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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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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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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
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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The Educational Trajectories of English Language Learners in Texas
By Stella M. Flores, Jeanne Batalova, and Michael Fix
English Language Learner (ELL) public school students who successfully complete English as a Second Language (ESL) or bilingual education programs within three years appear to fare better in meeting basic math and reading proficiency standards than long-term ELLs, according to analysis of a unique longitudinaldataset that tracks all Texas students from first grade through high school graduation and beyond. Interestingly, Hispanic ELLs who opt out of ESL or bilingual education programs in favor of English-only courses may be particularly disadvantaged in terms of college enrollment.
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DREAM vs. Reality: An Analysis of Potential DREAM Act Beneficiaries
By Jeanne Batalova and Margie McHugh
July 2010
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
The Binational Option: Meeting the Instructional Needs of Limited English Proficient Students
By Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix
November 2009
With 1 in 10 children in US schools having limited English proficiency, school districts across the country face challenges in meeting the students' educational needs and finding enough qualified bilingual and English as a Second Language educators. This report identifies international teacher exchanges as an innovative, near-term strategy for school administrators to respond to immediate teaching needs, particularly in subject areas where knowledge of a foreign language is necessary. In conjunction with efforts to recruit local teachers, foreign teachers can help alleviate endemic shortages — particularly in districts that face rapid, unexpected, or short-term changes in the student population.
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Gambling
on the Future: Managing the Education Challenges of Rapid
Growth in Nevada
 By
Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix
October 2008
Nevada, the fastest growing state in the United States, is experiencing a population
boom – driven in part by immigration – that has key implications
for its school system and labor market. Immigrants represent one in five Nevada
residents and their children account for one in three Nevadans under age 18.
Yet even as schools have experienced a surge in enrollment, federal and state
investments in the state's failing education system haven't kept pace.
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Report | Press
Release
Los
Angeles on the Leading Edge: Immigrant Integration Indicators
and Their Policy Implications
By Michael Fix, Margie McHugh, Aaron Matteo Terrazas, and Laureen Laglagaron
April 2008
As Los Angeles makes the transition from being a city of immigrants to one dominated
by their US-born children, it can serve as a policy laboratory for other cities
facing the need to better integrate immigrants into US classrooms, workplaces,
and civic life. MPI’s report details the imperative for integration policies
that will benefit immigrants and the broader US society alike.
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Report | Press
Release
Measures of Change: The Demography and Literacy of Adolescent English Learners
A Report to Carnegie Corporation of New York by Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix, and Julie Murray
March 2007
Educating the Children of Immigrants
By Julie Murray, Jeanne Batalova, and Michael Fix
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007 |
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.