsens By Kyilah Terry and Aishwarya Rai	Reports January 2023 Using Risk Analysis to Shape Border Management: A Review of Approaches during the COVID-19 Pandemic By Kelley Lee, Julianne Piper and Jennifer Fang

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Fact Sheets August 2020 Venezuelan Migrants and Refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Regional Profile By Diego Chaves-González and Carlos Echeverría-Estrada	Policy Briefs June 2020 Un año después del Acuerdo Estados Unidos-México: La transformación de las políticas migratorias mexicanas By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto
Policy Briefs June 2020 One Year after the U.S.-Mexico Agreement: Reshaping Mexico’s Migration Policies By Ariel G. Ruiz Soto	Reports February 2020 Bienvenidas asimétricas: Respuestas de América Latina y el Caribe a la migración venezolana y nicaragüense By Andrew Selee and Jessica Bolter
Reports February 2020 An Uneven Welcome: Latin American and Caribbean Responses to Venezuelan and Nicaraguan Migration By Andrew Selee and Jessica Bolter	Reports January 2020 Rebuilding Community after Crisis: Striking a New Social Contract for Diverse Societies (Transatlantic Council Statement) By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Meghan Benton
Reports January 2020 Beyond Work: Reducing Social Isolation for Refugee Women and Other Marginalized Newcomers By Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan	Reports December 2019 Integrating Refugees and Asylum Seekers into the German Economy and Society: Empirical Evidence and Policy Objectives By Herbert Brücker, Philipp Jaschke and Yuliya Kosyakova

Pages

People pulling vehicles from a flooded road in an Afghan village

Feature

June 29, 2022

Climate Change Compounds Longstanding Displacement in Afghanistan

Climate change is compounding the drivers of displacement and international migration in Afghanistan, which has one of world's largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This article examines the climate and environmental linkages to displacement and migration, as well as the policy approaches taken by the Taliban and predecessor governments, particularly as they relate to water resources management.

Rohingya children sit in Child Friendly Spaces in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

Feature

June 2, 2022

COVID-19 Pandemic Ushered in Unprecedented Slowdown of Asylum Claims

Beyond slowing global mobility dramatically, the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a major drop in asylum claims around the world, with the 1.1 million people seeking asylum in 2020 representing a 45 percent decline from the year before. This article examines the challenges to asylum processing during the pandemic, particularly for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Migrants and natives dance at a multicultural celebration in La Vega, Chile.

Profile

May 18, 2022

Chile’s Welcoming Approach to Immigrants Cools as Numbers Rise

In the years since its return to democracy, Chile has emerged as a major immigration destination within South America. Yet recent large-scale migrant arrivals from Haiti and Venezuela have shaken the country’s politics and at times overwhelmed a decades-old immigration framework that critics contended was woefully out of date. New reforms could tighten immigration, but many questions remain. This country profile analyzes migration to Chile particularly since 1990.

People in France rally for far-right politician Marine Le Pen on May Day.

Profile

May 5, 2022

France Reckons with Immigration Amid Reality of Rising Far Right

Over recent decades, France has sought to build a more selective immigration system that welcomes students and well-educated workers but enacts restrictions for asylum seekers. This country profile examines France's immigration policies and trends, including the rise of far-right political parties that have used immigration as a wedge to increase their base and their influence.

An Afghan refugee receives a COVID-19 vaccination in Pakistan.

Feature

April 19, 2022

Persistent COVID-19 Vaccine Inequity Has Significant Implications for Refugees and Other Vulnerable Migrants

Most of the world's refugees live in low-income countries where rates of COVID-19 vaccination remain low. Although refugees have been formally included in many governments’ vaccination plans, a combination of factors has made access to jabs difficult, as this article explains.

Pages

Changing Climate Changing Migration podcast tile episode 15

Expert Q&A, Audio

December 10, 2021

When Climate Change Comes to Refugee Settings

For this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration, we speak with Joan Rosenhauer, the executive director of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, about how natural disasters and other environmental harms affect her organization’s work and its faith-based mission.

Expert Q&A, Audio

December 9, 2021

The Corporate World’s Response to COVID-19 Pandemic, its Omicron Variant, Digital Nomad Visas & More

How has the business world responded to disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic? In this episode of Moving Beyond Pandemic, we speak with two former government officials who are now in the private sector—Ian Robinson of the immigration law firm Fragomen and Brendan Ryan, CEO of Nomadic, about the trends and policy environment shaping business mobility decisions.

Video, Audio

November 30, 2021

Changing Migration to Costa Rica and Implications for Immigrant Integration Policy

This webinar marks the release of a report examining the state of Costa Rica’s institutional framework and initiatives supporting the integration of migrants and refugees, a particularly critical policy area as the immigrant population continues to grow. The event was in Spanish and this is the live English interpretation.

Video, Audio

November 30, 2021

Cambios migratorios en Costa Rica e implicaciones para la política de integración de migrantes

Este webinar marca la publicación de un informe que examina el marco institucional y las iniciativas del estado de Costa Rica que apoyan la integración de migrantes y refugiados, un área de política particularmente crítica a medida que la población inmigrante continúa creciendo.

Expert Q&A, Audio

November 24, 2021

Thinking Regionally to Act Locally in Immigration Policy

With migration a dynamic phenomenon in the Americas, the U.S. government increasingly is realizing that migration management should be viewed in a regional context. This requires a new set of policies and ways of engagement with countries in North and Central America, and beyond, as MPI President Andrew Selee discusses with colleague Andrea Tanco in this episode of our World of Migration podcast.

Recent Activity

Articles

September 30, 2021

Haitian Migration through the Americas: A Decade in the Making

The chaotic arrival of thousands of Haitians at the U.S.-Mexico border in September 2021 was the culmination of a journey through the Americas that began for many a decade ago. This article examines how Brazil became a refuge for many after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, and how Haitians then moved on to Chile and other countries as conditions changed, and then onward again further north.

Video, Audio, Webinars

September 14, 2021

How Will the Pandemic Reshape Public Health for Migrants?

With COVID-19 likely to significantly reshape health-care systems in Europe and worldwide, there is a window of opportunity to test new strategies to tackle longstanding migrant health disparities, and ensure that structural changes accommodate the complex needs of diverse populations.

Video, Audio, Webinars

September 13, 2021

Opening More Avenues for Protection for Refugees

This MPI Europe webinar marks the launch of a report that maps refugee resettlement and complementary pathway programs around the world and offers recommendations for how UNHCR, national governments, civil society, and others can most effectively support the growth of resettlement and complementary pathways.

Policy Briefs

September 2021

Migration Management and Border Security: Lessons Learned

What strategic lessons can be learned from the migration- and border-management challenges North America and Europe have faced in recent years? This reflection by a former high-ranking homeland security official explores a range of timely issues, including the need to rethink multilateralism and improve international cooperation, address migrant smuggling, and engage in advanced planning to avoid future crises.

Articles

September 2, 2021

Will the Taliban’s Takeover Lead to a New Refugee Crisis from Afghanistan?

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has prompted fears of a rollback of human rights and a new refugee crisis. This article examines the prospects for possible future Afghan displacement in the region and beyond by looking at the last four decades of forced migration from Afghanistan and new factors that could determine what happens now that the U.S. military and its allies have pulled out.

Video, Audio, Webinars

August 26, 2021

Labor Migration Governance in West Africa in the Wake of the Pandemic

On this webinar speakers discuss a recent policy brief Deepening Labor Migration Governance at a Time of Immobility: Lessons from Ghana and Senegal. Experts and government officials from the region and Europe explore the importance of labor migration for West Africa, related policy efforts by the Ghanaian and Senegalese governments, and how development agencies can best support African countries in resuming mobility and enhancing the development benefits of labor migration.

Articles

August 26, 2021

Gang Membership in Central America: More Complex than Meets the Eye

Gang violence is a major driver of migration, particularly from Central America to the United States. But governments on both sides often rely on outdated and static understandings of gangs and their membership. This article explains the history of groups such as MS-13 and Barrio 18 and why they are relevant for immigration policy.

Video, Audio, Webinars

August 24, 2021

Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan: How Could Europe Respond to Growing Displacement?

In light of the dangers facing millions of Afghans, this discussion focused on what European countries should prioritize to address the immediate needs of displaced populations; how to start planning for longer-term assistance to countries in the region who are hosting Afghan refugees; implications for partnerships with governments in the region; and what safe pathways other countries have opened in recent days to evacuate Afghans at risk.

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