Children of immigrants are the fastest growing component of the child population. While immigrants are 12 percent of the total population, children of immigrants make up 23 percent of all US children and almost 30 percent of all low-income children.

Thus, policies that advantage or disadvantage families in general and low-income families with children in particular, such as early schooling, family literacy, and day care will have far-reaching impacts on immigrant families. At the same time, policies affecting families will increasingly be judged by their effects on the health, well-being, and school readiness and success of immigrant children.

Critical Immigration, Health, and Education Policies Affecting Young Children of Immigrants
A conference with leading experts in health, education, and immigration policy discussing public policies affecting the young children of immigrants. Click here for audio and video of the conference panels.
January 17, 2013

Young Children of Black Immigrants in America: Changing Flows, Changing Faces
Book release event with US Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy Ajay Chaudry;  Gerald D. Jaynes, Yale University Departments of Economics and African-American Studies; and chapter authors Dylan Patricia Conger, from the George Washington University School of Public Policy and Public Administration, and Kevin Thomas of Pennsylvania State University ; with volume editors Randy Capps and Michael Fix, both of MPI.
December 14, 2012
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Patterns and Predictors of School Readiness and Early Childhood Success among Young Children in Black Immigrant Families
By Danielle A. Crosby and Angel S. Dunbar
This report examines levels of school readiness among young children by race/ethnicity and nativity, helping fill a significant gap in knowledge about the early childhood experiences of young children in Black immigrant families. Using a nationally representative US birth-cohort study (the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort), the authors identify the contextual factors - such as family circumstances, parenting practices, and enrollment in center-based child care - that encourage early school success.
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Parenting Behavior, Health, and Cognitive Development among Children in Black Immigrant Families: Comparing the United States and the United Kingdom
By Margot Jackson
Racial disparities in child development in the United States are significant, with a particularly pronounced disadvantage among Black children. This report focuses on the development of children of Black immigrants, comparing against the outcomes for their peers in native-born and other immigrant families. The report also compares children in the United States to those in the United Kingdom, where there is a large Black immigrant population but a notably different policy context of reception.
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Black and Immigrant: Exploring the Effects of Ethnicity and Foreign-Born Status on Infant Health
By Tiffany L. Green
The birth experiences and prenatal behaviors of Black immigrant mothers have received relatively little attention. This report compares prenatal behaviors and birth outcomes of Black immigrant mothers to those of other immigrant and US-born mothers, using federal vital statistics. It finds that Black immigrant mothers are less likely to give birth to preterm or low-birth-weight infants than US-born Black women, yet are more likely to experience these adverse birth outcomes than other groups of immigrant and US-born women.
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Relief from Deportation: Demographic Profile of the DREAMers Potentially Eligible under the Deferred Action Policy
By Jeanne Batalova and Michelle Mittelstadt
As many as 1.76 million unauthorized immigrants under age 31 who were brought to the United States as children, a population known as DREAMers, could gain a two-year reprieve from deportation, according to updated MPI estimates that reflect more detailed eligibility guidelines for the deferred action policy being implemented by the Department of Homeland Security. The Fact Sheet offers estimates on the age, educational attainment, state of residence, country and region of birth, workforce participation, and gender of prospective beneficiaries.
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Changing Demography and Circumstances for Young Black Children in African and Caribbean Immigrant Families
By Donald J. Hernandez
This report, the first in a trio of reports from the Young Children of Black Immigrants research initiative, finds that the 813,000 children under the age of 10 who have Black immigrant parents generally fall in the middle of multiple well-being indicators, faring less well than Asian and white children but better than their native-born Black and Hispanic peers. The report examines their family structure, citizenship status, English proficiency, parental characteristics, poverty, housing, and access to social supports.
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DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries
Slightly more than 2.1 million unauthorized immigrant youth and young adults could be eligible to apply for legal status under the DREAM Act legislation pending in Congress, though perhaps fewer than 40 percent would obtain legal status because of barriers limiting their ability to take advantage of the legislation's educational and military service routes to legalization. This MPI analysis offers the most recent and detailed estimates of potential DREAM Act beneficiaries by age, education levels, gender, state of residence and likelihood of gaining legalization.
Updated Estimates | Download Report | Press Release

Today’s Second Generation: Getting Ahead or Falling Behind?
By Roger Waldinger and Renee Reichl
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Knight Community Profiles on Young Children of Immigrants
By David Dixon, Julia Gelatt, and Afshin Zilanawala
February 2007
MPI provides an overview of characteristics of young children (under age 9) of immigrants living in 14 communities throughout the United States.

The Second Generation in the United States
Migration Information Source Special Issue
October 2006

Unauthorized Immigrant Parents and Their Children’s Development
By Hirokazu Yoshikawa and Jenya Kholoptseva
According to recent estimates, 5.5 million children in the United States - all but 1 million of them US-born - reside with at least one unauthorized immigrant parent. Given that they constitute about 8 percent of all US children, their well-being holds important implications for US society. Emerging research suggests that having an unauthorized immigrant parent is associated with lower cognitive skills in early childhood, lower levels of general positive development in middle childhood, higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms during adolescence, and fewer years of schooling. This report, co-authored by the Academic Dean of Harvard Graduate School of Education, explores the research and suggests policies and programs to reduce or mitigate these developmental risks.
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Young Children of Black Immigrants in America: Changing Flows, Changing Faces
Edited by Randy Capps and Michael Fix
The US child population is rapidly changing and diversifying, in large part because of immigration. Today, nearly one in four US children under age 18 is the child of an immigrant. While research has focused on the largest of these groups, far less academic attention has been paid to the changing Black child population, with the children of Black immigrants representing an increasing share of the US Black child population. This interdisciplinary volume, with chapters by leading researchers, examines the health, well-being, school readiness, and academic achievement of children in Black immigrant families, most with parents from Africa and the Caribbean. The volume explores the migration and settlement experiences of Black immigrants to the United States, focusing on contextual factors such as family circumstances, parenting behaviors, social supports, and school climate that influence outcomes during early childhood and the elementary and middle-school years. Its findings hold important policy implications for education, health care, child care, early childhood development, immigrant integration, and refugee assistance.
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The 2012 Winners of MPI’s E Pluribus Unum Prizes for Exceptional Immigrant Integration Initiatives
MPI is pleased to announce the winners of its 2012 E Pluribus Unum Prizes: ACCESS (Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services), a Michigan-based Arab American organization that strengthens ties between immigrant and native-born communities; Building Skills Partnership, a California labor-business alliance that provides on-the-job English language and other classes for janitors; and Californians Together, a California education coalition that has achieved significant instructional reform for English language learners. Each was given a $50,000 award. The Prizes’ Corporate Leadership Award was given to Citi Community Development, which supports citizenship promotion for eligible legal immigrants and economic empowerment.
Press Release | Awards Event Program | ACCESS | Building Skills Partnership | Californians Together | Citi Community Development

New MPI Research Project on Children of Black Immigrants
There are 1.3 million children in Black immigrant families in the United States, most with parents from Africa and the Caribbean. Children in these families account for 11 percent of all Black children in America and represent a rapidly growing segment of the US population. Yet despite these demographic changes, children in Black immigrant families remain neglected by research studies. To address this important gap in knowledge, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, with support from the Foundation for Child Development, is embarking on a project to examine the well-being and development of children in Black immigrant families in the first decade of life (birth to age 10).

DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries
Slightly more than 2.1 million unauthorized immigrant youth and young adults could be eligible to apply for legal status under the DREAM Act legislation pending in Congress, though perhaps fewer than 40 percent would obtain legal status because of barriers limiting their ability to take advantage of the legislation's educational and military service routes to legalization. This MPI analysis offers the most recent and detailed estimates of potential DREAM Act beneficiaries by age, education levels, gender, state of residence and likelihood of gaining legalization.
Download Report | Press Release

More than one in five children in the United States, and more than one in four low-income children, is the child of an immigrant. 

Three-fourths of the children of immigrants are citizens.

Two out of three children with an undocumented parent are citizens living in mixed-status families.

The president’s budget for fiscal year (FY) 2008 would slightly reduce funding for No Child Left Behind Language Acquisition State grants under Title III to $671 million (the same amount appropriated in FY 2006), down from $678 million in FY 2007.

The president’s budget would eliminate federal funding for the Even Start program, which provided reading education to both children and parents. A share of national Even Start funding had been set aside for serving migrant workers and their families.

The budget calls for sustained funding for Head Start. A portion of Head Start funding is allocated for children of migrant workers.

Health Care for Children of Immigrants
Annotated Bibliography, National Conference of State Legislatures, Health Care and Children in Immigrant Families Project, January 2007

Young Children in Immigrant Families: The Role of Philanthropy
By Kinsey Alden Dinan
Columbia University, National Center for Children in Poverty, May 2006

Reaching All Children: Understanding Early Care and Education Participation among Immigrant Families
By Hannah Matthews and Daniel Ewen
Center for Law and Social Policy, January 2006

Undercounted. Underserved. Immigrant and Refugee Families in the Child Welfare System
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2006

The New Demography of America’s Schools: Immigration and the No Child Left Behind Act
By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Julie Murray, Jason Ost, Jeffrey S. Passel, and Shinta Herwantoro Hernandez
Urban Institute, September 2005

The Effects of Universal Pre-K on Cognitive Development
By William T. Gormley Jr., Ted Gayer, Deborah Phillips, and Brittany Dawson
Developmental Psychology 41, No. 6 (2005): 872-884.

"Leveling the Playing Field: Supporting Immigrant Children from Birth to Eight"
By Ruby Takanishi
The Future of Children, 14(2): 61-79, 2004

The Health and Well-Being of Young Children of Immigrants
By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Jason Ost, Jane Reardon-Anderson, and Jeffrey S. Passel
Urban Institute, 2004

Federal Policy for Immigrant Children: Room for Common Ground?
By Ron Haskins, Mark Greenberg, and Shawn Fremstad
Brookings Institution, 2004

Demographic Change and Life Circumstances of Immigrant Families
By Donald J. Hernandez
Future of Children 14, No. 2 (2004): 17-47