E.g., 06/03/2024
E.g., 06/03/2024
Madeleine Sumption
MPI Authors

Madeleine Sumption

Madeleine Sumption is a former Senior Policy Analyst and Director of Research for MPI's International Program. She remains a Nonresident Fellow with Migration Policy Institute Europe. Her work focuses on labor migration, the role of immigrants in the labor market, and the impact of immigration policies in Europe, North America, and other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Ms. Sumption holds a master’s degree with honors from the University of Chicago’s school of public policy. She also holds a first class degree in Russian and French from Oxford University.

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2014 marked the quiet demise worldwide of the traditional points system for selecting skilled immigrants. Canada, which in 1969 invented the points system, in 2015 will join other countries in adopting a hybrid system that places more emphasis on a demand-driven system. This article examines how following the economic crisis, governments have revamped, hybridized, or ended such programs.

Countries looking to infuse their economies with an additional cash flow are embracing immigrant investor programs — selling permanent residence or even citizenship to individuals willing to invest a significant sum in their economy.

As immigrant-destination countries emerge from the economic crisis at varying speeds, ensuring that the national labor force has the skills needed to fuel recovery has been high on the policy agenda. Migration has long been part of countries' skills strategies, but weak economies have created an additional impetus to maximize the economic benefits that skilled immigration can provide.

For economic and political reasons, more governments are turning to visas to admit select groups of highly skilled immigrants (especially in high-tech and high-growth fields) to their countries to boost entrepreneurship and enhance job creation. A look at the challenges, opportunities, and increasing popularity of these entrepreneur visa programs.

Many governments use shortage lists to either facilitate or discourage economically-motivated immigration into particular occupations or fields, but the practice of doing so raises a variety of practical and philosophical questions. MPI's Madeleine Sumption discusses the challenges of maintaining shortage lists and developing immigration policies around them.

Recent Activity

Reports
July 2009

In order to rectify the shortcomings of a rigid and outdated U.S. visa system set in place by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), this report recommends creating a new visa stream called provisional visas which would sync visa policies with the way in which labor markets work in practice, and bridge temporary and permanent employment-based admissions to the United States in a predictable and transparent way.

Reports
June 2009

This report explores the fundamental question of how successful integration and immigrant social mobility is in Europe and North America. The authors examine the economic performance and rate of labor market assimilation for first and second generation immigrants, and outline what policymakers can do to promote the social mobility and integration of immigrants and their children.

 

Reports
May 2009

This policy paper proposes creation of a permanent, independent executive-branch agency that would make regular recommendations to the president and Congress for adjusting employment-based immigration levels.The Standing Commission concept, first articulated by the MPI-convened Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future in its 2006 final report, would provide nonpartisan, timely, evidence-based, and impartial analysis that is vital for informed policymaking.

Reports
March 2009

This paper intends to provide a baseline of evidence for policymakers seeking to calibrate their immigration policy responses to the economic downturn, with a focus on the UK.

Reports
March 2009

Public opinion supports the view that immigrants take natives’ jobs and reduce their wages, but most economists disagree. Although basic laws of supply and demand suggest that immigration could reduce wages by increasing the supply of workers, in reality the actual impact of immigration is likely to be small, especially in the long run.

Reports
January 2009

This short briefing paper explores the potential effects of the economic crisis with respect to immigration across European Union Member States, and outlines how policymakers might respond to changing patterns of migrant inflows and outflows, and the consequences of the downturn on immigrants and their host communities.

 

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