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The U.S. legal immigration system, last significantly updated by Congress in 1990, is profoundly misaligned with demographic and other realities—resulting in enormous consequences for the country and for its economy. This road map sketches the broad contours of some of the most needed reforms in the legal immigration system, made all the more urgent by U.S. population aging and changing labor market demands.
The U.S. health-care workforce came under incredible strain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longer-term trends—including the aging and increasing diversity of the U.S. population, and health-care worker retirement—are also shaping demand for services and the supply of health workers. This issue brief looks at how the skills and expertise of underutilized immigrant and refugee health professionals in the United States can be better leveraged to meet these challenges.
Ensuring that adequate and equitable funding is available to support a high-quality education for English Learners (ELs) is a critical part of making good on the nation’s promise of equal opportunity for all students. This issue brief explores the federal, state, and local sources of funding for EL education; decisions that shape distribution and use of funds; and opportunities for stakeholders and community members to work toward improvements.
While the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on European labor markets have focused attention on weathering this crisis, Europe also faces longer-term challenges linked to technological and demographic changes. This issue brief examines how the pandemic is reshaping demand for workers and skills in Europe, what this means for migration policy, and strategies for tackling both short- and long-term labor market challenges.
Migrant returns and reintegration have been the subject of intense international debate in recent years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has added an extra layer of complexity as millions of migrants have been expelled or returned voluntarily. This policy brief explores the effects of the pandemic on migrant returns, reception, and reintegration, and how countries of origin and destination can improve their policies and partnerships going forward, with a focus on sustainable reintegration.
National governments and UN agencies have been working to implement the Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. Where has the most progress been made as the compacts hit the two-year mark? And how has the process played out differently for the two pacts? This policy brief explores these questions, the growing divergence between the pacts, and how challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic are shaping implementation.
Joe Biden pledged during his campaign to reverse some of the most restrictive immigration actions undertaken during Donald Trump’s four years in office. While some actions can be undone with the stroke of a pen, others will take more time. This policy brief outlines the incoming administration’s top immigration priorities, examines challenges and opportunities ahead, and previews MPI policy ideas that could improve the immigration system and advance the national interest.
Consistent with its world view of immigration as threat, the Trump administration has shut down meaningful access to asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, expelled more than 205,000 arrivals during the pandemic, and constructed hundreds of miles of border barriers. Yet these strategies cannot succeed over the long term, given realities. This road map sketches what an effective border management system would look like.
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.
Although proven effective in supporting young children and their caretakers, home visiting programs are less likely to see the enrollment of immigrant and refugee families. This brief looks at the strategies some states and counties are using to boost the equity and quality of their home visiting services for these at-risk families, from rethinking how they assess the needs of resident families, to involving communities in program design and service provision.
The 2020–21 academic year is underway, but many U.S. schools, students, and families are still reeling from the rocky transition to remote learning that occurred months earlier, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. For English Learners and students in immigrant families, many of the challenges are magnified. This policy brief examines how schools’ pandemic response is affecting these students and offers recommendations to help schools and districts support them in this period of uncertainty.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit just weeks after the United Kingdom formally left the European Union, delaying plans to implement the withdrawal agreement’s provisions on citizens’ rights. This policy brief assesses the progress countries have made in setting up systems to adjust the status of mobile EU and UK nationals, as well as steps countries can take to make up for lost time.
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.
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.
A growing number of countries, particularly in Europe, have piloted or implemented refugee sponsorship programs in recent years. Yet there is limited evidence of how well these programs, which tap community members and civil society to take key roles in refugee resettlement, are working and how they can be improved. This issue brief explores how building monitoring and evaluation activities into sponsorship programs can help answer these and other critical questions.
With high stakes attached to standardized tests in U.S. education, it is critical that these assessments accurately capture what students know and can do in a subject. For English Learners, this may be a challenge if they cannot fully demonstrate in English what they have learned. Native language assessments are one promising tool for overcoming this hurdle, though questions about when and with whom they are most effective remain.
El acuerdo de cooperación migratoria firmado por los gobiernos de México y Estados Unidos en junio de 2019 marcó el comienzo de un intenso período de cambio en las políticas mexicanas, con efectos en su frontera compartida. Un año después, el informe examina cambios en los sistemas de control migratorio y protección humanitaria de México. También explora cómo la pandemia del COVID-19 ha afectado la frontera y destaca oportunidades para el desarrollo de políticas en el futuro.
States publish a wealth of data about their English Learner students’ academic achievement and other outcomes such as graduation rates. But the answer to the question “Who is an EL?” is not always the same. This brief explains how the EL subgroup varies across states and types of data, and why it is important to understand these differences when making decisions about how ELs and schools are faring.
Seasonal worker programs in the European Union have a long history, but have yet to find the sweet spot of working for migrants, employers, and countries of destination and origin alike. This policy brief explores some of the challenges common to these programs—drawing on examples in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand—and highlights promising practices.