Immigrants

The immigrant population in the United States has burgeoned over the past few decades. From 1990 to 2006, the number of immigrants rose from 20 million to more than 37 million. Urban Institute immigration policy experts study how the foreign-born population is growing, integrating, and changing.

We have analyzed immigrants' contributions to the labor force and the economy, tracked fast-growing immigrant communities, studied the effect of No Child Left Behind on immigrant children and English Language Learners, and surveyed foreign-born households’ health, well-being, and economic mobility. Read more.

Featured Links

• Metrotrends: Immigration and Employment

  Contact an expert on Immigration Policy

• Children of Immigrants Data Tool
• Five Questions: Karina Fortuny on five key national and state characteristics of children of immigrants

Related Policy Centers

• Center on Labor, Human Resources, & Population

Publications on Immigrants

This brief discusses how immigration policy keeps families apart and presents national data attesting to these family separations. Immigrants are more likely than natives to be married with spouse absent, their households are more likely to be headed by men with no wife present, and foreign-born children are more likely to be in nonchild relationships to the householder than natives. In a subset of foreign-born children with at least one parent in the United States, 21 percent were separated from their mothers and 34 percent from their fathers for 1 year or more.

If the United States were to move toward a more employment-intensive immigration system, the representation of women in the immigration flow will likely decline, immigrants will be older, there will be less country diversity, and more immigrant families will come already formed, instead of forming them in the United States. These implications should be considered when discussing the merits of skilled immigration.

Focus groups held with parents, home visitors, and community stakeholders revealed that Best Start LA, a place-based community investment in Los Angeles County designed to improve the well-being, development, and care experienced in children ages five and under, continued to receive strong support during its third year of implementation. Mothers receiving Welcome Baby! home visiting expressed great appreciation of the support the program provides. Home visitors described positive changes to the Welcome Baby! model that increased their ability to serve and retain mothers. Stakeholders similarly reported positive developments in community mobilization efforts, but continue to look for ways to become more efficient and effective.

Best Start LA-a place-based investment designed to improve the well-being, development and care experienced by children ages five and under-has gained momentum in its third year and become more firmly established in the downtown Los Angeles pilot community, according to the third case study of a longitudinal evaluation of the initiative. Home visiting through Welcome Baby! has emerged as the strongest intervention being implemented through Best Start LA in the "pilot community" and could serve as a model throughout Los Angeles County. Community-level investments have also become more productive, as evidenced by the funding of two rounds of "collaborative partner" grants supporting a range of strategies to enhance community services and supports. Systems-level work has been deemphasized in the past year to allow for more focus on promising Welcome Baby! and community strategies.

A key measure of success of state prekindergarten initiatives is their ability to reach and serve children who are likely to face challenges in school. This study adds to our understanding of the challenges faced by immigrant children and families in Chicago, Illinois, by focusing on the extent to which families from smaller immigrant communities - particularly Pakistani, Nigerian, Vietnamese, Polish, and Haitian families-face barriers in accessing the Illinois prekindergarten program. Based on focus groups with parents and interviews with prekindergarten providers, this study finds a number of barriers, including lack of knowledge, language barriers, and logistical challenges around enrollment.

Smaller immigrant communities can face barriers to participating in prekindergarten programs, in particular lack of knowledge about the program, language barriers and enrollment logistics. Community-based organizations working with these communities can support outreach efforts and play a role in overcoming all of these barriers. This study presents findings from focus groups of a number of community-based organizations working with smaller immigrant populations in the Chicago metro area, and identifies a number of strategies that could be employed to support prekindergarten participation among immigrant families.

State prekindergarten initiatives can only succeed if they actually reach at-risk children. This brief summarizes findings from two studies around prekindergarten access for smaller immigrant populations. One study examines the extent to which Pakistani, Nigerian, Vietnamese, Polish, and Haitian families face barriers in accessing the Illinois prekindergarten program; it finds barriers such as lack of knowledge of the program, language barriers, and enrollment challenges. The second presents findings from focus groups of community-based organizations serving smaller immigrant populations in the Chicago metro area, and identifies a number of strategies that could be employed to support prekindergarten participation among immigrant families.

During the Great Recession immigrants lost more employment, relative to their initial employment level, than U.S.-born workers. During the Recovery immigrants gained more employment than U.S-born workers. The employment gains of immigrants during the recovery spread among all educational groups except those with no high school diploma. Among U.S.-born workers, only those with Bachelor's degree or more gained employment. By mid-2012, the employment of both immigrants and U.S.-born workers were still below the pre-recession level.