E.g., 04/24/2024
E.g., 04/24/2024
North America

North America

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.

Recent Activity

A Haitian-American book fair in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood
Articles
The U.S. Coast Guard interdicts a vessel with Cuban migrants.
Articles
CBP personnel process and screen migrants for possible entry into the U.S.
Commentaries
October 2023
By  Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto
Cover image for Why Matching Matters
Policy Briefs
October 2023
By  Craig Damian Smith and Emma Ugolini
Cover image for Recent Immigrant Children
Fact Sheets
October 2023
By  Julie Sugarman

Pages

Cover image for Recommendations for the Task Force on New Americans
Policy Briefs
March 2023
By  Margie McHugh, Jacob Hofstetter, Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix, Valerie Lacarte, Maki Park, Delia Pompa and Julie Sugarman
Cover image for SNAP Access and Participation brief
Policy Briefs
March 2023
By  Valerie Lacarte, Lillie Hinkle and Briana L. Broberg
Cover image for External Processing report
Reports
February 2023
By  Pauline Endres de Oliveira and Nikolas Feith Tan
Cover image for Using Risk Analysis to Shape Border Management
Reports
January 2023
By  Kelley Lee, Julianne Piper and Jennifer Fang
Cover image for The Skills and Economic Outcomes of Immigrant and U.S.-Born College Graduates
Fact Sheets
December 2022
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix

Pages

A man walks through a community affected by river erosion in Bangladesh.

Despite the widespread impression that people inevitably migrate away from climate-vulnerable areas, many adapt to environmental changes, choose to remain in their homeland, or simply cannot leave, due to a lack of money, connections, legal avenues, or other means to do so. These “trapped populations” may be among the most affected victims of climate change, this article explains.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams meeting with asylum seekers.

U.S. cities have spent billions of dollars to provide shelter, health care, and other resources to migrants recently arrived from the U.S.-Mexico border. The exceptional costs, which the New York mayor has described as existential, are due to a unique combination of factors, this article explains, including the large numbers of migrants arriving without local connections and long waits for work permits.

Calle Ocho en el barrio de la Pequeña Habana de Miami.

Los cubanos constituyen el mayor grupo de inmigrantes caribeños en Estados Unidos. La población está creciendo, ya que en los últimos años se ha producido la mayor oleada de emigración de la historia moderna de Cuba. Este artículo ofrece estadísticas clave sobre los 1.3 millones de inmigrantes cubanos en Estados Unidos.

A sign for Calle Ocho in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood.

Cubans comprise the largest Caribbean immigrant group in the United States, and for decades have benefitted from uniquely preferential immigration programs. The population is growing, as recent years have seen the largest wave of emigration in Cuba's modern history. This article offers key statistics about the 1.3 million Cuban immigrants in the United States.

A nurse looks at a baby.

Immigrants from the Philippines make up the fourth largest foreign-born group in the United States, numbering nearly 2 million people. Compared to other U.S. immigrants, Filipinos are more likely to have strong English skills, be naturalized U.S. citizens, and hold a college degree. This article provides statistics about these and other elements of the Filipino immigrant population.

Pages

Commentaries
February 2021
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
CBP_SanYsidro_smaller
Commentaries
February 2021
By  Doris Meissner and Sarah Pierce
HealthCare BrainWaste Commentary CDC
Commentaries
December 2020
By  Michael Fix, Jeanne Batalova and José Ramón Fernández-Peña
LatinoMentalHealth commentary December2020
Commentaries
December 2020
By  Randy Capps and Michael Fix
2020CensusOutreach USCensusBureau
Commentaries
July 2020
By  Randy Capps, Jennifer Van Hook and Julia Gelatt

Pages

Video, Audio
June 30, 2022

On this webinar, speakers examine how government strategies, practices, and instruments of integration policymaking have adapted during the pandemic both in Europe and North America, and what lessons there are for the future.

Video
June 21, 2022

On this webinar, speakers discuss the main challenges faced by countries of origin and destination in ensuring mutual benefits through labor migration and strategies moving forward related to migration and development in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. 

Video, Audio
June 14, 2022

Este seminario web, que presenta el lanzamiento de un informe, examina el potencial de Canadá, México y Costa Rica para expandir los programas de trabajadores temporales para los centroamericanos, ofreciendo un medio importante para convertir algunos flujos irregulares en flujos legales.

Video, Audio
June 14, 2022

This webcast presents research findings on temporary employment pathways for Central American migrants in Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica.

The border area of Haquillas is home to several Venezuelans waiting of their documentation to be formally processed in order to enter in Peru regularly.
Video
June 9, 2022

On the sidelines of the Ninth Summit of the Americas, this event co-sponsored by MPI examines tools and concrete actions taken on regional migration governance, best practices and lessons learned, and the role of regional mechanisms to respond to migration and forced displacement.

Pages

Recent Activity

Reports
June 2007

This report explores the role of ethnic community-based organizations as drivers of refugee integration. It highlights contributions, challenges, and best practice methodologies identified through site visits to refugee-serving ECBOs across the country, and offers recommendations for enhancing the capacity and sustainability of refugee integration services.

 

Articles

Over half of the foreign born in the United States in 2005 arrived in 1990 or later. MPI's Jeanne Batalova and Aaron Terrazas look at the countries of origin, education levels, occupations, and other characteristics of newer immigrants.

Articles

The U.S. Congress is considering a bill that includes a points system for permanent immigration. MPI's Demetrios G. Papademetriou outlines how points systems work, which countries have used them, their political benefits, and trends in points-system use.

Articles
MPI's Dawn Konet and Julia Gelatt report on the beginning of new Senate debates on immigration and the events leading up to this debate; a breakdown in negotiations over a U.S.-Canada program for land-border crossers; TPS extensions; and more.
Articles

In the United States, the academic success of children of Chinese and Korean immigrants usually is attributed to either their culture or the U.S. immigration system, which favors skilled migrants. Min Zhou and Susan S. Kim of the University of California, Los Angeles compare the after-school institutions in these communities to explain the effect of ethnicity on educational outcomes.

Fact Sheets
May 2007

While official measures of annual permanent immigration levels simply account for those who obtain lawful permanent resident status in a particular year, this report offers a more complex approximation by including estimates of certain forms of temporary immigration and unauthorized immigration in the calculus.

Policy Briefs
May 2007

This report offers a series of original charts that depict the characteristics of recent immigrants who are representative of those likely to be affected by the proposed merit-based points system for selecting permanent immigrants to the United States.

Articles

Relatively little is known about migration that involves more than one destination. Ayumi Takenaka of Bryn Mawr College examines the available data to assess who re-migrates to the United States.

Pages