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 celebration for the Feast of San Gennaro in New York's Little Italy
Articles
Shifting Realities at the U.S.-Mexico Border report
Reports
January 2024
By  Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh and Doris Meissner
A loan officer in Kenya.
Image of USCIS employees at work
Articles
A woman and child walk in the Somali region of Ethiopia.
Articles
Cover image for Immigration and Integration in the Ever More Diverse Houston Area
Reports
November 2023
By  Valerie Lacarte, Michael Fix and Jeanne Batalova

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Cover imgage for ESSER brief
Policy Briefs
July 2023
By  Jazmin Flores Peña, Julie Sugarman and Lorena Mancilla
Cover image for At the Breaking Point report
Reports
July 2023
By  Muzaffar Chishti, Doris Meissner, Stephen Yale-Loehr, Kathleen Bush-Joseph and Christopher Levesque
Cover image for Migration Narratives in Northern Central America
Reports
June 2023
By  Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan, Aaron Clark-Ginsberg, Alejandra Lopez and Alejandro Vélez Salas
Cover image for the brief Understanding Poverty Declines
Policy Briefs
May 2023
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix

Pages

Image of USCIS employees at work

The U.S. immigration system is notorious for persistent backlogs and antiquated processes. In recent months, under-the-radar changes have made a dent in the logjam and helped bring the system into the 21st century. But some pandemic-era changes are set to expire, potentially undoing the incremental reforms. This article details the quiet technological and efficiency improvements in U.S. immigration operations.

A woman and child walk in the Somali region of Ethiopia.

Is climate change a major driver of migration and displacement? From where are people leaving, and where are they going? This informative primer, a Climate Migration 101 of sorts, provides answers to basic questions about climate change and migration, starting with how and where climate change triggers human movement.

A Haitian-American book fair in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood

The United States is the world’s top destination for Haitian migrants, who in recent years have fled an array of disasters and crises. Compared to other immigrant groups in the United States, the nearly 731,000 Haitians are more likely to be naturalized citizens, arrive through family-based pathways, and work in the service industry, as this data-rich article details.

The U.S. Coast Guard interdicts a vessel with Cuban migrants.

Amid the highest Caribbean maritime migration levels in a generation, the Biden administration is relying on a carrot-and-stick strategy it honed amid record unauthorized migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. The approach, combining limits on asylum, expanded legal pathways, and international enforcement partnerships, could be increasingly important if maritime migration rises, as this article explains.

A Vietnamese family in the kitchen.

The more than 1.3 million Vietnamese immigrants in the United States are the result of nearly 50 years of migration that began with the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. While early generations of Vietnamese immigrants tended to arrive as refugees, the vast majority of recent green-card holders obtained their status through family reunification channels. This article takes a look at the sixth-largest U.S. immigrant population.

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Photo of woman walking around a school campus.
Commentaries
November 2021
By  Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
Photo of Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken meeting with Afghan evacuees in Germany
Commentaries
September 2021
By  Mark Greenberg, Celia Reynolds and Essey Workie
Bhutanese refugee sits on bed in family's apartment in New York
Commentaries
June 2021
By  Essey Workie, Mark Greenberg and Lillie Hinkle
Commentaries
June 2021
By  Melissa Lazarin and Jazmin Flores Peña

Pages

Video, Audio
April 11, 2023

Marking the launch of MPI’s Global Skills and Talent Initiative, this webcast features senior policymakers and other experts discussing the extent to which labor market needs should shape future immigration policy decisions, and how countries are adjusting—and could adjust—their immigration systems to meet human capital and competitiveness needs.

Expert Q&A, Audio
December 15, 2022

As the planet’s temperature warms, award-winning environmental journalist Gaia Vince thinks humanity is facing a chaotic century of mass migration spurred by climate change? In this episode of Changing Climate, Changing Migration, she contemplates a future in which hundreds of millions of people move from one part of the globe to another.

Expert Q&A, Audio
December 8, 2022

Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan and researcher Justin Gest discuss the confluence of polarization, nationalism, and immigration, as well as how increasingly diverse societies come up with a new definition of "we".

Video
September 20, 2022

Focusing on top immigration policy issues at federal and state levels, this 2022 Immigration Law and Policy Conference featured keynotes by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson exploring the growing role states are taking in the national immigration debate.

Evacuees prepare to board a C-17 Globemaster III at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Afghanistan, Aug. 18, 2021
Video, Audio
August 10, 2022

Marking the one-year withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, this webinar reflects on the humanitarian and development challenges in Afghanistan and for neighbors, the difficult choices facing aid donors, and what needs to be done to ensure at-risk Afghans can reach safety.

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Recent Activity

Video, Audio
May 23, 2012

A discussion with Rosario Farmhouse, Alejandro Mayorkas, Jasenko Selimovic, Peter Sylvester, and Demetrios G. Papademetriou, MPI President.

Articles
MPI’s Muzaffar Chishti, Faye Hipsman, and Claire Bergeron examine the potential outcomes to the Supreme Court’s decision on a key provision to Arizona’s SB 1070 law.
Articles

Immigrant legalizations in the United States and Europe ("regularizations" in the EU context) have been used repeatedly for broad and discrete groups of immigrants. A look at how these programs have been implemented historically and the political and policy implications they face today.

Audio, Webinars
May 8, 2012

This MPI webinar features U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials discussing the department’s efforts to improve communications with Limited English Proficient (LEP) communities in federal and federally-funded programs and activities.

Reports
May 2012

This report provides a comprehensive profile of the immigrant population in Napa County, CA. It examines the effect of immigration on the county’s demographic trends and calculates the economic contributions of immigrants as well as their impact on government revenues and expenditures.

Reports
May 2012

This report focuses on the effects of migration on political extremism in North America, Western Europe, and Central and Eastern Europe. The author explores nativist reactions, analyzes the role of migration in the identity and discourse of nativist actors, examines public effects of their impact on migration policies, and summarizes ways in which states respond to anti-immigrant extremism.

Articles

After decades of pressure, the Mexican government passed a law in 2005 allowing Mexicans living outside the country to vote in presidential elections in Mexico. The upcoming election scheduled for July 1, 2012 will be the second time voting-eligible Mexican expatriates throughout the world will exercise their vote-from-abroad privilege. This Spotlight discusses the history and process of external voting in Mexico, voter participation rates inside and outside of Mexico, and several key characteristics of voting-age Mexicans in the United States.

Video, Audio
April 19, 2012

The Migration Policy Institute celebrated its first decade as the authoritative, unimpeachable resource on immigration and immigrant integration analysis and policy design in the United States and internationally.

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