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PRESS RELEASE
October 29,2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

A Road Map for a Successful Immigration Enforcement System at the U.S.-Mexico Border

WASHINGTON — The immigration enforcement regime at the U.S.-Mexico border offers a vivid example of how existing policies, laws and resource investments are markedly out of step with new migration realities and future needs. A border enforcement system designed to address the once-dominant flows of single adults from Mexico seeking to enter the United States illegally for work is ill prepared to deal with today’s more complex mixed flows of families and unaccompanied children from Central America, some seeking humanitarian protection, others opportunity.

Consistent with its world view of immigration as threat, the Trump administration has responded by shutting down any meaningful access to humanitarian protection and asylum in the United States, by invoking a public health authority to expel more than 205,000 arrivals during the COVID-19 pandemic and by constructing hundreds of miles of border barriers. Yet these strategies cannot succeed over the long term, nor are they consistent with U.S. law and international agreements and principles on protection.

In a new brief from the Migration Policy Institute’s Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy initiative, Senior Fellow and former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner Doris Meissner offers a road map for a more effective approach.

“Migration pressures at the U.S.-Mexico border are inevitable, given geography and decades-long close economic and social ties with countries to the immediate south of the United States that are struggling with poverty, wars or weak governance,” she writes. “Thus, border security should be treated as a continuing management challenge and responsibility, rather than a once-and-for-all crusade to seal the border.”

The goal, she argues, must be effectively managing the border, by enabling safe, legal and orderly flows of people and goods while also combating criminal activity; deterring illegal crossings; ensuring that pertinent U.S. laws—such as asylum—are properly administered; coordinating with intra-agency, interagency, intergovernmental and international partners; and upholding high standards of professionalism and accountability.

The task of effective border management cannot fall to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its component U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) alone, Meissner writes. A successful approach also must work hand in hand with other functions to fashion an effective system: political asylum adjudications, immigration court proceedings, migrant custody and cooperation with Mexico and neighbor countries that are the principal sources of today’s illegal flows.

In the brief, Rethinking the U.S.-Mexico Border Immigration Enforcement System: A Policy Road Map, Meissner outlines a number of MPI policy recommendations, including:

•    The need to create a network of reception centers and facilities at or near the border, staffed by multiple federal and non-profit agencies, to ensure one-stop screening of arrivals for nationality, criminality, unaccompanied minor status, asylum seeking, expedited removal and other characteristics. Such screening would then enable referral and handover to the appropriate agencies and procedures.
•    Improving the timeliness and fairness of the asylum process and relieving pressure on the overburdened immigration courts system by allowing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum officers who already handle initial interviews for protection to complete the full adjudication, with the courts serving as a review body in cases where asylum denials may be appealed.
•    Greater use of alternatives to detention, given their ability to ensure compliance by asylum seekers and other migrants in the removal process and to minimize detention, given serious concerns regarding conditions in private, for-profit prison facilities.
•    Rethinking immigration governance within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to strengthen leadership and coordination mechanisms, both intra-DHS and interagency, so that the immigration component agencies work in concert and function as elements of immigration as a system.

“MPI’s policy road map for managing border enforcement as a cross-agency and cross-governmental system would put changes into place that marry effective border security with fair, humane enforcement,” the brief concludes. “This will be especially important if a new administration comes into office with the inevitable appetite for unwinding today’s shutdown of border and asylum processes in ways that could ignite new flows absent better responses from those used in the past.”

The road map is the latest in the multi-year Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy Initiative, launched in 2019. The initiative is generating a big-picture, evidence-driven vision for the role immigration can and should play in America’s future. Reports focusing on the immigration detention system, the attorney general’s referral and review powers, regional migration flows and management, the immigration courts and a wide range of other topics will be published in the coming weeks and months.

Read the border enforcement road map here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/rethinking-us-mexico-border-immigration-enforcement.

See all of the work published to date by the Rethinking Immigration Initiative here: www.migrationpolicy.org/rethinking. And to keep up with the latest developments in the Rethinking initiative, sign up for updates here.

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PRESS RELEASE
November 9, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

New MPI Brief Looks at What Incoming Biden Administration’s Actions on Immigration Might Be, as Well as the Opportunities and Challenges

WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden pledged in his campaign to reverse some of the most restrictive immigration actions undertaken during Donald Trump’s four years in office, including family separation and a travel ban on nationals from majority-Muslim countries. He and running mate Kamala Harris also vowed to temporarily halt deportations, reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, increase refugee admissions and halt construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

The incoming administration is likely to face a number of challenges achieving these goals and advancing ambitious proposals of its own, not least because Republicans may continue to control the Senate if they win two runoff elections in Georgia in January. There are other challenges to undoing and rebuilding the immigration system, including the sheer number and scope of the more than 400 executive actions advanced by the Trump administration, some interlocking and thus more difficult to undo.

A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) policy brief, At the Starting Gate: The Incoming Biden Administration’s Immigration Plans, outlines some of the incoming administration’s top immigration priorities and examines challenges and opportunities ahead given the current reality.

For example, while Biden has said he intends to raise refugee resettlement from the current record low of 15,000 this year to 125,000, deep funding cuts to the operational capacity of the nonprofit network that resettles refugees will have to be reversed to enable a rapid scaling of significant resettlement. And while actions such as a return to Obama-era immigration enforcement priorities can be done via agency guidance, reversing other Trump actions, such as the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) public-charge regulation, will be more complex and take more time.

Drawing on existing and forthcoming policy ideas from MPI’s Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy initiative, the brief co-authored by Senior Fellow and former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner Doris Meissner sketches a number of proposals that could begin to shape a U.S. immigration system that advances the national interest going forward.  

The near-total shutdown of asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border does not represent a long-term strategy. Effective long-term solutions to deal with mixed flows of economic and humanitarian migrants entail processes to provide fair, efficient processing of asylum cases, including by having the USCIS Asylum Division oversee the merits of border asylum cases to completion—an MPI recommendation the Biden campaign has embraced.

The brief also recommends the creation of multiagency reception centers near the border for one-stop screening of arrivals and speedy turnover to the relevant agencies.

Although public support for immigration has risen to record levels, finding a pathway to legalization for the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants, with Biden pledging to issue a road map on his first day, will surely prove difficult to achieve in a divided Congress. The Biden team could first look to discrete populations, including recipients of DACA or Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and the spouses of U.S. citizens or green-card holders, the brief suggests.

While the Biden administration has opportunities to undo or redo actions created via executive order and agency guidance, in particular, the authors suggest that “given the plethora of changes the Trump administration has pushed to nearly every corner of the U.S. immigration system and what undoubtedly will be a less-intense focus on immigration during the Biden years amid competing priorities and interests, it seems likely that the Trump stamp will remain on significant aspects of immigration for years to come.”

Read the brief here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/starting-gate-biden-administration-immigration-plans.

It is the latest in the multi-year Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy initiative, launched in 2019. The initiative is generating a big-picture, evidence-driven vision for the role immigration can and should play in America’s future. Reports focusing on the immigration detention system, the attorney general’s referral and review powers, regional migration flows and management, the immigration courts and a wide range of other topics will be published in the coming weeks and months.

See all of the work published to date by the Rethinking Immigration Initiative here: www.migrationpolicy.org/rethinking. And to keep up with the latest developments in the Rethinking initiative, sign up for updates here.

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July 24, 2020

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Feature
Gaps in India’s Treatment of Refugees and Vulnerable Internal Migrants Are Exposed by the Pandemic
India has no refugee law and has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, leaving many of its estimated 250,000 recognized refugees in a legal gray area. Meanwhile, more than 450 million internal migrants form the foundation of the country''s economy, yet often have trouble accessing government benefits, identity cards, and other services. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought these shared vulnerabilities into stark relief.

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Southeastern Europe Looks to Engage its Diaspora to Offset the Impact of Depopulation
Southeastern Europe is experiencing one of the sharpest depopulations in the world, with countries such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia on pace to see their populations shrink by at least 15 percent in coming decades. To counter this trend, governments in the region, NGOs, and the private sector are increasingly, if unevenly, tapping into large diaspora communities to spur economic growth and strengthen cultural ties.

PRESS RELEASE
October 15, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
+1 202 266 1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

MPI Issues First-Ever U.S. and State Analysis of Immigrant-Origin Students Enrolled in Colleges and Universities

First & Second Generation Make Up Biggest Share of Enrollment Growth Since 2000

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PRESS RELEASE
November 23, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

U.S. Faces Key Opportunity to Reset Cooperation with Mexico and Central America & Build a Workable Regional Migration System

WASHINGTON — Migration from Central America and Mexico to the United States is an enduring, often shifting phenomenon that demands intelligent management. While the Trump administration focused heavily on a unilateral, enforcement-only approach to managing migration from the region, the strategy is unlikely to be sustainable.

As the incoming Biden administration begins to formulate its immigration policy agenda, it faces a signal opportunity to create a sustainable strategy, one built around regional cooperation. Such a strategy will not end illegal immigration entirely, an oft-cited if unrealistic policy aim, but stands a chance of managing it more effectively while also allowing the countries in the region—including the United States—to better harness the value of immigration.

A new report from the Migration Policy Institute’s Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy initiative, Building a New Regional Migration System: Redefining U.S. Cooperation with Mexico and Central America, outlines a strategy to turn some of the region’s unauthorized migration flows into legal ones, restore access to humanitarian protection, professionalize border enforcement and make targeted investments to address some of the pressures that contribute to large-scale emigration.

The report, by MPI President Andrew Selee and Policy Analyst Ariel Ruiz Soto, offers the elements that a successful regional cooperation strategy should encompass:

• Expanded temporary labor migration pathways. Extending seasonal work visas, currently primarily allotted to Mexican nationals, to workers from Central America would help reduce irregular movements and provide economic migrants with short-term employment opportunities. Incentivizing employers to develop talent pipelines in the region and improving visa programs so that they are flexible and preferential to the countries with high migration pressures (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador) may facilitate more orderly and transparent migration flows.
  
• Rebuilding humanitarian protection systems. Following the Trump administration’s near-total ending of asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, the incoming administration should move to re-establish fair asylum procedures while taking actions to streamline the process and relieve an overburdened immigration court system. Among other steps to revive humanitarian protection, the United States should create alternative ways to protect those facing persecution, including with in-country protection programs that identify them closer to home and resettling some through refugee programs as part of a multilateral effort that involves Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and other countries in close coordination with UN agencies.
  
• Ensuring transparent and rules-based border enforcement. While enforcement of immigration laws will continue to be a central component of a regional migration management strategy, U.S. and Mexican enforcement measures should be transparent, rules-based and prioritize humanitarian considerations, including in the United States by way of alternatives to detention.
  
• Investment in economic and institutional development in countries of origin. While Mexico and Central American countries have made economic advancements, the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to exacerbate existing economic and social pressures that lead people to migrate. Devising innovative strategies, such as leveraging remittances for economic development and strengthening institutions that protect the rule of law, serve migration management goals alongside regional security and economic growth.

“To move the needle towards safer, more orderly, and legal migration, the United States will need to enhance collaboration across the region and, together with its partners, design and implement a multifaceted regional approach to an enduring regional phenomenon,” said Selee.

Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/new-regional-migration-system-us-mexico-central-america.

In a related article in Americas Quarterly, Selee noted the stakes are high, and the incoming administration must make its policy moves carefully lest it incentivize new immigration flows towards the U.S. border with a resulting new border crisis, particularly given the devastation in Central America wrought by Hurricanes Eta and Iota, as well as the dire effects of the pandemic on the region. “At a time of economic crisis, Central American countries have enormous opportunities to change their economic models towards a more inclusive pattern of growth. And external partners, including a new U.S. administration, can play a critical role in this process, so that the on-and-off cycle of irregular migration eventually becomes a thing of the past,” he writes.

The regional migration cooperation report is part of the multi-year Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy Initiative, launched in 2019. The initiative is generating a big-picture, evidence-driven vision for the role immigration can and should play in America’s future. Reports focusing on the immigration detention system, the attorney general’s referral and review powers, the immigration courts and a wide range of other topics will be published in the coming weeks and months.

See all of the work published to date by the Rethinking Immigration Initiative here: www.migrationpolicy.org/rethinking. And to keep up with the latest developments in the Rethinking initiative, sign up for updates here.

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Migration Policy Institute
1400 16th St NW, # 300
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Feature
Criminalization of Search-and-Rescue Operations in the Mediterranean Has Been Accompanied by Rising Migrant Death Rate
Even as the number of people making the dangerous journey through the Central Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe has declined since the migration and refugee crisis of 2015-16, the rate of deaths has increased. This article evaluates the role of Europe''s hardening approach to trans-Mediterranean migration and the criminalization of search-and-rescue operations by nongovernmental organizations.

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COVID-19 Pandemic Profoundly Affects Bangladeshi Workers Abroad with Consequences for Origin Communities
Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest migrant-origin countries, and money sent home by its workers abroad is crucial to an economy that has become one of the more vibrant ones in South Asia. Against this backdrop, the COVID-19 pandemic has injected turmoil into the economy as Bangladeshi migrants have lost their jobs, families are seeing reduced remittances, and would-be migrant workers have had to shelve their plans to work abroad.

Spotlight
Filipino Immigrants in the United States in 2018

October 1, 2020

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PRESS RELEASE
December 16, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910 | +44 208 123 6265
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

The Complex Relationship between Climate Change and Human Mobility Requires Collaborative, Flexible Thinking about Adaptation

WASHINGTON — The relationship between climate change and human mobility is far more complex than is often portrayed. Despite tendencies to use the label climate migration, it is difficult to predict the impacts of climate change on human mobility, in particular given that climate effects such as drought and coastal flooding can actually suppress movement under certain conditions. Increased mobility also is sometimes uniquely attributed to climate change even as other factors, such as globalization and urbanization, are involved.

A new report for the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council on Migration, New Approaches to Climate Change and Migration: Building the Adaptive Capacity of Mobile Populations, explores the multifaceted ways that individuals and communities adapt to environmental risks, including but not limited to mobility.

Drawing on case studies from the Pacific Islands, West Africa and Southeast Asia, Carol Farbotko of Australia’s University of the Sunshine Coast argues that a framework that prioritizes the agency of affected communities not only permits a more nuanced understanding of risk-mitigation strategies but also highlights the importance of collaboratively designed solutions.

The concept of “adaptive capacity” provides a useful framework to understand how individuals and communities respond to climate hazards, based on individual and household characteristics, resources and infrastructure, institutional responses and cultural or religious beliefs. While certain individuals experiencing the impacts of climate change may choose to migrate, others, due to resource limitations, cultural ties to their land or trans-local support may not. Rather than a failure to adapt, mobility represents one of many strategic responses that might be adopted.

Despite international efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change on at-risk communities, programs have been largely unsuccessful. In order to improve livelihoods, reduce vulnerabilities and facilitate sustainable adaptations, officials should work collaboratively with affected communities to tap into local knowledge and respond to context-specific, oftentimes overlapping needs. To support this process, the report presents an alternative “adaptation pathways approach,” through which incremental, flexible responses can be co-developed by governments, affected communities and other stakeholders.  

Potential strategies could include:

•    Experimenting with innovative labor mobility: Given the interconnected nature of economic and environmental pressures, policymakers should explore innovative labor mobility opportunities. At the same time, it will be crucial for these programs to mitigate the vulnerabilities often associated with temporary labor migration programs by addressing the needs of workers and providing opportunities for upskilling.
•    Improving access to labor mobility programs: Governments already benefitting from regional mobility could consider how to gradually modify current programs to make them more accessible to those from areas most affected by climate change.
•    Leveraging public opinion in destination countries: Building support for policy solutions that address the needs of both receiving and sending countries, such as addressing workforce shortages through labor migration from climate-affected areas, might garner more public support in politically divisive environments than purely humanitarian-focused programs.

“Policy solutions that assume that mobility is evidence of a failure to adapt miss an important point: mobility can itself be adaptive, but it can also compound existing economic and social marginalization,” Farbotko writes. “Local, national and international development approaches need to better understand and address this relationship and work across portfolios to craft creative solutions accordingly.”

This report is the first of the Transatlantic Council’s series entitled “Coming Together or Coming Apart? A New Phase of International Cooperation on Migration.”

Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/climate-change-building-adaptive-capacity.

And for more on climate change and migration, please check out a special series in MPI’s online journal, the Migration Information Source, as well as a new podcast, Changing Climate, Changing Migration.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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PRESS RELEASE
December 17, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

Even as the U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population Remains Steady in Size, Its Composition Is Shifting, MPI Finds

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PRESS RELEASE
  June 30, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Arizona State University President Michael Crow Co-Chair New MPI Advisory Board

WASHINGTON — The Migration Policy Institute’s newly constituted advisory board convened for the first time on June 29, assembling members with distinguished records in government, the corporate and philanthropic sectors, the legal and education fields, immigrant service and advocacy, research, diplomacy and academia in the United States, Europe and Latin America.

The advisory board is co-chaired by former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who is a partner at Paul, Weiss, and influential higher education innovator Dr. Michael M. Crow, who is president of Arizona State University. Dr. Crow is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and National Academy of Public Administration, and university vice chairman of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness. Prior to becoming secretary of homeland security, Johnson was general counsel of the Defense Department and general counsel of the Air Force.

The advisory board was created by the MPI Board of Trustees to offer advice to the trustees and staff leadership on U.S. immigration policy issues, as well as expand the institute''s networks. Advisory board members will serve a two-year term, meeting at least twice a year to offer advice on the policy and political environments affecting immigration issues.

“It has been a long-held goal for the MPI board of trustees to create an advisory board, and we are incredibly pleased that so many distinguished public figures have agreed to share their insights with us,” said James W. Ziglar, who chairs the board of trustees and is former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Said MPI President Andrew Selee: “As immigration issues move further to the fore of public debates in the United States, we are immensely pleased to have a group of important thinkers, policymakers and researchers on immigration issues, with an international perspective, who can inform our work and help us position MPI for the future. And we are deeply appreciative to Secretary Johnson and President Crow for taking the leadership of this advisory board.”

The advisory board members were joined during the meeting by Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) and Will Hurd (R-TX) for a conversation about immigration policy.

Beyond Co-Chairs Jeh Johnson and Michael Crow, members of the advisory board are:

• Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a non-partisan public policy research organization focusing on trade, immigration and related issues. A former congressional staffer to Republican senators, Anderson served as executive associate commissioner for policy and planning at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
• Julissa Arce, a former Wall Street executive and best-selling author of My (Underground) American Dream (Entre Las Sombras del Sueño Americano) and Someone Like Me (Alguien Como Yo), who now advocates for social justice, immigrant rights and education equality. She is the co-founder and chair of the board of the Ascend Educational Fund, a scholarship and mentorship program for immigrant college students.
• Ron Barber, who represented Arizona''s 2nd Congressional District in Congress from 2012 to 2015. The Arizona Democrat served on the House Homeland Security Committee, where he was ranking member on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency.
• Jon Baselice, executive director of immigration policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and former advisor to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), including during key congressional debates over immigration reform.
• Alan D. Bersin, a policy consultant at Covington & Burling LLP and former assistant secretary of homeland security, as well as former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and former special representative for border affairs in the Department of Homeland Security.
• Bo Cooper, a partner in Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy’s Washington, DC office, and former general counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
• Russell C. Deyo, former acting deputy secretary of homeland security and former undersecretary for management at the Department of Homeland Security, which he joined after 27 years with Johnson & Johnson, where he served as general counsel among other high-ranking positions.
• Lynda Gonzales-Chavez, senior vice president and chief diversity, inclusion and global officer at the YMCA of the USA.
• Ximena Hartsock, co-founder and president of Phone2Action, a comprehensive digital engagement and communications platform for grassroots advocacy, public affairs, and government relations.
• Antonia Hernández, president and chief executive officer of the California Community Foundation, one of Southern California’s largest and most active philanthropic organizations, serving Angelenos for over a century. She is former president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF).
• James Loy, senior counselor at the Cohen Group and former deputy secretary of homeland security and former undersecretary of transportation. Admiral Loy retired from the U.S. Coast Guard in 2002, having served as its commandant since 1998.
• Mary E. McClymont, adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and former chair of MPI’s board of trustees, as well as former president and chief executive officer of the Public Welfare Foundation, a national private grantmaking foundation working to advance justice and opportunity for people in need.
  
• Lynden Melmed, a partner with Berry Appleman & Leiden LLP and former chief counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and former special counsel to Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas).
• Trevor Phillips OBE, an award-winning writer, TV producer and businessman who was founding chair of both the Greater London Authority and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
• Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, project director for the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) Labor and Education Center and director of the Institute for Transnational Social Change. Dr. Rivera-Salgado teaches on work, labor and social justice in the United States and on immigration issues.
• Reihan Salam, the Manhattan Institute’s president and previously executive editor of National Review. He is a contributing editor at The Atlantic, National Affairs, and National Review, and is the author of Melting Pot or Civil War?
• Arturo Sarukhan, president of Sarukhan + Associates, LLC, and former Mexican ambassador to the United States.
• Mariko Silver, president and CEO of the Henry Luce Foundation and former president of Bennington College. During the Obama administration, Dr. Silver served as acting assistant secretary of homeland security and deputy assistant secretary for international policy.
• Madeleine Sumption MBE, director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University and member of the Migration Advisory Committee, an independent panel that advises the UK government on migration issues. She is a former director of research for the international program at MPI and remains a nonresident fellow with MPI Europe.
• Anna Terrón Cusí, director of the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies, and previously Spain’s state secretary for immigration and a former member of the European Parliament.
• Julie Myers Wood, chief executive officer at Guidepost Solutions, an investigations, compliance and security firm and former high-ranking official with the U.S. departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Treasury and Commerce, as well as at the White House. She directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• Monette Zard, director of the Forced Migration and Health Program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and former global human rights program officer at the Ford Foundation and research director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy in Geneva, a think tank focused on applied human-rights research. She is a former MPI policy analyst.

For more on the advisory board members, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/about/advisory-board.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels.

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PRESS RELEASE
  July 22, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

Underutilized High-Skilled Immigrants with Health Care Degrees Represent Untapped Pool of Talent as U.S. Struggles with COVID-19 Response

New MPI fact sheet offers first-ever state profiles of these workers

WASHINGTON — As hospitals in hotspots across the United States are strained by COVID-19 cases, an estimated 263,000 high-skilled immigrants and refugees with health-related undergraduate degrees are either employed in low-skilled jobs requiring no more than a high school diploma or are out of work. A new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) fact sheet offers the first state-level profiles of these underemployed workers, who are found all over the country, not just in traditional immigrant-gateway states.

These 263,000 immigrants and refugees, who majored in a health-related field (nearly half of them in nursing) as undergraduates, have been largely sidelined as a result of barriers including difficulty getting their academic credentials recognized and limited professional networks. These hurdles are keeping many from joining the 12.1 million U.S. born and more than 2.6 million immigrants employed in the health care field before the coronavirus outbreak began.

The fact sheet, Brain Waste among U.S. Immigrants with Health Degrees: A Multi-State Profile, uses data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Labor to offer a profile of where these immigrant professionals live, the languages they speak, their English proficiency, college degree majors and legal status. The fact sheet also offers an overview of policies in the eight states (Colorado, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania) where governors have used their executive authority to temporarily suspend or adjust licensing requirements for certain health professions, including for internationally trained health care professionals.

The researchers find that the 263,000 foreign-born health professionals experiencing skill underutilization (also known as “brain waste”):

• Are widely distributed across the United States. Beyond the traditional top immigrant destinations of California, Florida, Texas, New York and New Jersey, sizeable numbers of these health care professionals can be found in states such as Georgia and Washington (8,000 apiece); North Carolina and Michigan (6,000 each); and Tennessee and Connecticut (3,000 apiece).
• Speak languages that overlap substantially with those spoken by Limited English Proficient (LEP) populations in the states where they live, making them a potentially valuable resource in providing linguistically and culturally competent care and serving as a public health resource in their communities.
• Are overwhelmingly in the United States legally, with more than 80 percent legally present as naturalized U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, humanitarian migrants and holders of temporary nonimmigrant visas.

Even as U.S. health care workers experienced severe job losses in the health sector in March and April amid stay-at-home orders and shutdowns, immigrants with health care degrees who are on the sidelines represent a valuable asset during a public health crisis because of their linguistic skills and backgrounds. “These highly educated immigrants offer both language and cultural skills that are not replicated in the current health care labor force,” write authors Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix and Sarah Pierce.

Given that these language and cultural skills may allow them to communicate more effectively on sensitive topics such as disease and the movements and associations of a person possibly exposed to the coronavirus, the fact sheet suggests this talent pool could be tapped as contact tracers as states ramp up testing and tracing.

“With the disease spreading particularly fast among Latino and other immigrant and minority communities, broad demand for the kind skills that many underutilized immigrants with health degrees offer should be high not just in tracing networks, but in other emergency and nonemergency settings,” the authors add.

Read the fact sheet here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/brain-waste-immigrants-health-degrees-multi-state-profile.

Get state profiles of underemployed immigrant workers with health care degrees, including their race/ethnicity, legal status, degree majors, origin countries and proficiency in languages other than English: www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/datahub/MPI_HealthCare-Brainwaste_State-Profiles.xlsx

For all of MPI’s research, analysis and commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic, including of immigrants working in health care and other frontline pandemic-response occupations, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/coronavirus.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels.

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PRESS RELEASE
December 9, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

MPI Welcomes Three Fellows with Distinguished Experience in Research and Policy Analysis in Latin America

WASHINGTON — The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is pleased to announce the selection of three non-resident fellows from Latin America who will help the institute deepen its existing work and networks in Mexico, Central America and South America. The three scholars, who have longstanding ties to MPI, have extensive experience leading and coordinating interdisciplinary research on migration and development in Latin America, as well as U.S.-Latin America relations.

They are:

• Luisa Feline Freier is an associate professor of political science at the Universidad del Pacifico in Peru, where she specializes in Latin American migration policies and the Venezuelan displacement crisis. She is a migration research and publishing high-level adviser for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and is a founding member of the Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas Research Group.

• Luciana Gandini is a senior researcher in sociology at the Institute of Legal Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and a visiting scholar at American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies. In 2017, she founded the international network Migrare, composed of more than 200 migration specialists from Latin America and beyond. She is also a member of the Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas Research Group.
  

• Jorge Schiavon is a professor of international relations at the International Studies Department of the Center of Economic Research and Teaching (CIDE) in Mexico and is the coordinator of CIDE’s Interdisciplinary Program on Migration. He is also the former president of the CIDE Foundation and of the Mexican International Studies Association (AMEI).

“We are delighted that Feline, Luciana and Jorge will be joining us at a crucial moment for migration research and policy development in Latin America,” said MPI President Andrew Selee. “As the region continues to be tested by the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges of developing migration policies for the future, our new fellows have the deep knowledge, experience and regional ties to effectively understand the challenges the region is facing and advance innovative responses.”

Throughout its existence, MPI has focused on Mexico and Central America. More recently, under Selee’s leadership, the institute has deepened its focus in this region and extended its efforts to South America and the Caribbean.

Earlier this year, MPI launched its Latin America and Caribbean Migration Portal, which is a clearinghouse for original research, country-specific data and analysis on migration in the region. The portal, offered in English and Spanish, is updated weekly with authoritative research, insights, legislative texts, data and more.  

To learn more about MPI’s staff and fellows, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/about/staff.

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PRESS RELEASE
  June 2, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

Amid the Pandemic’s Massive Job Dislocation in the U.S., Female Immigrants and Latinos Are Among the Hardest Hit, MPI Study Finds

MPI also launches interactive data tool to trace unemployment over time by industry & more

WASHINGTON — Even as the pandemic-induced loss of more than 40 million jobs between mid-March and late May has dealt a devastating blow across the United States, its effects have been most pronounced on certain demographic groups. Those experiencing the highest unemployment rates: Immigrant women and, regardless whether they were born in or outside the United States, Latinos and workers with less than a high school degree or under age 25.

A new Migration Policy Institute data analysis of unemployment by nativity, gender, race/ethnicity, age, education and industry of employment finds Latina immigrants had the highest jobless rate of all racial and ethnic groups in April: 22 percent. Just 38 percent of working-age Latina immigrants were employed in April when the unemployment rate is considered alongside the labor force participation rate. Overall, immigrant women of every major racial/ethnic group—with the exception of those who are black—had higher unemployment rates than men, regardless of their educational level.

With the U.S. unemployment rate nearly hitting 15 percent at last official tally in April, joblessness has been especially high among young workers: 30 percent for those who are foreign born, and 27 percent for the U.S. born. The news has also been grim for workers without a high school degree, immigrant and U.S. born alike, with unemployment exceeding 20 percent. By comparison, 10 percent of immigrants with a four-year college degree were unemployed, just above the 8 percent rate for their U.S.-born peers.

Overall, Latinos experienced the highest unemployment rates by race/ethnicity in April, at 18 percent and 19 percent for the U.S. born and foreign born respectively, outpacing black, Asian American and Pacific Islander and white workers. (Check out this interactive data tool to examine changing unemployment rates, pre-pandemic and now, by industry, race and ethnicity, and educational attainment and to compare different groups by nativity and gender.)

The fact sheet, COVID-19 and Unemployment: Assessing the Early Fallout for Immigrants and Other U.S. Workers, contrasts the current labor market dislocations with the last recession, in 2008-09. Then, as now, immigrants have been among the hardest hit early on because of their relative youth and lower levels of formal education. However, the MPI analysis finds a more significant reason for the current disproportionate impact on immigrants: Their concentration in service industries such as retail trade and leisure and hospitality.

Comparing monthly U.S. Census Bureau data from January (before the coronavirus chilled the labor market) and April, MPI finds unemployment in April within almost every industry was nearly as high among U.S.-born workers as immigrants. This was particularly true in the hardest-hit industries of leisure and hospitality (38 percent for natives versus 39 percent for immigrants); personal and other services (21 percent versus 26 percent); and retail trade (18 percent versus 20 percent). But immigrant workers were more heavily concentrated than U.S.-born workers in these industries, accounting for the disproportionate impact.

“Whether these high levels of joblessness and employment gaps by race, ethnicity, nativity, age and gender continue over the long run is highly uncertain. While it took several years for unemployment rates to return to historic averages after the 2008-09 recession, they did so faster for Latino immigrants than for U.S.-born workers,” write MPI researchers Randy Capps, Jeanne Batalova and Julia Gelatt. “Whether unemployment drops and immigrants can quickly regain parity with natives will depend on the pandemic’s trajectory, changes in state and local social-distancing rules, the job market’s response and the effectiveness of government stimulus policies—all unknowable factors at the present time.”

Read the fact sheet here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/covid-19-unemployment-immigrants-other-us-workers.

Access the interactive data tool here: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/migration-data-hub/us-unemployment-trends-during-pandemic.

For all MPI research, data and commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic, visit www.migrationpolicy.org/coronavirus.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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PRESS RELEASE
April 9, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

Is a U.S. Immigration System Rebuilt after 9/11 Prepared to Tackle Continually Evolving Security Threats, Including Pandemics? New MPI Report Assesses Successes, Gaps

WASHINGTON – The U.S. immigration system was dramatically reshaped by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which shone a harsh spotlight on weaknesses in visa and immigration screening processes. From the creation of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to expanded national security protections in immigration and tourism policies, countless changes in the immigration arena have unfolded over the past 19 years. Yet the extent to which the federal government is postured to address continually evolving national and global security threats remains an open question—made all the more urgent as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates.

In a new report for the Migration Policy Institute’s Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy Initiative, former White House Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Amy Pope considers the range of increasingly complex security threats U.S. immigration policy must manage, the tools available to respond and successes as well as challenges in innovating as threats evolve. The report, Immigration and U.S. National Security: The State of Play Since 9/11, traces the evolution of an immigration and border control bureaucracy reshaped in the wake of 9/11 to respond to the most pressing issues of the day but torn in different directions from the outset and confronting evolving realities.

Noting the embrace of new technologies and risk management techniques; greater information sharing between intelligence, immigration and law enforcement agencies; increased cooperation with foreign governments; externalizing operations beyond the U.S. border; and unprecedented resources for federal immigration agencies, the U.S. government “ha[s] been able to successfully address many complex security threats,” Pope writes.

Yet serious challenges remain. And newer challenges, such as disease, loom. Among them: overlapping functions that have diluted some of the post-9/11 clarity of mission, a shift in focus to different priorities, the Trump administration’s prioritization over all other immigration issues of a border wall and narrowing of asylum, and, most importantly, lack of a mechanism to set government-wide policy and drive cooperation among agencies with immigration responsibilities.

“The U.S. government has made important progress in the nearly 20 years since 9/11 in shoring up gaps in its defenses at the nexus of immigration processes and national security,” the report concludes. “However, continuing on the path of misrepresenting migration-management imperatives as against true security threats risks undermining U.S. homeland security and leaving the country less able to counter the real national security challenges of the 21st century.”

Viewing immigrants and immigration functions chiefly through a security lens clouds the picture of who and what pose a national security threat. “Concerningly, the national security mission of many agencies with an immigration function is regularly conflated with and diluted by other functions, especially managing migration along the U.S.-Mexico border,” Pope writes. “Resources and political will have been steered away from core DHS national security missions, including disaster response, cyber security, protection against weapons of mass destruction and general policy and planning in favor of immigration enforcement measures focused on low-risk unauthorized migrants and asylum seekers.”

The report is the latest in the multi-year Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy Initiative, launched in 2019. The initiative aims to generate a big-picture, evidence-driven vision for the role immigration can and should play in America’s future.

Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigration-us-national-security-since-911.

See earlier work in the Rethinking Immigration Initiative here: www.migrationpolicy.org/rethinkingimmigration.

To keep up with the latest developments in the Rethinking initiative, sign up for updates here.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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PRESS RELEASE
May 7, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

As Millions Are Pushed from Jobs amid Pandemic, the Loss of Employer Health Coverage & Limited Access to Public Coverage for Many Immigrants Hold Major Implications for Them – and U.S. Overall

WASHINGTON – As more than 33 million U.S. workers have lost their jobs since March amid the pandemic-induced economic crisis, immigrants are among the most vulnerable: They are more likely than the U.S. born to be laid off and to live in communities with high COVID-19 infection rates, and less likely to have health insurance coverage and access to a doctor or other usual source of health care. The resulting barriers to testing and treatment for the virus hold significant implications for immigrants and their families, of course, but also for the wider community if non-citizens do not have timely access to health care when facing possible coronavirus symptoms.

“The undetected and unchecked spread of the virus among any segment of the U.S. population risks driving further transmission to others, with severe consequences for communities across the country,” Randy Capps and Julia Gelatt write in a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) fact sheet. “And as it affects the health and well-being of essential workers, many of whom are immigrants, the spread of the virus places stress on the health care system, food supply and access to other necessities for all.”

Between February and March, the number of unemployed immigrants increased by 30 percent, compared to 17 percent for U.S.-born workers. The rapid job loss, occurring even before most state lockdowns had kicked in, marked the start of steep declines in employer-based health insurance coverage for the native born and immigrants alike. This trend may be even more pronounced for immigrants, as Capps and Gelatt explain, because immigrants disproportionately worked, pre-pandemic, in the types of businesses (retail, food service and hospitality, for example) that were hit first and hardest as government officials issued orders closing non-essential businesses and/or requiring residents to stay at home.

In this context, immigrants—like other U.S. residents—are becoming increasingly dependent on publicly funded health care for screening and treatment, should they develop symptoms of the virus. But many immigrants who have not become U.S. citizens (a category that includes legal permanent residents, temporary workers and other non-immigrants as well as unauthorized immigrants) do not qualify for Medicaid—the main public health insurance program for low-income people—because of eligibility restrictions related to immigration status. (For example, most legal permanent residents, aka green card holders, must have five years in that status before gaining eligibility; unauthorized immigrants are generally barred from Medicaid and a number of other means-tested public-benefit programs.)

Even before the pandemic, millions of U.S. residents were uninsured: 28.6 million overall in 2018, with an estimated 7.7 million of them non-citizens.

The fact sheet offers U.S. and state-level estimates of the numbers of low-income uninsured non-citizens who are excluded from Medicaid based on their immigration status, using three employment scenarios: the pre-pandemic 4 percent unemployment rate, the jobless rate of 17. 5 percent hit at the end of April and a high scenario of 25 percent, which mirrors the rate during the depth of the Great Depression. Drawing on a unique MPI methodology that permits the assignment of legal status in U.S. Census Bureau data, the fact sheet finds that a spike in joblessness from the 4 percent rate pre-pandemic to a hypothetical 25 percent rate could add 1.1 million low-income non-citizens to the rolls of those ineligible for Medicaid based on their legal status. MPI estimates:

• At the 4 percent, pre-COVID jobless rate: 7.7 million non-citizens likely lacked private or public health insurance, with 2.6 million low-income non-citizens (comprised of 2.1 million unauthorized immigrants and 500,000 green card holders and temporary non-immigrants) facing Medicaid exclusions based on their legal status.
• At the 17.5 percent rate: The number of non-citizens lacking private or public insurance would rise to 9.3 million, with 3.2 million of them (2.5 million unauthorized immigrants and 700,000 green card holders and non-immigrants) ineligible for Medicaid.
• At 25 percent unemployment: 3.7 million non-citizens would be excluded from Medicaid (including 2.9 million unauthorized immigrants and 800,000 green card holders and non-immigrants), out of a pool of 10.8 million non-citizens lacking private or public coverage.

While Congress has included funding for COVID-19 testing and treatment for the uninsured in recent pandemic relief packages, lawmakers did not lift Medicaid eligibility bars for non-citizens. There are widespread reports of low-income U.S. residents—citizen and non-citizen alike—avoiding COVID-19 testing and treatment because they cannot afford them. Some non-citizens may also forgo testing and treatment because they fear immigration enforcement or worry that if they enroll in Medicaid, the new public-charge rule could disqualify them from getting a green card.

Read the fact sheet, Barriers to COVID-19 Testing and Treatment: Immigrants without Health Insurance Coverage in the United States, here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/covid-19-testing-treatment-immigrants-health-insurance.

For detailed U.S. and state data tables showing the size of uninsured populations by citizenship and immigration status, with breakdowns for low-income populations as well as children 18 and under, for the three unemployment scenarios modeled by MPI, click here.

For all of MPI’s research, analysis and commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/coronavirus.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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PRESS RELEASE
  July 16, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

New MPI Report Details Growing Obstacles to U.S. Citizenship & Examines Potential for Further Disruption due to COVID-19 Slowdown, USCIS Budget Turmoil & Fee Increases

WASHINGTON — The 9 million immigrants who are eligible for U.S. citizenship face growing obstacles to naturalization as the result of changed U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) adjudications standards and a recasting of the agency’s mission to prioritize fraud detection over customer service, a Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysis of a survey of 110 naturalization assistance providers across the United States finds.

While USCIS continues to approve the vast majority of naturalization applications it receives, the agency took nearly twice as long to process the average case in fiscal 2019 than was the case three years earlier, with case backlogs increasing as applications have been kicked back more frequently with requests for more information and English and civics tests have been administered more strictly. This increased vetting of applications was happening before a trio of new developments could significantly reduce citizenship acquisition for qualified immigrants in the months and years ahead:

• COVID-19-related delays that shut down USCIS in-person interviews for three months, delaying the citizenship oath-taking for more than 100,000 would-be Americans,
• the imminent furlough of two-thirds of the agency’s staff in early August unless Congress provides emergency funding to address a $1.2 billion budget shortfall, and
• a citizenship fee increase from $640 to up to $1,170 that is scheduled to go into effect in September, alongside a restriction in eligibility for fee waivers for low-income applicants.

“The seeds of the current budget crisis were sown before the pandemic when USCIS put more intensive vetting and fraud detection in place, along with other policies that have reduced application levels,” said Randy Capps, who is director for research for U.S. programs at MPI. “Now the pandemic and anticipated furlough threaten to further slow application processing at the same time that the fee is set to increase substantially, creating much higher hurdles and potentially deterring people from applying for citizenship.”

In its latest report, MPI examines the effects of changing USCIS standards and procedures during the Trump administration, drawing from a survey of 110 naturalization assistance providers in 34 metro areas administered by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) between March – September 2019. These groups are among more than 200 providers in the ILRC’s New Americans Campaign, which has assisted more than 470,000 people in completing their citizenship applications.

The report, A Rockier Road to U.S. Citizenship? Findings of a Survey on Changing Naturalization Procedures, finds:

• About one-quarter of survey respondents reported their clients missed interviews when USCIS sent notices to incorrect addresses, sent them too late or sent them to the attorney, not the applicant.
• More than one-third reported USCIS more often issued requests for evidence (RFEs) to support applications, especially for documents related to tax compliance and income, continuous residency and physical presence, marriage and child support, and criminal history, with one-quarter reporting substantially more documents being required.
• USCIS officers asked detailed questions not directly related to citizenship eligibility, and administered the English and civics tests differently, often more strictly, according to 10 percent of respondents.

Most of these changes were common among the 52 USCIS offices across the country covered by the survey, suggesting these shifts in adjudication practice likely represent changes in USCIS policy or broad-based agency culture, rather than being limited to individual office or adjudicator practices.

The report underscores the importance of oversight of naturalization procedures to ensure that the country reserves citizenship for those who fully meet its requirements and preserves the lawful claims of legal permanent residents to the full civic and political rights that citizenship brings. Yet even as USCIS has shifted its mission to increased vetting and fraud detection, studies have shown little to no evidence of naturalization fraud.

“USCIS’ stricter adjudicating processes have accomplished nothing aside from increasing the time and costs associated with completing the naturalization process,” said Eric Cohen, executive director of the ILRC. “Increased obstacles to citizenship prevent qualified U.S. residents from voting, running for public office, traveling without visas to many other countries, sponsoring family for immigration and many other benefits. They have no demonstrated impact on fraud prevention, which is nearly non-existent to begin with.”

Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/changing-uscis-naturalization-procedures.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels.

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PRESS RELEASE
November 24, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

Dual Roles as Workers and Parents May Account for Steeper Decline in Employment during Pandemic for Immigrant Women with School-Age Children

Data tool to trace unemployment pre/during pandemic by nativity, gender & more updated monthly

WASHINGTON — Fewer than half of all working-age immigrant women in the United States were employed in September, a 7 percentage point swing from their 53 percent employment rate in January before COVID-19-induced job dislocation began, a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysis shows.

Immigrant women entered the pandemic-induced recession with unemployment rates similar to those of other groups. Yet they have been among the most affected by pandemic-related job losses, seeing their unemployment peak at 18.5 percent before declining to 11.2 percent in September even as jobless rates for immigrant men and U.S.-born men and women never topped 16 percent and fell below 8 percent in September.

A new MPI fact sheet seeks to explain why immigrant women have been hit so hard by the coronavirus-induced recession, which triggered unemployment levels unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The MPI researchers suggest the drop in employment for foreign-born women may be due, in part, to their often-dual roles as workers and parents.

Immigrant and U.S.-born women alike with school-age children (ages 5 to 17) faced a steeper decline in employment than women without such children, and immigrant women were more likely than their U.S.-born peers to have children within this age range (26 percent versus 17 percent). Thus, the decline in immigrant women’s employment may reflect the difficulties they experienced working while supervising their children’s at-home schooling in many parts of the country where schools were operating remotely.

The concentration of immigrant women in certain labor market niches may also explain their stubbornly high unemployment rate. Overall, they were only slightly over-represented in leisure and hospitality—the industry responsible for almost one-third of all U.S. job losses between January and September. But they were concentrated in several leisure and hospitality occupations (such as waitstaff, maids and housekeepers) that saw the largest job losses. As a result, immigrant women working in that industry had a higher unemployment rate in September than did other workers: 28 percent versus under 20 percent.

“Immigrant women represented 7 percent of the labor force before the current recession, and higher shares in many major metropolitan areas. Their absence from the workforce—alongside other groups of newly unemployed workers—may impede overall economic recovery,” the authors write, suggesting that economic recovery efforts that include a focus on improving access to child-care services and job training to move up the ladder within sectors or shift to different industries could be beneficial.

The fact sheet, An Early Readout on the Economic Effects of the COVID-19 Crisis: Immigrant Women Have the Highest Unemployment, can be read here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/early-readout-economic-effects-covid-19-crisis-immigrant-women. It follows an earlier one contrasting the current labor market dislocations with the last recession, in 2008-09.

Access an interactive data tool showing monthly unemployment rates before and during the pandemic by nativity, gender, race/ethnicity, educational attainment and industry of employment here: www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/migration-data-hub/us-unemployment-trends-during-pandemic.

For all MPI research, data and commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic, visit www.migrationpolicy.org/coronavirus.

The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org.

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May 6, 2020

Dear Harper,

The COVID-19 virus has reshaped countless facets of our daily lives. In the realm of international human mobility, its effects have been profound in countries around the world, with resulting travel bans, border closures, limits on asylum, and a temporary pause on refugee resettlement, among other responses. Some of these policy changes are likely to be short term, while others could leave a permanent mark.

As governments have raced to implement policies limiting movement and responding to the economic fallout from stay-at-home orders and suspension of nonessential activities, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has been assessing the effects of those policies and how they intersect with immigration and immigrants, the role of immigrant workers in frontline sectors such as agriculture and health care, and what immigration systems might—and should—look like post-pandemic.

All of our resources—from research and commentaries to infographics, webcasts, and articles—are collected here: www.migrationpolicy.org/topics/coronavirus.

Each week, we’ll offer a brief newsletter showcasing some of our most recent work in this area. We invite you to sign up for updates on our COVID-19 work, and to share with your networks.

Wishing you safety and good health,

Andrew Selee, PhD
President
Migration Policy Institute

Article

Under Lockdown Amid COVID-19 Pandemic, Europe Feels the Pinch from Slowed Intra-EU Labor Mobility

Border closures and lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic have put a chill on intra-EU labour mobility, most immediately with the difficulty for European farmers to gain access to much-needed seasonal workers and for health-care institutions to get care workers. This article explores how these workers, who often face difficult situations, may be more vulnerable now. It also takes on implications for intra-EU labour mobility post-pandemic.

Read more

Infographic

An Untapped Pool of Critical U.S. Health-Care Workers in a Time of Pandemic

As the U.S. health-care system sags under the strain of COVID-19, health-care workers are not only on the frontlines fighting the virus, they are also some of the most at-risk individuals, making it more essential than ever to have sufficient numbers of qualified health professionals. While 1.5 million immigrants and refugees are already working in the U.S. health-care system, MPI estimates an additional 263,000 immigrants and refugees in the U.S. with health-related college degrees are working in low-skilled jobs or are out of work.

Webcast

Humanitarian Protection in an Era of Pandemic

MPI and MPI Europe experts discuss the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on asylum systems in Europe and North America, as well as in developing regions, where 85 percent of refugees live. During this freeform conversation, our analysts also assess the implications for the principle of asylum and the future for a post-World War II humanitarian protection system that is under threat.

“The pandemic has essentially — not absolutely, but essentially — stopped international migration and mobility dead in its tracks,” Demetrios G. Papademetriou, co-founder and president emeritus of the Migration Policy Institute, told the New York Times recently.

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Spotlight
Indian Immigrants in the United States
There are 2.7 million Indian immigrants in the United States, making them the second-largest immigrant group after Mexicans. This number has increased dramatically in recent years, growing 13-fold between 1980 and 2019. This article provides an overview of this population, which is more highly educated, more likely to work in management positions, and higher-earning than the U.S. born and overall immigrant population.

Feature
Greece Struggles to Balance Competing Migration Demands
When he was elected prime minister in 2019, Kyriakos Mitsotakis promised what he called “strict but fair” reforms to secure Greece''s borders and speed up transfers of asylum seekers crowding Aegean islands. Yet domestic and geopolitical tensions continued to roil the islands, later joined by a global pandemic, culminating in a fire that destroyed most of Lesvos''s Moria refugee camp. This article examines Greece''s efforts to strike a delicate balance on migration in a complex era.

May 13, 2020

Dear Harper,

This week, we take a look at the millions of U.S. citizens and green-card holders who, by virtue of being members of mixed-status families, were excluded from the $1,200 pandemic relief checks Congress approved in March, offering estimates of the affected populations at U.S. and state levels. As part of its COVID-19 pandemic response, Congress in March approved the CARES Act, which provides a one-time $1,200 payment to individuals earning less than $75,000 and who filed taxes for 2018 or 2019 using a valid Social Security Number (SSN). The vast majority of unauthorized immigrants, except for those with work authorization—such as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients—are thus excluded, including those who file taxes using an IRS-issued Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN). The CARES Act also excludes from cash payments anyone filing jointly with an ITIN filer, even if that person is a U.S. citizen or green-card holder with an SSN. Thus in families where even one member files using an ITIN, the entire family is rendered ineligible.

This has particular impact on a number of states:

For a look at affected populations in your state, get the data here.

Commentary

The Rocky Road to a Mobile World after COVID-19

Beyond life-and-death issues of testing and treatment for the coronavirus, governments are now beginning to grapple with tough questions about when—and how—to begin to lift some of the restrictions imposed on travel and other forms of mobility. The answers will differ from country to country, particularly as many are at different places along the COVID-19 trajectory. In a commentary out this week, we examine some of the issues officials will have to confront in seeking to safely restart travel, with health screenings and greater automation and digitization sure to be central to the wholesale rethink of border and travel processes. From “immunity passports” and closed regional mobility systems such as the “Trans-Tasman” bubble for Australia and New Zealand to the possibility of travelers paying a fee upon arrival to avoid quarantine, many concepts are under discussion.

Read more

Report

Immigration and U.S. National Security: The State of Play Since 9/11

The COVID-19 pandemic is just one among an array of increasingly complex security threats that must be managed by a U.S. immigration and border control system reinvented after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. While the U.S. government has made important progress in shoring up weaknesses in its defenses at the nexus of immigration processes and national security, a number of critical gaps remain, as a former White House deputy national security adviser traces. And with resources and political will steered away from core national security missions in favor of immigration enforcement in recent years, the Department of Homeland Security faces key challenges in strengthening its capacity to respond to and manage the most pressing threats—including public-health ones.

Read more

“For the time being, people are staying put in a way that we haven’t seen in the modern era. I’m not sure we’ve seen this since World War II,” Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute, said during a recent discussion organized by Duke University’s Center for International Development on the effects of the pandemic on migration in the Americas.

Watch the conversation here.

***

“What I’m hearing is more along the lines of schools not having the knowledge or resources to do what they want. It’s not neglect or forgetting these students exist,” MPI Senior Policy Analyst Julie Sugarman tells the Hechinger Report, discussing difficulties for English Learner students in an era of school shutdowns and remote learning.

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PRESS RELEASE
  September 1, 2020
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org

In High and Low Enforcement Jurisdictions Alike, Most Latino High School Students Express Fear of Deportation, with Consequences for Mental Health

WASHINGTON — Despite significantly different immigration enforcement climates in Texas and Rhode Island, a majority of surveyed Latino high school students in both states fear someone close to them could be arrested and deported. And more than half in both states reported symptoms of mental-health conditions such as anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at levels significant enough to warrant treatment, a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) study finds.

The report analyzes results from an MPI-led survey of Latino students in the greater Houston area and several Rhode Island cities, examining the links between immigration enforcement and the related fears and mental health of Latino youth. The report provides examples of how schools are responding to support the mental health and engagement of their Latino students, drawing from interviews with educators and community leaders.

The study offers several disturbing findings regarding the well-being of adolescents at a critical developmental period in their lives. These children, who represent about one-quarter of all high school students nationwide, report fears of immigration enforcement that result in mental-health conditions that hold potential consequences for their school engagement, academic achievement and future success in the workforce and in life more generally.

Researchers from MPI, the University of Houston and Rhode Island College analyzed assessments completed by hundreds of Latino students at 11 high schools in Harris County and Rhode Island during the 2018-2019 school year, and interviewed dozens of education professionals, mental health and other service providers, local elected officials, advocates and community organizers. The survey explored students’ fears of and exposure to immigration enforcement, as well as other stressors such as trauma, discrimination and economic hardship; personal strengths such as resilience, spirituality and family support; symptoms of anxiety, depression and PTSD; and substance use.

Among the researchers’ top findings:

•    More than half of the students reported symptoms of mental-health conditions at levels high enough to warrant treatment. Two-thirds of the sample met the clinical threshold that would warrant treatment for anxiety, 58 percent for PTSD and 55 percent for depression. Students were as likely to report symptoms of mental-health conditions in Rhode Island as in Harris County, despite higher levels of enforcement fear in the latter. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, made more arrests in Harris County in fiscal 2018 than any other U.S. county. Rhode Island, by contrast, has a relatively low level of ICE activity and has state policies restricting local law enforcement cooperation with the federal agency.) Students who feared immigration enforcement most acutely—and who changed their behaviors as a result—had the worst mental-health outcomes.
•    Sixty-seven percent of students surveyed in Harris County and 52 percent in Rhode Island feared that someone close to them would be arrested and deported; 56 percent knew someone who had been deported.
•    One-third of the sample reported they were afraid that they would be deported themselves—including 12 percent of U.S.-born students surveyed.
•    Thirty percent reported changing their behavior as a result of deportation fears, including by avoiding driving, going to the doctor, attending religious services or participating in after-school activities; taking a different route to school; and staying at home more often. These behavior changes were reported equally by immigrant and U.S.-born students.
•    Latino students who are U.S. born reported experiencing more traumatic events over their lifetimes than those who are immigrants: 8.1 traumatic events versus 6.9, respectively. Although Central American migrants face well-documented trauma in their home countries and en route to the United States, U.S.-born youth have longer exposure to high levels of crime in the low-income, generally urban communities included in the study. Common forms of trauma students reported were having someone close die, witnessing assault or being assaulted—at 73 percent, 72 percent and 42 percent, respectively.

The study findings suggest that state and local policies that limit cooperation with ICE, such as those in Rhode Island, may not entirely shield youth from the mental-health consequences associated with fear that someone they know could be detained and deported. The results may also owe to the fact that other stressors—traumatic experiences, economic hardship and discrimination—were roughly equally present in Harris County and Rhode Island.

“Given the well-documented link between mental health and student outcomes, supporting Latino students’ mental health at a time when many are experiencing heightened uncertainty and fear is an essential component of efforts to promote these students’ school engagement and academic achievement,” the report concludes. “In the current social and political environment, the stakes are high for Latino youth and for the society in which they will grow into adulthood, join the workforce, raise families and take part in civic life.”

The report, Immigration Enforcement and the Mental Health of Latino High School Students, can be read here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigration-enforcement-mental-health-latino-students.

For all of our research on K-12 education, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/topics/k-12-education.

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