Special Reports

Despite the U.S.’s huge and flexible labor market and its abundance of leading-edge multinational corporations and world-class universities, it faces growing competition for skilled labor from other countries. This situation underscores the need to revamp U.S. immigration policies to make them more responsive to the demands of an increasingly competitive global economy. One possibility is to replace the H1-B visa program for highly skilled foreign professionals with a quality-selective regime like the point-based systems in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

Published On: Wed, Jan 03, 2007 | Download File

It is a myth that immigrants increase the amount of crime in the United States. Data from the U.S. census and other sources show that for every ethnic group -- without exception -- incarceration rates among young men are lowest for immigrants. This holds true especially for the Mexicans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans who make up the bulk of the undocumented immigrant population.

Published On: Wed, Feb 21, 2007 | Download File

The nation needs an immigrant-integration policy that effectively addresses the challenges and harnesses the opportunities created by today's large immigrant population. It is not in the best interests of the United States to make integration a more difficult, uncertain, or lengthy process than it need be. Facilitating the successful and rapid integration of immigrants into U.S. society minimizes conflicts and tensions between newcomers and the native-born, and enables immigrants to more quickly secure better jobs, earn higher incomes, and thus more fully contribute to the U.S. economy.

Published On: Thu, Mar 01, 2007 | Download File

New legislative proposals to drastically restrict family-based immigration practically ignore the social and economic benefits of the family-based admissions system for both immigrants and the native-born. Read more...

Published On: Tue, May 01, 2007 | Download File

A recent report from the Heritage Foundation is one in a long line of deeply flawed economic analyses which claim to estimate the contributions and "costs" of workers based solely on the amount of taxes they pay and the value of the public services they utilize.

Published On: Wed, May 02, 2007 | Download File

The temporary worker program now taking shape in Congress is unlikely to provide the U.S. economy with the numbers or kinds of workers that U.S. industries need.

Published On: Thu, Jun 07, 2007 | Download File

Aging populations and the growing need to provide long-term care to the elderly are among the leading demographic, political, and social challenges facing industrialized countries like the United States. As a result, immigrants will continue to play a significant role in the growth of the U.S. labor force in general and the direct-care workforce in particular. It is in the best interests of long-term care clients, providers, and workers if governments and private donors foster training and placement programs rather than leaving the future of the direct-care industry to chance.

Published On: Wed, Aug 01, 2007 | Download File

The current political debate over undocumented immigrants in the United States has largely ignored the plight of undocumented children. Yet children account for 1.8 million, or 15 percent, of the undocumented immigrants now living in this country. These children have, for the most part, grown up in the United States and received much of their primary and secondary educations here. But without a means to legalize their status, they are seldom able to go on to college and cannot work legally in this country. Moreover, at any time, they can be deported to countries they barely know. This wasted talent imposes economic and emotional costs on undocumented students themselves and on U.S. society as a whole. Denying undocumented students, most of whom are Hispanic, the opportunity to go to college and join the skilled workforce sends the wrong message to Hispanics about the value of a college education-and the value that U.S. society places on their education-at a time when raising the educational attainment of the Hispanic population is increasingly important to the nation's economic health. Read more...

Published On: Mon, Oct 01, 2007 | Download File

In this IPC Special Report, author Jill Esbenshade finds that ordinance initiatives are correlated with a recent and rapid increase in the foreign-born or Latino share of the population, which creates the perception of an immigration “crisis.” But undocumented immigration will not be “solved” by the local ordinances that are unconstitutional, deny due process rights to renters and landlords, and foster anti-immigrant and anti-Latino discrimination.

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Published On: Sat, Sep 01, 2007 | Download File

America's streets are unquestionably safer and our neighborhoods more peaceful thanks to the growing number of immigrants available to serve and protect.

Published On: Sat, Dec 01, 2007 | Download File