North America
Recent Activity
This fact sheet is an overview of U.S. immigration based on Fiscal Year 2004 data released by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics in 2005.
This report examines the trilateral relationship between the United States, Canada, and Mexico in the decade since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and provides facts and figures relating to trade and migration among the three countries.
An estimated 10.3 million unauthorized migrants were living in the U.S. in 2004. Jennifer Van Hook, Frank Bean, and Jeff Passell report on who they are, where they live, the work they do, and their levels of education and poverty.
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act made the knowing hiring or employment of unauthorized immigrants illegal in the U.S.. But as Peter Brownell of the University of California Berkeley details, the government has not devoted many resources to enforcing this provision.
In the most recent session of Congress, four legislative proposals addressing unauthorized immigration and general immigration reform have been introduced. MPI's Eliot Turner and Marc R. Rosenblum compare their provisions for enforcement, employer sanctions, legalization, and guest worker programs.