North America

Canada

Mexico

North America is a dynamic migration region, with the United States home to more immigrants than any other country in the world, the Mexico-U.S. corridor the globe's top migration corridor, and Canada a leading destination for migrants. Research collected here focuses on everything from visa policy and border management to immigrant integration, national identity, the demographics of immigrants in the region and their educational and workforce outcomes, and ways to more effectively use migration policy as a lever for national and regional competitiveness.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other leaders at the 2022 Summit of the Americas

Commentaries

The Los Angeles Declaration Could Represent a Big Step for Real Migration Cooperation across the Americas

The Los Angeles Agreement on Migration and Protection signed by leaders from 20 countries across the Western Hemisphere at the 2022 Summit of the Americas marks a significant step forward in creating a common language and a coherent set of ideas for more cooperatively managing migration movements across a region that has seen very significant mobility in recent years, as this commentary explains.

Recent Activity

Reports March 2018 The Language of the Classroom: Dual Language Learners in Head Start, Public Pre-K, and Private Preschool Programs By Megina Baker and Mariela Páez	Reports March 2018 Supporting Dual Language Learner Success in Superdiverse PreK-3 Classrooms: The Sobrato Early Academic Language Model By Anya Hurwitz and Laurie Olsen
Multimedia March 19, 2018 Immigration Data Matters: How to Find the Most Accurate Resources	Reports November 2020 Immigration Data Matters By Jeanne Batalova, Andriy Shymonyak and Michelle Mittelstadt
Multimedia March 15, 2018 State and Local Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigrant-Dense Industries	Reports March 2018 Strategic Leverage: Use of State and Local Laws to Enforce Labor Standards in Immigrant-Dense Occupations By Andrew Elmore and Muzaffar Chishti
Articles March 14, 2018 Filipino Immigrants in the United States By Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova	Articles March 7, 2018 Connecting the Dots: Emerging Migration Trends and Policy Questions in North and Central America By Claudia Masferrer, Víctor M. García-Guerrero, and Silvia E. Giorguli-Saucedo

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Fact Sheets May 2007 Annual Immigration to the United States: The Real Numbers By Julia Gelatt	Policy Briefs April 2007 Circular Migration and Development: Trends, Policy Routes, and Ways Forward By Dovelyn Rannveig Mendoza and Kathleen Newland
Policy Briefs March 2007 Trends in the Low-Wage Immigrant Workforce By Randy Capps, Michael Fix and Karina Fortuny	Reports March 2007 Measures of Change: The Demography and Literacy of Adolescent English Learners By Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Julie Murray
Fact Sheets February 2007 Immigration Fee Increases in Context By Julia Gelatt and Margie McHugh	Books February 2007 Securing the Future: U.S. Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
Fact Sheets November 2006 Mexican-Born Persons in the U.S. Civilian Labor Force By Jeanne Batalova	Reports November 2006 La inmigración y el futuro de los Estados Unidos: Un nuevo capítulo By Doris Meissner, Deborah W. Meyers, Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Michael Fix

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Spotlight

November 20, 2013

Green-Card Holders and Legal Immigration to the United States

More than 1 million people became lawful permanent residents (LPRs) of the United States in 2012, with family-sponsored immigrants accounting for two-thirds of those gaining a green card. This Spotlight examines federal statistics on foreign nationals who gained LPR status during 2012.

Policy Beat

November 14, 2013

Alabama Settlement Marks Near End of a Chapter in State Immigration Enforcement Activism

With the state of Alabama's recent legal settlement ensuring that key portions of its highly contested immigration enforcement law will never take effect, an important chapter of heightened activism by states in immigration enforcement has drawn to a near close. This article explores Alabama's decision, which traces its roots to the Supreme Court's 2012 ruling in Arizona v. United States, as well as the Infosys civil settlement with federal prosecutors over its use of foreign workers, new refugee admission numbers, extension of Temporary Protected Status for Somalis, and more.

Spotlight

October 24, 2013

Naturalization Trends in the United States

About 757,000 immigrants took U.S. citizenship in 2012, a 9 percent increase from the year before. As of 2012, 46 percent of the nation’s 40.8 million immigrants were naturalized Americans. This article examines the latest naturalization data available for the United States, including historical trends, data by country of origin and state of residence, as well as socioeconomic characteristics of the 18.7 million naturalized U.S. citizens residing in the United States in 2012.

Policy Beat

October 17, 2013

As Immigration Reform Stalls in Congress, Activists Take a Page from the Civil-Rights Movement

While budget issues and the debt ceiling dominated the congressional agenda and public attention last week, thousands of activists in Washington were stepping up civil disobedience and mobilization tactics to pressure lawmakers into voting to overhaul the nation’s immigration system. This article explores this growing trend and its possible implications for immigration reform in the 113th Congress. It also provides an update on other national, state, and local developments in immigration policy.

Spotlight

September 26, 2013

Middle Eastern and North African Immigrants in the United States

Immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region residing in the United States are part of a migration flow that dates back several decades. The highly diverse MENA immigrant population has grown from about 50,000 in 1920 to nearly 961,000 in 2012. This article examines the latest data on immigrants from the MENA region in the United States, including population size, geographic distribution, admission categories, and demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.

Recent Activity

Reports

March 2018

The Language of the Classroom: Dual Language Learners in Head Start, Public Pre-K, and Private Preschool Programs

As preschools across the United States enroll Dual Language Learners who speak a wide variety of languages at home, it is crucial that early childhood education and care providers have the tools to effectively support this superdiverse population. This report examines how teachers in different preschool programs use English and their students’ home languages to support their development and future academic success.

Reports

March 2018

Supporting Dual Language Learner Success in Superdiverse PreK-3 Classrooms: The Sobrato Early Academic Language Model

In early education and care programs where children come from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, superdiversity is challenging providers to look beyond traditional approaches to supporting Dual Language Learners. This report examines a well-regarded model for preK-3 professional development. The report highlights promising practices and key adaptations of the model for use in in multilingual, multicultural classrooms.

Video, Audio

March 19, 2018

Immigration Data Matters: How to Find the Most Accurate Resources

With immigration increasingly visible in the news and the political space in the United States and internationally, getting access to accurate, high-quality data is essential to understand immigration’s demographic effects and impacts on the economy, education and labor systems, and communities. This event marks the release of the Immigration Data Matters guide.

Reports

November 2020

Immigration Data Matters

This useful online guide links users directly to the most credible, high-quality data on immigrants and immigration in the United States and internationally. The easy-to-use guide includes more than 250 data resources compiled by governmental and nongovernmental sources, covering topics ranging from population stock and flow numbers to statistics on enforcement, public opinion, religious affiliation, and much more.

Audio

March 15, 2018

State and Local Labor Standards Enforcement in Immigrant-Dense Industries

This discussion, featuring California's Labor Commissioner and the head of the Tennessee Bureau of Workers' Compensation, launched a report that examines state innovations in labor standards enforcement in low-wage, immigrant-dense industries. With wage underpayment, payroll fraud, and other violations widespread in industries such as construction and car-washing, the discussion focused on how targeted enforcement can deter practices that hurt native-born and immigrant workers alike, cost state tax revenue, and disadvantage law-abiding employers.

Reports

March 2018

Strategic Leverage: Use of State and Local Laws to Enforce Labor Standards in Immigrant-Dense Occupations

In low-wage industries, from construction to food service, labor-standards violations have become widespread—with major consequences for law-abiding employers, state tax revenue, and native-born and immigrant workers. As the federal government steps back from workplace regulation, this report examines the innovative approaches conservative and liberal states alike are using to enforce labor standards more strategically.

Articles

March 14, 2018

Filipino Immigrants in the United States

More than 1.9 million Filipinos lived in the United States in 2016, making them the fourth-largest immigrant group. Compared to the foreign-born population overall, Filipinos are more likely to get green cards through family immigration channels and have higher education and naturalization rates. This Spotlight offers key information on Filipinos' demographics, employment, geographic distribution, health coverage, and more.

Articles

March 7, 2018

Connecting the Dots: Emerging Migration Trends and Policy Questions in North and Central America

Together, Canada, Mexico, and the United States are home to nearly one-quarter of the world's migrants. Despite shifts in the profile of those who migrate and changing demographic realities across the region, such as population aging, perceptions and policies remain set in earlier eras. This article explores the intersection of migration and population dynamics in North America and the Northern Triangle of Central America.

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