National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy

Commentaries

June 2022

How State Assessments Became and Remain a Driver for Equity for English Learners

Image of two students in a classroom, one with a laptop

Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for EDUimages

While the pandemic has given a boost to efforts to water down or limit end-of-year state assessments of students in K-12, this commentary notes the importance of testing to drive equity for the nation's 5 million English Learners and ensure that they are not overlooked or that resources and support services are misdirected from where they are needed.

Reports

May 2022

English Learner Testing during the Pandemic: An Early Readout and Look Ahead

Side view portrait of young man and two other students taking a test

iStock.com/SeventyFour

In addition to upending daily life in the classroom, the pandemic has affected how states administer annual assessments to their students—disrupting a key means of collecting data on new or growing learning gaps that demand attention. This report explores how states have approached testing English Learners during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what 2020-21 assessment data can and cannot tell us.

Policy Briefs

May 2022

Cultural Competency Secrets to Success with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

Parents and their young child at a naturalization service.

Kelsey Bell/U.S. National Archives

As the United States becomes more diverse, changes in the cultural makeup of communities can challenge longstanding practices in human services delivery. This brief explores strategies service providers can employ to build their understanding of and responsiveness to the cultures of the communities they serve, leading to better outcomes for immigrant and refugee families.

Policy Briefs

May 2022

Growing Language Skills with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

A woman and three children sit on a bench reading.

Knight Foundation

Language barriers can hinder immigrant families’ access to services and make it challenging for immigrant parents to find family-sustaining jobs and actively participate in their children’s education. This brief explores approaches service providers are using to make their offerings more culturally and linguistically responsive, and to support language learning among children and their parents.

Policy Briefs

May 2022

Better Responses to Differing Immigration Statuses: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

A family with young children at a naturalization ceremony.

Alabastro Photography/Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs

What status immigrants hold affects their access to U.S. public benefits and services. This brief examines approaches that two-generation programs are using to service immigrant families with a variety of statuses, including mixed-status families.

Policy Briefs

May 2022

Building Trust with Immigrant and Refugee Families: Spreading and Adapting 2Gen Working Practices

Parents and their children talk to another adult seated at a table at a Parents & Family Conference

Knight Foundation

Building trust between service providers and immigrant and refugee families can be challenging, but it is also a key component of programs that successfully serve these families. This brief explores two-generation program strategies for creating trusting relationships, including hiring culturally competent staff and creating welcoming and safe spaces, and discusses the policy implications.

Featured

English Learners and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) includes a number of new requirements for the education of English Learners (ELs), including standardized criteria for identifying EL students and inclusion of English proficiency as a measurement of school quality. Resources on this page can help inform decisions such as how quickly schools must improve and how states can intervene with struggling districts.

Featured

ELL Information Center

The English Language Learner (ELL) Information Center provides informative fact sheets, maps, and state-level data resources that chronicle the demography and trends of immigrant families and their children.

Recent Activity

Fact Sheets January 2016 A Profile of U.S. Children with Unauthorized Immigrant Parents By Randy Capps, Michael Fix and Jie Zong	Multimedia December 17, 2015 Using Data to Improve Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Services for Immigrants and Refugees
Fact Sheets April 2016 Immigrants and WIOA Services: Comparison of Sociodemographic Characteristics of Native- and Foreign-Born Adults in the United States By Margie McHugh and Madeleine Morawski	Commentaries December 2015 New Education Legislation Includes Important Policies for English Learners, Potential Pitfalls for their Advocates By Delia Pompa
Fact Sheets November 2015 Profile of Syrian Immigrants in the United States By Jie Zong	Commentaries November 2015 Meeting the Education Needs of Rising Numbers of Newly Arrived Migrant Students in Europe and the United States By Julie Sugarman
Reports November 2015 Transatlantic Symposium Report: Improving Instruction for Immigrant and Refugee Students in Secondary Schools By Margie McHugh and Julie Sugarman	Multimedia October 27, 2015 Young Refugee Children: Their Schooling Experiences in the United States and in Countries of First Asylum

Pages

Reports July 2007 Adult English Language Instruction in the United States: Determining Need and Investing Wisely By Margie McHugh, Julia Gelatt and Michael Fix	Reports March 2007 Measures of Change: The Demography and Literacy of Adolescent English Learners By Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Julie Murray
Policy Briefs March 2007 Trends in the Low-Wage Immigrant Workforce By Randy Capps, Michael Fix and Karina Fortuny	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	Policy Briefs October 2006 New Estimates of Unauthorized Youth Eligible for Legal Status under the DREAM Act By Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
Reports July 2006 Civic Contributions: Taxes Paid by Immigrants in the Washington, DC, Metro Area By Randy Capps, Jeffrey S. Passel , Michael Fix and Everett Henderson	Reports November 2005 Leaving Too Much To Chance: A Roundtable on Immigrant Integration Policy By Michael Fix, Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Betsy Cooper

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Audio

June 14, 2010

Migration and Occupational Health: Shining a Light on the Problem

This briefing focuses on migrants higher rates of on-the-job injuries.

Video

May 18, 2010

2010 E Pluribus Unum Prizes: Honoring Exceptional Immigrant Integration Initiatives

The 2010 E Pluribus Unum Prizes Award winners were honored for their exceptional immigrant integration initiatives at a ceremony in Washington, DC, on May 18, 2010.

Audio

January 28, 2010

Promoting Success on Both Sides of the Border: Binational Approaches to U.S. Immigrant Integration

This panel discussion provided a brief overview of Mexican immigrants in the U.S., the role and function of Mexican consular officials in aiding this population, and reviewed the structure and foci of the Mexican government's Institute of Mexicans Abroad.

Video, Audio

May 20, 2009

2009 E Pluribus Unum Awards

Award winners for the inaugural year of the E Pluribus Unum Prizes program were honored at a reception at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC in 2009.

Recent Activity

Fact Sheets

January 2016

A Profile of U.S. Children with Unauthorized Immigrant Parents

Growing up with unauthorized immigrant parents puts children—nearly 80 percent of whom were born in the United States—at a disadvantage, with lower preschool enrollment, reduced socioeconomic progress, and higher rates of linguistic isolation and poverty. This fact sheet examines the number, characteristics, and socioeconomic status of children, both U.S.-citizen and noncitizen, who have unauthorized immigrant parents.

Video, Audio, Webinars

December 17, 2015

Using Data to Improve Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Services for Immigrants and Refugees

A webinar discussing fact sheets that compare the characteristics of immigrant and native-born residents that are relevant to understanding needs for adult education and workforce training services in the United States and the ten states with the largest immigrant populations.

Fact Sheets

April 2016

Immigrants and WIOA Services: Comparison of Sociodemographic Characteristics of Native- and Foreign-Born Adults in the United States

As federal and state governments ramp up efforts to implement the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, these fact sheets compare key characteristics of the foreign born and the U.S. born that are relevant to understanding needs for adult education and workforce training services. The fact sheets cover the United States, the 20 states and 25 counties with the largest immigrant populations, and New York City.

Commentaries

December 2015

New Education Legislation Includes Important Policies for English Learners, Potential Pitfalls for their Advocates

In this commentary, the day before President Obama signs into law the 2015 reauthorization of the federal education statute, the Migration Policy Institute’s new Senior Fellow for Education Policy, Delia Pompa, analyzes the forthcoming law’s reach with respect to English learners (ELs).

Fact Sheets

November 2015

Profile of Syrian Immigrants in the United States

Approximately 86,000 Syrian immigrants resided in the United States in 2014, including 2,261 resettled refugees. This fact sheet provides information on the Syrian immigrant population in the United States, focusing on its size, socioeconomic characteristics, and geographic distribution.

Commentaries

November 2015

Meeting the Education Needs of Rising Numbers of Newly Arrived Migrant Students in Europe and the United States

As flows of young migrant and refugee children increase on both sides of the Atlantic, the demands placed on education systems by newcomer students have never been greater. This commentary addresses the challenges school systems face in building teacher capacity to address the diverse linguistic, academic, and socioemotional needs for newly arrived youth, many of whom have experienced significant disruption.

Reports

November 2015

Transatlantic Symposium Report: Improving Instruction for Immigrant and Refugee Students in Secondary Schools

In June 2015, MPI's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy convened a symposium in Brussels bringing together policymakers, teacher educators, and researchers from the United States and Europe to explore the imperative of improving educational outcomes for students from migrant and language-minority backgrounds. This report synthesizes themes and central questions raised during the presentations and discussions.

Video, Audio, Webinars

October 27, 2015

Young Refugee Children: Their Schooling Experiences in the United States and in Countries of First Asylum

In this webinar, the authors of three papers on the experiences of refugee children present their findings, with a focus on how such experiences affect their mental health and education.

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