Research

Back on the Table: U.S. Legalization and the Unauthorized Immigrant Groups that Could Factor in the Debate

With 11 million unauthorized immigrants embedded in U.S. communities, there are legislative and executive options for policymakers to consider to offer durable legal status.

COVID-19 and the Demand for Labor and Skills in Europe: Early evidence and implications for migration policy

This brief analyzes how COVID-19 is reshaping European labour markets and what this means for skills investment and migration policy now and in the future.

What Comes Next Now that Colombia Has Taken a Historic Step on Migration?

Colombian President Iván Duque’s announcement that the estimated 1.7 million Venezuelans in Colombia will receive a ten-year protection status represents a bold, first-of-its-kind move in Latin America. However, translating this ambitious legalization into action will require both a massive logistical effort and long-term planning to assure social cohesion, as this commentary explores.

A Deeper Look at the DREAMers Who Could Feature in the Legalization Debate in Congress

The DREAM Act of 2021 could represent one of the narrower legalization measures with better prospects for passage in a narrowly divided Congress. MPI's latest estimates of the DREAMers who could gain conditional and then permanent legal status are offered here, as are the share of DREAMers who feature in another ongoing conversation, around essential workers in the U.S. labor market overall as well as in the health-care sector.

Biden Administration Is Making Quick Progress on Asylum, but a Long, Complicated Road Lies Ahead

The Biden administration's challenge to dismantle Trump-era barriers to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border is akin to fixing a plane while flying it. This commentary examines actions taken to date and articulates a series of steps that could help establish an effective, humane asylum system that works in tandem with border management goals and efforts to reduce the drivers of migration through regional migration management measures with neighboring countries.

Obscure but Powerful: Shaping U.S. Immigration Policy through Attorney General Referral and Review

This report examines how attorneys general have used referral and review powers to reshape U.S. immigration law, with the Trump era marking a major expansion.

The U.S. Justice Department building in Washington, DC

Nearly 3 Million U.S. Citizens and Legal Immigrants Initially Excluded under the CARES Act Are Covered under the December 2020 COVID-19 Stimulus

The pandemic-recovery stimulus package that passed Congress in December rectified what many had viewed as a significant oversight in the earlier CARES Act: Its exclusion of U.S. citizens and legal immigrants in mixed-status families. MPI researchers estimate nearly 3 million U.S. citizens and legal immigrants excluded from the earlier legislation can receive the later relief, as well as qualify retroactively for the CARES Act payment, as this commentary explores.

How Will International Migration Policy and Sustainable Development Affect Future Climate-Related Migration?

In a first-of-its-kind exercise, this report models how climate-related drivers of migration and displacement might be affected by varying greenhouse gas concentration scenarios.

A boy on a boat in a Bangladeshi community affected by river erosion

The Role of Immigrant Health-Care Professionals in the United States during the Pandemic

With the U.S. health-care system buckling under the resurgent COVID-19 outbreak, policymakers could undertake efforts to enable skilled, underemployed international health-care professionals to practice. This would both make the health system more resilient and flexible, as well as introduce critical language and cultural skills important during the contact-tracing and vaccine rollout phases of the pandemic response, as this commentary explores.

Construcción de un nuevo sistema migratorio regional: Redefiniendo la cooperación entre Estados Unidos con México y Centroamérica

El control fronterizo solo no basta; se propone un sistema regional con visas temporales, protección humanitaria, control profesionalizado e inversión en Centroamérica.