Articles - United States

With so much political attention focused on the southern border, the MPI staff has updated this guide to regional population numbers, border crossings, border enforcement, and the economic ties between the United States and Mexico.

Contrary to popular belief, the United States actively devised policies and laws that shaped the country's population from the colonial period onward. Aristide Zolberg of the New School University highlights the key historical moments in this article, based on his new book A Nation by Design.

After watching the immigration reform debate intensify in the last few months, Thor Arne Aaas, Norway's Director General of the Department of Migration and a Visiting Fellow at MPI, characterizes the debate as "unfocused, unstructured, and very emotional." More on his views in this interview with Migration Information Source Editor Kirin Kalia.

The Catholic Church made headlines in March when of its U.S. cardinals spoke out against the House of Representatives' "enforcement only" bill. Donald Kerwin of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network explains the church's interest in immigration and its position on reforming immigration policy.

In seeking to explain why some second-generation children in the United States have higher levels of educational attainment than others, most arguments center on either cultural values or structural differences, such as class background and access to quality schools. Cynthia Feliciano of the University of California, Irvine shows that parents' status, relative to nonmigrants from their home country, is a factor.

The Central America Free Trade Agreement may be the most important economic event in the region in 20 years. However, it seems unlikely to reverse established migration trends, reports Salomon Cohen.

Over half of all Central American foreign born in the United States are from El Salvador and Guatemala. MPI's Megan Davy examines the numbers as well as events and policies that have shaped Central American migration.

Not long after the United States passed the 1980 Refugee Act, thousands of people began fleeing civil war in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Their treatment in the United States, linked to U.S. foreign policy, spurred the Sanctuary Movement and efforts to grant them refugee status, as Susan Gzesh of the University of Chicago explains.

With Congress considering immigration reform, Susan Ginsburg argues that it's time to examine how counterterrorism strategy relates to border security and how terrorist mobility can be hindered.