• IMMIGRATION & BUSINESSUSCIS Springs Unseasonable Costs and Demands on American Employers

    By Angelo A. Paparelli and David J. Bier

    With spring approaching, U.S. businesses that sponsor noncitizen workers for employment‐based immigration benefits are accustomed to weathering seasonal changes. Most employers are likely ready for the initial FY 2025 H 1B lottery registration season. American businesses, however, now face particularly inclement headwinds stirred up by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) component tasked with deciding immigration‐benefits requests.

  • IMMIGRATIONTweaking U.S. Trade Policy Could Hold the Key to Reducing Migration from Central America

    By Raymond Robertson and Kaleb Girma Abreha

    Small changes to U.S. trade policy could significantly reduce the number of migrants arriving at the southern border. The Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA-DR. was aimed at encouraging trade and investment ties. But restrictive provisions, particularly its rules of origin, have hindered the region’s ability to benefit fully from the agreement. Loosening the rules to allow for new fabrics would not only attract investment and create more jobs for Central Americans, it could also reduce immigration from the region by as much as 67%, according to our estimates.

  • MIGRATIONWhat Headlines Don’t Tell You About Global Migration, and What Researchers Can

    By Anwyn Hurxthal

    More people than ever live outside the country of their birth—281,000,000 migrants. To put it in perspective, if migrants formed their own country, it would be the fourth most populous country in the world, after China, India, and the United States. But why did they leave their home? Where are they going? Do they plan to return? Can they? Where would they be most likely to thrive? Researchers are filling critical migration data gaps and studying how people are on the move in new and different ways.

  • IMMIGRATIONSocial Acceptance of Immigrants Working as Politicians or Judges Is Low

    Often, the dominant society develops negative attitudes towards immigrants and their descendants because their integration is too successful – and not because they are unwilling to integrate. A possible explanation for negative attitudes towards successful immigrants could be the dominant society’s fear of immigrants occupying influential and value-based occupations. This applies, for example, for immigrants working in local politics or law.

  • IMMIGRATIONChinese Migration to U.S. Is Nothing New – but the Reasons for Recent Surge at Southern Border Are

    By Meredith Oyen

    What is most remarkable is the speed with which the number of Chinese migrants is growing. Nearly 10 times as many Chinese migrants crossed the southern border in 2023 as in 2022. In December 2023 alone, U.S. Border Patrol officials reported encounters with about 6,000 Chinese migrants, in contrast to the 900 they reported a year earlier in December 2022. The dramatic uptick is the result of a confluence of factors.

  • MIGRATIONAs Baby Boomers Retire in Droves, Will Immigrants Save U.S. Economy?

    By Dora Mekouar

    Each day, about 10,000 people born between 1946 and 1964 leave the U.S. workforce, a trend accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic when older workers decided to retire early rather than risk getting sick. The problem is that for every one person leaving, there’s only one person coming into the labor force, and if the labor force is not growing, economic growth is slowed down, or worse.

  • MIGRATIONWhat Do Germany's Migration Partnerships Entail?

    By Astrid Prange de Oliveira

    Migration partnerships can’t halt large movements of refugees, but they can help countries to better manage migration. Germany has signed a number of partnerships into effect in recent years.

  • REFUGEESUsing Machine Learning to Help Refugees Succeed

    By Dylan Walsh

    A new set of machine learning tools is helping countries place refugees where they’re most likely to find employment.

  • IMMIGRANTS & INNOVATIONThe Contribution of High‐Skilled Immigrants to Innovation in the United States

    By Shai Bernstein, Rebecca Diamond, Abhisit Jiranaphawiboon, Beatriz Pousada, and Timothy McQuade

    Innovation and technological progress are key determinants of economic growth. There is growing evidence that immigrants play a key role in U.S. innovation. Based on a 2003 survey, U.S. immigrants with a four‐year college degree were twice as likely to have a patent than U.S.-born college graduates.

  • IMMIGRATIONFortune 500 Companies with Immigrant Roots Generated More Money Than the GDP of Most Western Nations

    By Steven Hubbard

    When Fortune released this year’s Fortune 500 list—the magazine’s iconic ranking of the year’s top-grossing American companies—one fact remained unchanged from previous years: the profound role that immigrants and their children have played in establishing many of the U.S. most successful and influential companies.

  • IMMIGRATIONImmigration Restrictions Are Affirmative Action for Natives

    By Alex Nowrasteh

    U.S. immigration restrictions are the most anti‐meritocratic policies today, and they are intended as affirmative action for native‐born Americans. When people think of anti‐meritocratic policies, they rightly jump to quotas, race‐based affirmative action, or class‐based affirmative action. It’s true; those are all anti‐meritocratic and likely wouldn’t exist in a free market outside of a handful of organizations in the non‐profit sector. But U.S. immigration restrictions are worse. Those who truly favor meritocracy and oppose affirmative action on principle should reject the anti‐meritocratic affirmative action of American immigration laws.

  • IMMIGRATIONWhy Some Wisconsin Lawmakers and Local Officials Have Changed Their Minds About Letting Undocumented Immigrants Drive

    By Melissa Sanchez

    “If we suddenly kicked out all of the people here, the undocumented, our dairy farms would collapse,” one lawmaker said. “We have to come up with a solution.”

  • ASYLUMSharp Increase in Application for Asylum to EU Countries

    EU+ countries received around 996,000 asylum applications in 2022, a 53 percent increase over 2021. Around 70 percent of applications in 2022 were lodged in five receiving countries, including Germany, France, Spain, Austria, and Italy. As in previous years, the top countries of origin were Syria and Afghanistan, followed by Turkey, Venezuela and Colombia.

  • IMMIGRATIONGermany Reforms Immigration Law to Attract and Retain Skilled Workers

    By Lisa Hänel and Andrea Grunau

    From healthcare to IT, carpenters to technicians, Germany’s “help wanted” sign is blinking red. Germany has two million jobs to fill, and it needs 400,000 foreign workers to make up the shortfall every year. When the baby boomers retire en masse, the problem will only get worse. Now Germany is reforming its immigration laws to help close the gap, and bring in, and keep, foreign talent.

  • PROFESSIONALS’ MIGRATIONWhere Professionals Want to Migrate within the European Union

    As a driving force of economic, demographic, social, and political change, migration is a top priority for policymakers, but studies were often hampered by incomplete statistics and outdated data. A new study assessing migration interest found that fewer professionals from countries in Northern, Southern, and Western Europe want to move east. But Eastern Europe’s appeal might change in the coming years.