Limited English Proficient Individuals in the United States: Number, Share, Growth, and Linguistic Diversity
By Chhandasi Pandya, Margie McHugh, and Jeanne Batalova
The number of US residents who are deemed to be Limited English Proficient (LEP) has increased substantially in recent decades, consistent with the growth of the US foreign-born population. Sustained high rates of immigration and the dispersion of LEP individuals to new immigrant destination states has meant that an increasing number of states and localities must grapple with issues of communication and English language learning. To assist the wide array of stakeholders working with LEP populations, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy has compiled the most up-to-date analysis on the number, share, growth, and linguistic diversity of LEP individuals in the United States from 1990 to 2010 at the national, state and metropolitan levels. Download Data Brief | State-level Data on LEP Number, Share, and Growth | State-level Data on Linguistic Diversity

Communicating More for Less: Using Translation and Interpretation Technology to Serve Limited English Proficient Individuals
By Jessica Sperling
Advances in translation and interpretation technology have given language access professionals a multitude of options for breaking down language barriers. However, with different and seemingly complex types of technologies now available, selecting the right technology system can be a challenge. And because language access needs vary immensely, rarely do agencies or service organizations have translation and interpretation needs that can be met the same way. This report by MPI's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy provides an overview of available technologies, discussing their purposes, costs, and benefits. We invite vendors of translation and interpretation technology to fill out a survey detailing their products, and will periodically provide an update with new technologies. The survey can be completed here.
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Taking Limited English Proficient Adults into Account in the Federal Adult Education Funding Formula
By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Margie McHugh, and Serena Yi-Ying Lin
This new report by MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy examines the funding formula used to distribute Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title II federal funds for adult education, literacy, and English as a Second Language instruction. Though all adults with limited English proficiency (LEP) are eligible for WIA Title II programs, the authors report that the formula used to distribute $554 million to the states in fiscal 2009 excludes 11.2 million LEP adults with at least a high school education. With WIA up for reauthorization, the authors suggest there is an opportunity for policymakers to revisit the funding formula and related issues.
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Adult English Language Instruction in the United States: Determining Need and Investing Wisely
July 2007

Improving Immigrant Workers’ Economic Prospects: A Review of the Literature
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

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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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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Diverse Streams: African Migration to the United States
By Randy Capps, Kristen McCabe, and Michael Fix
Black African immigrants represent one of the fastest-growing segments of the US immigrant population, increasing by about 200 percent during the 1980s and 1990s and by 100 percent during the 2000s. This report finds African immigrants generally fare well on integration indicators, with college completion rates that greatly exceed those for most other immigrant groups and US natives. Despite higher levels of human capital, high employment rates, and strong English skills, African immigrants’ earnings lag those of the native born.
Download Report | Press Release | Research Project

A Demographic Profile of Black Caribbean Immigrants in the United States
By Kevin J.A. Thomas
Immigration from the Caribbean to the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon, beginning largely after changes to US immigration law in 1965 that placed a new priority on family-based migration. This report finds that despite relatively low educational attainment, English-speaking Black Caribbean immigrants earn more than Black African immigrants. This earnings gap may be explained in part by the fact that Caribbean immigrants, who account for 1.7 million of the nation’s nearly 40 million immigrants, tend to have been in the United States longer.
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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?
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.

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

The Economic Value of Citizenship for Immigrants in the United States
By Madeleine Sumption and Sarah Flamm
Beyond imparting political and social rights, naturalization appears to confer economic gains for immigrants in the United States, with a wage premium of at least 5 percent – even after accounting for the fact that naturalized immigrants have higher levels of education, better language skills, and more work experience in the United States than noncitizens. More than 8 million legal immigrants in the United States are eligible to apply for citizenship but have not done so. Naturalization rates in the United States are lower than most other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, the report notes.
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The Demographic Impacts of Repealing Birthright Citizenship
By Jennifer Van Hook with Michael Fix
Repeal of birthright citizenship for the US-born children of unauthorized immigrants would expand the unauthorized population by at least 5 million over the next four decades. Employing standard demographic techniques, this analysis suggests that there would be 4.7 million unauthorized immigrants as of 2050 who had been born in the United States — 1 million of them with US-born mother and father — if birthright citizenship were denied to children born to parents who are both unauthorized immigrants. While some policymakers are discussing changes to birthright citizenship as a means to reduce illegal immigration, the report makes clear such a move could in fact significantly increase the size of the unauthorized population.
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The Redesigned Citizenship Test: High Stakes
MPI Backgrounder No. 6, September 2008
More than a decade in the making, the redesigned citizenship test required for use after October 1, 2008 is supposed to provide a more meaningful opportunity for applicants to demonstrate knowledge about US history and civics, and allow the government more standardized test administration. This MPI Backgrounder details the redesign process, examines whether the government met its goals, and provides policy recommendations.
Fact Sheet | Press Release

Behind the Naturalization Backlog
By Claire Bergeron and Jeremy Banks
Fact Sheet No. 21, February 2008

Citizenship Fee Increases in Context
By Julia Gelatt
Fact Sheet No. 15, February 2007

New Americans: Facts on Naturalization and Birthright Citizenship
By Mary Helen Ybarra Johnson, Michael Fix, and Julie Murray
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

From Immigrant to Citizen
By Janet Murguía and Cecilia Muñoz
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007
(Originally published in The American Prospect, Volume 16, No. 11)

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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The Binational Option: Meeting the Instructional Needs of Limited English Proficient Students
By Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix
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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Recommendations for Addressing the Needs of English Language Learners
Policymakers and state and local school administrators disbursing federal stimulus funds designed to improve children’s educational outcomes should pay targeted attention to the nation’s growing population of English language learners, a group of researchers with extensive experience regarding ELL students recommends in a new report. The ELL Working Group, of which MPI Senior Vice President Michael Fix is a member, was convened by Diane August, Kenji Hakuta, and Jennifer O’Day. The group’s recommendations were presented to senior US Department of Education officials and other senior education officers, among others.
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Gambling on the Future: Managing the Education Challenges of Rapid Growth in Nevada
By Aaron Terrazas and Michael Fix
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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Educating the Children of Immigrants
By Julie Murray, Jeanne Batalova, and Michael Fix
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

New Estimates of Unauthorized Youth Eligible for Legal Status under the DREAM Act
Backgrounder by Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
October 2006
The DREAM Act, incorporated into the current Senate bill, would immediately make about 360,000 young people aged 18 to 24 who have graduated from high school or obtained a GED eligible for conditional legal status. Those who qualify and then attend college or join the military within six years would become eligible for permanent legal status – an arrangement unprecedented in US history.

The New Demography of America's Schools
By Randolph Capps, Michael Fix, Julie Murray, Jason Ost, Jeffrey S. Passel, and Shinta Hirontoro
Urban Institute, September 2005

Immigrant Children, Urban Schools, and the No Child Left Behind Act
By Michael Fix, Migration Policy Institute
Randy Capps, The Urban Institute
Migration Information Source, November 1, 2005

Credential Recognition in the United States for Foreign Professionals
Foreign-trained professionals in the United States often encounter significant obstacles on their path to professional practice, among them difficulties in demonstrating the value of their past work experience and qualifications. This report examines the decentralized US credential recognition process, particularly with regards to recertification in the medical and engineering sectors and offers recommendations for improvement.
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Immigrants in a Changing Labor Market: Responding to Economic Need
Edited by Michael Fix, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, and Madeleine Sumption
This volume, which brings together research by leading economists and labor market specialists, examines the role immigrants play in the U.S. workforce, how they fare in good and bad economic times, and the effects they have on native-born workers and the labor sectors in which they are engaged. The book traces the powerful economic forces at play in today’s globalized world and includes policy prescriptions for making the American immigration system more responsive to labor market needs.
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Manufacturing in the United States, Mexico, and Central America: Implications for Competitiveness and Migration
By Peter A. Creticos and Eleanor Sohnen
The manufacturing sector is a significant source of employment for workers from Mexico and Central America's Northern Triangle - with an estimated 17 percent employed in manufacturing in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and immigrants from these countries making up 8 percent of the US manufacturing workforce. This report examines how aggressive manufacturing-attraction strategies have benefited the economies of Mexico, and to a lesser extent, the Northern Triangle. Yet the achievements of the maquiladora development strategy have masked important flaws that threaten to stymie the promise of even greater economic growth. The report outlines the need for the regional workforce to gain the skills to compete with counterparts in advanced manufacturing regions such as northern Europe and Japan, as well as for credentialing standards, training systems, and outcome measures that are comparable to those in industrialized economies.
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Up for Grabs: The Gains and Prospects of First- and Second-Generation Young Adults
By Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix
Youth and young adults from immigrant families represent one in four people in the United States between the ages of 16-26 and account for half of the growth of the young adult population between 1995 and 2010. This report profiles the nation’s 11.3 million first- and second-generation young adults, finding substantial generational progress in terms of high school graduation, college enrollment, and ability to earn family-sustaining wages. Second-generation Hispanic women are faring particularly well, with college enrollment rates equal to those of third-generation non-Hispanic white women. However, they are not graduating from college at the same rate or on the same timeline because of family, work, or economic reasons. The report sketches how postsecondary education, workforce development, and language training programs could better meet the needs of this population, which will assume a greater role as the US workforce ages.
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Immigration Policy and Less-Skilled Workers in the United States
By Harry J. Holzer
While broad consensus exists regarding the benefits of highly skilled immigration, the economic role of low-skilled immigrants remains in dispute. In this assessment of the research literature, the author makes an economics-based case for significant reform of the US immigration system. Among his suggestions for a more economically beneficial immigration system: Providing legal pathways for low-skilled workers, allowing less-skilled workers on employment-based visas to switch employers more easily and gain a path to citizenship, and setting employer visa fees at a level sufficient to offset some of the costs that low-skilled immigration imposes.
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Still an Hourglass? Immigrant Workers in Middle-Skilled Jobs
By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, and Serena Yi Ying-Lin
It has been conventional wisdom that the immigrant workforce is shaped like an hourglass — wide at the top and the bottom but narrow in the middle. In reality, immigrants are more evenly dispersed across the skills spectrum than has been widely recognized. Using an innovative new method of analysis, the authors found that the fastest growth in immigrant employment since 2000 has occurred in middle-skilled jobs. The study, which examines employment in the US workforce and in four key sectors (IT, health care, construction, and hospitality), finds that employment growth for immigrants far outpaced native growth rates between 1990 and 2006 in the total economy and the four industries surveyed.
Report in Brief | Full Report | Press Release

Tied to the Business Cycle: How Immigrants Fare in Good and Bad Economic Times
By Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny
Immigrants surpassed native-born workers in several key labor market outcomes from the mid-1990s through 2007, recording higher employment and lower jobless rates — but the trend was reversed with the onset of the current recession. The report, which analyzes employment and unemployment patterns over the past 15 years and two recessions, shows that immigrant economic outcomes began deteriorating before the current recession officially began in December 2007, tracing immigrants' declining fortunes largely to the housing bust which began in spring 2006.
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Taking Limited English Proficient Adults into Account in the Federal Adult Education Funding Formula
By Randy Capps, Michael Fix, Margie McHugh, and Serena Yi-Ying Lin
This new report by MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy examines the funding formula used to distribute Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title II federal funds for adult education, literacy, and English as a Second Language instruction. Though all adults with limited English proficiency (LEP) are eligible for WIA Title II programs, the authors report that the formula used to distribute $554 million to the states in fiscal 2009 excludes 11.2 million LEP adults with at least a high school education. With WIA up for reauthorization, the authors suggest there is an opportunity for policymakers to revisit the funding formula and related issues.
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Uneven Progress: The Employment Pathways of Skilled Immigrants in the United States
By Jeanne Batalova and Michael Fix with Peter A. Creticos
More than 1.3 million college-educated immigrants in the United States are unemployed or working in unskilled jobs because they are unable to make full use of their academic and professional credentials, MPI reports in the first assessment yet of the scope of the “brain waste” problem. The report analyzes and offers possible solutions for the credentialing and language-barrier hurdles that deprive the US economy of a rich source of human capital at a time of increasing competition globally for skilled talent.
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Improving Immigrant Workers’ Economic Prospects: A Review of the Literature
By Amy Beeler and Julie Murray
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

The Impact of Immigration on Native Workers: A Fresh Look at the Evidence
By Julie Murray, Jeanne Batalova, and Michael Fix
Task Force Insight No. 18, July 2006
The authors carefully review the extensive literature and conclude that despite the rhetoric of the current debate, the literature indicates that immigration does not have strong wage or employment effects on natives.

Immigrants and US Labor Unions
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet, May 2004

College-Educated Foreign Born in the US Labor Force
By Jeanne Batalova
Migration Information Source, February 2005

The Foreign Born in the US Labor Force
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet, January 2004

What Kind of Work Do Immigrants Do?
Occupation and Industry of Foreign-Born Workers in the United States
By Elizabeth Grieco
Fact Sheet, January 2004
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Designing an Impact Aid Program for Immigrant Settlement
By Deborah L. Garvey
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Federal Spending on Immigrant Families' Integration
By Julia Gelatt and Michael Fix
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Civic Contributions: Taxes Paid by Immigrants in the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area
By Randy Capps and Everett Henderson, The Urban Institute; Jeffrey S. Passel, Pew Hispanic Center; and Michael Fix, Migration Policy Institute
Urban Institute, June 2006
The Washington, DC, metropolitan area is home to over 1 million immigrants, who composed one-fifth of the area’s total population in 2004. An Urban Institute study finds that migrants’ share of all taxes paid by metro area residents was virtually the same as their share of the population.

Detailed Review of the 2013 Senate Legislation and Side-by-Side Comparison with 2006, 2007 Senate Bills
This issue brief offers a detailed review of major provisions included in S.744, the immigration legislation introduced in the Senate by a bipartisan group of senators, and compares those provisions with bills considered by the Senate in 2006 and 2007. Topics reviewed include border security and enforcement; creation of Registered Provisional Immigrant (RPI) status for unauthorized immigrants, the DREAM Act, agricultural workers program, and paths to lawful permanent residence; immigrant integration; creation of a new merit-based visa and adjustments to preference categories for family- and employment-based immigration; employment verification, detention and immigration court provisions, and more.
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Side-by-Side Comparison of 2013 Senate Immigration Framework with 2006 and 2007 Senate Legislatione
The Migration Policy Institute has completed an analysis of the major provisions in the 2013 framework, comparing them to provisions of the legislation the Senate considered in 2006 and 2007.
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Immigrants in the United States: How Well Are They Integrating into Society?
By Tomás R. Jiménez
Even though immigration is intertwined with the history of the United States, fears about immigrants' ability to integrate remain an area of concern. Yet an examination of immigrants’ integration across five major indicators – language proficiency, socioeconomic attainment, political participation, residential locale, and social interaction with host communities – shows they are integrating reasonably well. Remarkably, the process has unfolded almost entirely without policy intervention. The author examines the laissez faire policy approach to integration, raising concerns about how the state of public education and size of the US unauthorized population may remain powerful barriers to immigrants' full social, economic, and political integration.
Download Report | European Integration Challenges Report

Protection through Integration: The Mexican Government’s Efforts to Aid Migrants in the United States
By Laureen Laglagaron
Immigrant integration remains largely an afterthought in US immigration policy discussions and the country’s integration policies remain chronically underfunded and limited in scope. Local and informal actors such as families and community-based organizations have historically taken on this responsibility. However, as this report explores, new partners are emerging. Mexico’s efforts to help its migrants succeed in the United States offer a new example of an immigrant-sending country looking to improve its emigrants’ lives and connect with its diaspora. The report examines the evolution of Mexico’s approach to its migrants and details the activities of Mexico’s Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME) in a first-ever attempt to map the expanding range of IME educational, health care, financial, and civic engagement programs.
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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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Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
Michael Fix, Editor
This volume sketches the contours of a national integration policy and includes a discussion of key integration issues raised by the current debate around immigration reform, including impact aid to state and local governments and financing health care for legalizing immigrants. 
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Leaving Too Much to Chance: A Roundtable on Immigrant Integration Policy
By Michael Fix, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, and Betsy Cooper
November 2005
Fifty of the nation's leading experts gathered at MPI to discuss three critical areas of integration policy: PreK - 12 education; work and work supports for immigrant families; and civic engagement and citizenship, with the aim of identifying major policy changes and opportunities and to begin mapping an agenda for policy change regarding immigrant integration.

Migration Information Source Special Issue on Integration
October 2003

Policy Considerations for Immigrant Integration
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou

Migration Information Source Special Issue on Immigrants and Integration
October 2003

Designing an Impact Aid Program for Immigrant Settlement
By Deborah L. Garvey
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Federal Spending on Immigrant Families’ Integration
By Julia Gelatt and Michael Fix
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

The Role of Cities in Immigrant Integration
By Brian Ray
Migration Information Source Special Issue on Immigrants and Integration
October 2003

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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Immigrants and Health Care Reform: What’s Really at Stake?
By Randy Capps, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Michael Fix
Health care reform proposals under consideration in Congress that would exclude many legal immigrants from core benefits and impose new verification requirements would have important spillover consequences for taxpayers and other health care consumers. In a new report, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy offers the first-ever estimates of the size of uninsured immigrant populations in major immigrant-destination states, the number of immigrant workers covered by employer-provided plans, and the share of immigrants employed by small firms likely to be exempted from employer coverage mandates. The report, based on MPI analysis of Census Bureau data, also examines health coverage for immigrants by legal status, age, and poverty levels.
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Access to Health Care and Health Insurance: Immigrants and Immigration Reform
By Leighton Ku and Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Access to Health Care after Immigration Reform – Practical Considerations for Policymakers
By Adam Gurvitch
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Building a British Model of Integration in an Era of Immigration: Policy Lessons for Government
By Shamit Saggar and Will Somerville
Despite experiencing large-scale immigration flows and settlement over the past half century, the United Kingdom has not developed a formal integration program. Few public policies have specifically sought to advance immigrant integration, and the political debates surrounding immigrant integration have often been fraught and destabilizing, reflecting deep-seated ambivalence in British society about immigrants and immigration. The authors offer a menu of policy options and actions the government should consider to achieve a well-thought-out approach.
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Immigrant Integration in a Time of Austerity
By Elizabeth Collett
With austerity at the forefront of European government policy debates and rising debt levels sure to catalyze additional difficult public spending decisions, immigrant integration programs have been an early place for budget cuts in some countries. In this report, MPI European Policy Fellow Elizabeth Collett offers fresh analysis of how immigrant integration programs are faring in a number of EU countries: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. While the economic and political climate offer some explanation for governments' response, the report details how those factors alone are insufficient to explain countries' differing approaches to immigrant integration programs.
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Managing Integration: The European Union's Responsibilities towards Immigrants
Rita Sussmuth and Werner Weidenfeld, Editors
Bertelsmann Foundation and the Migration Policy Institute, Fall 2005
Managing immigration and integration is one of the most vital and challenging tasks that the European Union is facing today. Since the Union's enlargement to include 25 members, the issue has become even more pressing. This book analyzes approaches, strategies, and best practices from EU Member States that could contribute to a sustainable integration policy. It provides European, national, regional, and local decision-makers with instruments they can draw on in establishing a European framework for integration.

Europe and Its Immigrants in the 21st Century: A New Deal or a Continuing Dialogue of the Deaf?
Edited by Demetrios G. Papademetriou
MPI and the Luso-American Foundation, March 2006
In this volume, the Migration Policy Institute has gathered some of the leading European thinkers to offer insightful counsel and, wherever possible, solutions to Europe’s immigration challenges. The book’s contributors piece together the puzzle of a well-managed, comprehensive immigration regime, tackling issues ranging from immigration’s economic costs and benefits, to effective selection systems, citizenship, the welfare state, and integration policies that work.
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The Challenges of Integration for the EU
By Sarah Spencer
Migration Information Source Special Issue on Immigrants and Integration
October 2003

Immigrants and Welfare: The Impact of Welfare Reform on America’s Newcomers
This volume, edited by MPI Senior Vice President Michael Fix, rigorously assesses the 1996 welfare reform law, questions whether its immigrant provisions were ever really necessary, and examines its impact on legal immigrants’ ability to integrate into American society. The book probes the politics behind the welfare reform law, its legal underpinnings, and what it may mean for integration policy. It also focuses on empirical research regarding immigrants’ propensity to use benefits before the law passed, and immigrants’ use and hardship levels afterwards.
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Immigrants and Health Care Reform: What’s Really at Stake?
By Randy Capps, Marc R. Rosenblum, and Michael Fix
Health care reform proposals under consideration in Congress that would exclude many legal immigrants from core benefits and impose new verification requirements would have important spillover consequences for taxpayers and other health care consumers. In a new report, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy offers the first-ever estimates of the size of uninsured immigrant populations in major immigrant-destination states, the number of immigrant workers covered by employer-provided plans, and the share of immigrants employed by small firms likely to be exempted from employer coverage mandates. The report, based on MPI analysis of Census Bureau data, also examines health coverage for immigrants by legal status, age, and poverty levels.
Download Report | Press Release

Federal Spending on Immigrant Families' Integration
By Julia Gelatt and Michael Fix
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Access to Health Care and Health Insurance: Immigrants and Immigration Reform
By Leighton Ku and Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

Access to Health Care after Immigration Reform: Lessons from New York
By Adam Gurvitch
Securing the Future: US Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader
February 2007

"Immigrants' Costs and Contributions: The Effects of Reform"
Michael Fix's Testimony before the US House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, July 26, 2006

Delegation and Divergence: A Study of 287(g) State and Local Immigration Enforcement
By Randy Capps, Marc R. Rosenblum, Cristina Rodríguez, and Muzaffar Chishti
The section 287(g) program, which delegates federal immigration enforcement powers to state and local officers, is not targeted primarily at serious offenders. Despite public statements by Obama administration officials that the program is primarily aimed at identifying and removing “dangerous criminals,” MPI researchers found that about half of 287(g) activity involves noncitizens arrested for misdemeanors or traffic offenses. Formal program changes unveiled by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2009 have not substantially changed program priorities, operations, outcomes, or community impacts, the report concludes, offering findings that also have implications for the Secure Communities program.
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A Program in Flux: New Priorities and Implementation Challenges for 287(g)
By Cristina Rodríguez, Muzaffar Chishti, Randy Capps, and Laura St. John
State and local enforcement of federal immigration laws has generated considerable controversy in public policy circles in recent years, particularly with respect to the Section 287(g) program. The Obama administration is reforming the program, with a new standardized memorandum of agreement (MOA) that will govern all future Section 287(g) collaborations. In this report, the authors find that some aspects of the new standardized agreement may address criticisms of the program, while others could complicate implementation. The report sets forth a research agenda for determining whether the 287(g) program generates greater benefits than costs and is worth maintaining.
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Testing the Limits: A Framework for Assessing the Legality of State and Local Immigration Measures
By Cristina Rodríguez, Muzaffar Chishti, and Kimberly Nortman
Report, December 2007
In 2007 alone, the 50 state legislatures have considered over 1,000 pieces of legislation regulating immigrants and immigration. This paper provides a framework for assessing the legal validity of five of the most common or high-profile measures that address unauthorized immigration specifically.

Blurring the Lines: A Profile of State and Local Police Enforcement of Immigration Law Using the National Crime Information Center Database, 2002-2004
By Hannah Gladstein, Annie Lai, Jennifer Wagner and Michael Wishnie
Report, December 2005
In almost 9,000 cases from 2002 to 2004, police officers checking the names of individuals stopped or detained against records in the nation's main criminal database received an initial "hit" for an immigration violation that, upon further investigation, the Department of Homeland Security could not confirm. The rate of false positives was 42 percent overall, and some individual law enforcement agencies had error rates as high as 90 percent.