Immigration Policy & Law

Immigration legislative and administrative policies, legal statutes and court decisions, and regulations collectively shape nations' immigration systems—from visa allotments and immigrant-selection mechanisms to immigrant integration programs, border controls, and more. As international migration has increased in size and spread and as a number of nations are more flexibly adjusting their immigration systems, the research offered here examines the many permutations of immigration policy and law, often with a comparative lens.

Recent Activity

Multimedia April 2, 2020 COVID-19 in Latin America: Tackling Health Care & Other Impacts for Vulnerable Migrant Populations	Articles April 2, 2020 Africa Deepens its Approach to Migration Governance, But Are Policies Translating to Action? By Camille Le Coz and Antonio Pietropolli
Multimedia March 31, 2020 Expert Podcast: Meeting Seasonal Labor Needs in the Age of COVID-19	Commentaries March 2020 A Race Against the Clock: Meeting Seasonal Labor Needs in the Age of COVID-19 By Kate Hooper and Camille Le Coz
Articles March 26, 2020 Crisis within a Crisis: Immigration in the United States in a Time of COVID-19 By Muzaffar Chishti and Sarah Pierce	Multimedia March 24, 2020 Migration & Coronavirus: A Complicated Nexus Between Migration Management and Public Health
Multimedia March 5, 2020 Green Cards and Public Charge: Who Could Be Denied Based on Benefits Use?	Commentaries March 2020 Coronavirus Is Spreading across Borders, But It Is Not a Migration Problem By Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, Meghan Benton and Susan Fratzke

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Policy Briefs September 2013 Does Respect for Migrant Rights Contribute to Economic Development? By Donald M. Kerwin	Reports September 2013 Newcomers to the Aloha State: Challenges and Prospects for Mexicans in Hawai'i By Jeanne Batalova, Monisha Das Gupta and Sue Patricia Haglund
Policy Briefs September 2013 Demography and Migration: An Outlook for the 21st Century By Rainer Münz	Fact Sheets August 2013 Side-by-Side Comparison of 2013 Senate Immigration Bill with Individual 2013 House Bills
Policy Briefs August 2013 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals at the One-Year Mark: A Profile of Currently Eligible Youth and Applicants By Jeanne Batalova, Sarah Hooker and Randy Capps	Reports August 2013 Pensando Regionalmente para Competir Globalmente: Aprovechar la Migración y el Capital Humano en Estados Unidos, México y Centroamérica By Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Doris Meissner and Eleanor Sohnen
Policy Briefs June 2013 Remaking the U.S. Green Card System: Legal Immigration under the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 By Madeleine Sumption and Claire Bergeron	Policy Briefs May 2013 A Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Health Coverage Profile of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Jennifer Van Hook and James D. Bachmeier

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Feature

September 8, 2016

Dual Language Learners in Head Start: The Promises and Pitfalls of New Reforms

The Head Start program—a model for early childhood education programs nationwide—has served more than 33 million children since its inception half a century ago, many from immigrant families. This article examines the role of Head Start in the education of Dual Language Learners, who now comprise one-third of enrollees, and discusses how recent policy changes may affect this population.

Profile

August 31, 2016

The New Reality: Germany Adapts to Its Role as a Major Migrant Magnet

Although long one of the world's top migrant destinations, only in the recent past has Germany come to acknowledge and adjust to its role as a country of immigration. Its welcoming approach—a relatively new development—has been put to the test amid massive humanitarian inflows beginning in 2015. This country profile examines Germany's history on immigration and highlights current and emerging debates.

Feature

August 23, 2016

Free Movement in South America: The Emergence of an Alternative Model?

In contrast to increasingly restrictive approaches to migration in the global North—and recent skepticism towards Europe's free mobility project—South America is taking steps in the other direction, toward free movement for regional migrants. This article examines the emerging South American model and discusses its implications for migration in the region and for free movement in general.

Spotlight

August 10, 2016

Naturalization Trends in the United States

More than 653,000 immigrants became U.S. citizens in fiscal year 2014, bringing the total number of naturalized U.S. citizens to 20 million—nearly half the overall immigrant population of 42.4 million. Over the past decade, naturalizations have ranged from about 537,000 yearly to just more than 1 million. Learn more about naturalization trends in the United States with this Spotlight article.

Policy Beat

July 28, 2016

Republican and Democratic Party Platforms Reflect Parallel Universes on Immigration Policy

The stark contrast between the Republican and Democratic parties on immigration was codified in their 2016 party platforms, and showcased in the rosters of convention speakers—featuring victims of unauthorized immigrant crimes on the one hand, and unauthorized immigrants living in fear on the other. This article explores the evidence, even compared to earlier platforms, of two divergent universes regarding immigration.

Recent Activity

Audio, Webinars

April 2, 2020

COVID-19 in Latin America: Tackling Health Care & Other Impacts for Vulnerable Migrant Populations

This MPI webinar brought together public health and migration experts to analyze the impact that COVID-19 preventative measures will have on vulnerable immigrants and refugees in Colombia and Latin America. Speakers also discussed how policymakers and international organizations can include migrant populations in their emergency response plans.

Articles

April 2, 2020

Africa Deepens its Approach to Migration Governance, But Are Policies Translating to Action?

While migration once was a lower-priority topic for African governments, the last decade has seen a deepening in governance. Policymakers have integrated migration into their national development strategies and mainstreamed it across policy domains such as health and education. The actions are promising on paper, yet questions remain about the extent to which they will translate to more effective migration management.

Expert Q&A, Audio

March 31, 2020

Expert Podcast: Meeting Seasonal Labor Needs in the Age of COVID-19

Governments are facing urgent pandemic-related questions. One of the more pressing ones: Who is going to harvest crops in countries that rely heavily on seasonal foreign workers? In this podcast, MPI experts examine ways in which countries could address labor shortages in agriculture, including recruiting native-born workers and letting already present seasonal workers stay longer. Catch an interesting discussion as border closures have halted the movement of seasonal workers even as crops are approaching harvest in some places.

Commentaries

March 2020

A Race Against the Clock: Meeting Seasonal Labor Needs in the Age of COVID-19

As governments have reacted to the coronavirus pandemic by closing borders, seasonal workers have been kept out, raising a pressing question: who is going to produce the food amid agricultural labor shortages? Policymakers in the Asia Pacific, Europe, and North America have responded by seeking to recruit residents, lengthen stays for already present seasonal workers, and find ways to continue admitting foreign seasonal labor, as this commentary explores.

Articles

March 26, 2020

Crisis within a Crisis: Immigration in the United States in a Time of COVID-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic has brought into sharp focus the intersection of U.S. immigration and public health policy, and the unique challenges that immigrants face. This article analyzes the Trump administration’s introduction of some of the most stringent immigration restrictions in modern times, the often disparate fallout of the outbreak on immigrant communities, the status of federal immigration agency operations, and more.

Video, Audio, Webinars

March 24, 2020

Migration & Coronavirus: A Complicated Nexus Between Migration Management and Public Health

This webinar, organized by MPI and the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School, discussed migration policy responses around the globe in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and examined where migration management and enforcement tools may be useful and where they may be ill-suited to advancing public health goals.

Video, Audio, Webinars

March 5, 2020

Green Cards and Public Charge: Who Could Be Denied Based on Benefits Use?

On this webinar, MPI experts discussed the public-charge rule and released estimates of the populations that could be deemed ineligible for a green card based on existing benefits use. They examined the far larger consequences of the rule, through its "chilling effects" and imposition of a test aimed at assessing whether green-card applicants are likely to ever use a public benefit in the future. And they discussed how the latter holds the potential to reshape legal immigration to the United States.

Commentaries

March 2020

Coronavirus Is Spreading across Borders, But It Is Not a Migration Problem

Travel bans, border closures, and other migration management tools did not prove effective at blocking COVID-19 from spreading across international borders. Yet as governments have shifted from containment to mitigation with the coronavirus now in community transmission in many countries, these restrictions are a logical part of the policy toolkit in the context of social distancing and restricting all forms of human movement, as this commentary explores.

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