National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy

Commentaries

November 2022

Apprenticeship Programs Are a Promising Solution to Bring More Multilingual Workers into Early Childhood Field

Photo of a preschool teacher reading to students.

Allison Shelley/EDUimages

Shortages of workers continue to plague early childhood education and care (ECEC) systems across the United States. With the field already struggling to effectively serve young children in families that speak languages other than English, apprenticeship programs offer a promising solution to bring more—and more multilingual—workers into early childhood careers.

Fact Sheets

October 2022

Dual Language Learners: Key Characteristics and Considerations for Early Childhood Programs

A group of preschoolers listen to a story

Allison Shelley/EDUimages

How many Dual Language Learner (DLL) children live in your state, and what share do they comprise of all children under age 5? What languages are most commonly spoken in their households? Answers to these and other questions that are critical to the design and implementation of early childhood programs that reach all children equitably are presented in a series of state-level data fact sheets.

Policy Briefs

October 2022

Overlooked but Essential: Language Access in Early Childhood Programs

A mother and toddler walking into a school

iStock.com/Fly View Productions

Dual Language Learners (DLLs)—young children with a parent who speaks a language other than English at home—benefit greatly from early childhood programs, but they also enroll at lower rates than their peers. This policy brief looks at federal and state language access policies that aim to make such programs more accessible to DLLs’ families. It also examines persistent gaps in participation and ways to address them.

Commentaries

June 2022

How State Assessments Became and Remain a Driver for Equity for English Learners

Image of two students in a classroom, one with a laptop

Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages

While the pandemic has given a boost to efforts to water down or limit end-of-year state assessments of students in K-12, this commentary notes the importance of testing to drive equity for the nation's 5 million English Learners and ensure that they are not overlooked or that resources and support services are misdirected from where they are needed.

Reports

May 2022

English Learner Testing during the Pandemic: An Early Readout and Look Ahead

Side view portrait of young man and two other students taking a test

iStock.com/SeventyFour

In addition to upending daily life in the classroom, the pandemic has affected how states administer annual assessments to their students—disrupting a key means of collecting data on new or growing learning gaps that demand attention. This report explores how states have approached testing English Learners during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what 2020-21 assessment data can and cannot tell us.

Policy Briefs

May 2022

Cultural Competency Secrets to Success with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

Parents and their young child at a naturalization service.

Kelsey Bell/U.S. National Archives

As the United States becomes more diverse, changes in the cultural makeup of communities can challenge longstanding practices in human services delivery. This brief explores strategies service providers can employ to build their understanding of and responsiveness to the cultures of the communities they serve, leading to better outcomes for immigrant and refugee families.

Featured

English Learners and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes a number of new requirements for the education of English Learners (ELs), including standardized criteria for identifying EL students and inclusion of English proficiency as a measurement of school quality. Resources on this page can help inform decisions such as how quickly schools must improve and how states can intervene with struggling districts.

Featured

ELL Information Center

The English Language Learner (ELL) Information Center provides informative fact sheets, maps, and state-level data resources that chronicle the demography and trends of immigrant families and their children.

Recent Activity

Articles April 14, 2016 Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States By Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova	Reports March 2016 Challenges in Accessing Early Childhood Education and Care for Children in Refugee Families in Massachusetts By Jeff Gross and Christine Ntagengwa
Multimedia March 23, 2016 How Well Are Young Children of Refugees Integrating into the United States?	Reports March 2016 Young Children of Refugees in the United States: Integration Successes and Challenges By Kate Hooper, Jie Zong, Randy Capps and Michael Fix
Reports March 2016 Providing a Head Start: Improving Access to Early Childhood Education for Refugees By Lyn Morland, Nicole Ives, Clea McNeely and Chenoa Allen	Commentaries March 2016 Federal WIOA Plan Requirements Ignore Opportunities to Support Equitable Access for Immigrant/LEP Adults By Margie McHugh
Reports February 2016 Deferred Action for Unauthorized Immigrant Parents: Analysis of DAPA's Potential Effects on Families and Children By Randy Capps, Heather Koball, James D. Bachmeier, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Jie Zong and Julia Gelatt	Multimedia January 21, 2016 Taking Stock of ESSA’s Potential Impact on Immigrant and English-Learner Students

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Reports October 2008 Regulating Immigration at the State Level: Highlights from the Database of 2007 State Immigration Legislation and the Methodology By Laureen Laglagaron and Cristina Rodríguez	Reports October 2008 Uneven Progress: The Employment Pathways of Skilled Immigrants in the United States By Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Peter A. Creticos
Reports September 2008 Gambling on the Future: Managing the Education Challenges of Rapid Growth in Nevada By Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix	Policy Briefs September 2008 High Stakes, More Meaning: An Overview of the Process of Redesigning the U.S. Citizenship Test By Laureen Laglagaron
Reports April 2008 Los Angeles on the Leading Edge: Immigrant Integration Indicators and their Policy Implications By Michael Fix, Margie McHugh, Aaron Terrazas and Laureen Laglagaron	Reports December 2007 Testing the Limits: A Framework for Assessing the Legality of State and Local Immigration Measures By Cristina Rodríguez , Muzaffar Chishti and Kimberly Nortman
Reports July 2007 Adult English Language Instruction in the United States: Determining Need and Investing Wisely By Margie McHugh, Julia Gelatt and Michael Fix	Reports March 2007 Measures of Change: The Demography and Literacy of Adolescent English Learners By Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Julie Murray

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Video, Audio

September 20, 2010

Still an Hourglass?: Immigrant Workers in Middle-Skilled Jobs

This important MPI report challenges the conventional wisdom about the immigrant workforce, using a sophisticated new method of analysis that permits deeper examination of how workers – immigrant and native-born – fare by economic sector, the skill level of their jobs, and educational attainment.

Audio

June 14, 2010

Migration and Occupational Health: Shining a Light on the Problem

This briefing focuses on migrants higher rates of on-the-job injuries.

Video

May 18, 2010

2010 E Pluribus Unum Prizes: Honoring Exceptional Immigrant Integration Initiatives

The 2010 E Pluribus Unum Prizes Award winners were honored for their exceptional immigrant integration initiatives at a ceremony in Washington, DC, on May 18, 2010.

Audio

January 28, 2010

Promoting Success on Both Sides of the Border: Binational Approaches to U.S. Immigrant Integration

This panel discussion provided a brief overview of Mexican immigrants in the U.S., the role and function of Mexican consular officials in aiding this population, and reviewed the structure and foci of the Mexican government's Institute of Mexicans Abroad.

Video, Audio

May 20, 2009

2009 E Pluribus Unum Awards

Award winners for the inaugural year of the E Pluribus Unum Prizes program were honored at a reception at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC in 2009.

Recent Activity

Articles

April 14, 2016

Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States

Get all the latest and historical facts and figures on immigrants and immigration in the United States in this handy resource. With immigration often surfacing in public and political debates, learn the answers to such questions as: How do current immigration flows compare to earlier ones? How many unauthorized immigrants live in the United States? How many refugees are admitted annually? And get answers to many more questions.

Reports

March 2016

Challenges in Accessing Early Childhood Education and Care for Children in Refugee Families in Massachusetts

This report examines how refugee families in Massachusetts access early childhood education and care (ECEC) services for their children through the refugee resettlement system. It examines how working parents in refugee families navigate and make use of ECEC services and looks at the institutional and systemic challenges that refugee families face in accessing stable, high-quality ECEC options.

Video, Audio, Webinars

March 23, 2016

How Well Are Young Children of Refugees Integrating into the United States?

MPI analysts discuss the findings of a report comparing young children of refugees to other U.S. children on several key indicators of well-being.

Reports

March 2016

Young Children of Refugees in the United States: Integration Successes and Challenges

In an attempt to fill the knowledge gap on integration outcomes for children of refugees, this report presents a demographic and socioeconomic data profile of the 941,000 children ages 10 and younger with refugee parents living in the United States in 2009-2013.

Reports

March 2016

Providing a Head Start: Improving Access to Early Childhood Education for Refugees

This study reveals the challenges and successes of collaboration between refugee resettlement services and Head Start, and demonstrates that increasing the Early Head Start and Head Start enrollment of young children in refugee families is possible through intersectoral collaboration. The report focuses on study sites in Phoenix, AZ and Syracuse, NY.

Commentaries

March 2016

Federal WIOA Plan Requirements Ignore Opportunities to Support Equitable Access for Immigrant/LEP Adults

As states move to implement the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which provides the national framework for workforce training and adult education services, the Obama administration recently missed a prime opportunity to ensure that immigrants and refugees receive equitable access to the law’s services, as this commentary explores.

Reports

February 2016

Deferred Action for Unauthorized Immigrant Parents: Analysis of DAPA's Potential Effects on Families and Children

This MPI-Urban Institute report examines the population of 3.6 million unauthorized immigrants potentially eligible for the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, finding that work authorization and relief from deportation could boost their incomes, decrease poverty, and mitigate harms of parental unauthorized status for the 4.3 million minor children living in these families.

Video, Audio, Webinars

January 21, 2016

Taking Stock of ESSA’s Potential Impact on Immigrant and English-Learner Students

Experts Delia Pompa and Margie McHugh examine provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) related to the success of immigrant and English-learner students during this webinar, answering questions about the new law's implementation and possible impacts.

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