National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy
Recent Activity
Marking the release of a report on the barriers foreign-trained high-skilled immigrants face in the United States, this webinar examines programs and initiatives that assist with credential recognition, employment, and relicensure, as well as recent policy developments. Discussants review recommendations for community-based organizations, employers, and policymakers to expand successful efforts aimed at preventing brain waste.
A presentation of the first-ever U.S. estimates on the economic costs of brain waste for highly skilled immigrants, their families, and the U.S. economy. The researchers discuss their findings in terms of the billions of dollars in forgone earnings and unrealized taxes when college-educated immigrants are relegated to low-skilled work.
Nearly 2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States are stuck in low-skilled jobs or are unemployed—a phenomenon known as brain waste. In this brief video, MPI researchers discuss their key findings on immigrant skill underutilization and the resulting billions of dollars in unrealized wages and forgone federal, state, and local tax receipts.
MPI experts discuss their analysis of data on U.S. foreign- and native-born parents with young children, along with their findings from a field study of select two-generation programs that serve immigrant and refugee families. They explore the implications of WIOA and recommendations for successful program and policy design.
This webinar explores the key education funding mechanisms in place to support English Learner elementary and secondary students in the United States, public conversations about funding, and efforts to improve the equitable distribution of educational resources.
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Recent Activity
A complicated web of laws, policy guidance, and court rulings affect how English Learner (EL) and immigrant-background students are educated across the United States. This EL Insight sorts through them to highlight seven key ways the U.S. government protects the rights of these students to a K-12 education. It also highlights who can enforce these rules and how they can be seen in action.
At this discussion, experts from MPI and Southern Methodist University’s Texas-Mexico Center offer an overview of trends and key characteristics of highly skilled Mexican adults at the national level and for Texas, including educational levels by legal status and top industries of employment across Texas metro areas. They also discuss the policy implications of these findings.
U.S. debates about immigration from Mexico often center on the low skilled, but this analysis shows a population in change. Nearly one in five Mexican immigrants arriving between 2013-17 had a college degree, compared to slightly more than 1 in 20 during the 1996-2000 period. Mexicans now make up the fourth-largest group of highly skilled immigrants. This fact sheet explores their characteristics at U.S. and Texas levels.
This webinar, accompanying the release of an MPI report, investigates the unintended consequences for English Learners of using the four-year high school graduation rate for federal school accountability.
High school graduation is a landmark event for students. It also plays an important role in the state accountability systems designed to ensure that schools provide all students a high-quality education. Yet relying on a school's four-year graduation rate for federal accountability purposes can have unintended consequences for English Learners, who may need extra time to graduate.
A high school diploma has been a core requirement of proposed DREAM Act legislation and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Yet a fresh estimate of the number of unauthorized immigrants graduating annually from U.S. high schools has long been missing from the debate. This fact sheet provides up-to-date estimates for the United States and top 15 states, estimating 98,000 such students graduate yearly.
With the children of immigrants a growing share of all U.S. children, and federal immigration enforcement and other policies undergoing significant change, some state and local child welfare agencies are developing new ways to improve how they work with immigrant families. This report examines key cultural, linguistic, and legal challenges, and how agencies are adjusting staffing, training, placement, and other policies to tackle them.
During this webinar, speakers provide an overview of an MPI policy brief that seeks to raise awareness of the intersection of trauma and early childhood development, and how U.S. early childhood programs could more effectively address this trauma in young children in refugee and immigrant households. The participants discuss efforts to integrate trauma-informed approaches into early childhood systems and how home visiting services can effectively address trauma and mental health through a two-generation approach.
Rebuilding the U.S. Education System for the Nation’s English Learners
The $122 billion investment that K-12 schools across the United States are receiving from the federal government to address the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on the nation's most vulnerable students represents a key opportunity to help reset the trajectory of education for English Learners (ELs). As states submit their plans for using the funds, community based organizations can be key partners, as this commentary explains.
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