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Every day, organizations worldwide are engaged in a collective two steps forward, one step back march toward improved immigration services and policies. What hard-earned lessons are these nonprofits, and the foundations that support them, learning from their persistent efforts? This collection of evaluations, case studies, and lessons learned exposes and explores the nuances of effective collaboration, the value of coordinated messaging, the bedrock of ongoing advocacy efforts, and the vital importance of long-term and flexible funding.

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Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible: U.S. Legal Immigration Rules Explained

June 13, 2023

America traditionally had few immigration restrictions, but since the 1920s, the law has banned most aspiring immigrants. Today, fewer than 1 percent of people who want to move permanently to the United States can do so legally. Immigrants cannot simply get an exception to immigrate any more than restaurateurs in the 1920s could simply get an exception to sell alcohol. Instead, just as Prohibition granted only a few exemptions for religious, industrial, or medical uses of alcohol, people seeking an exception to immigration prohibition must also fit into preexisting carve‐outs for a select few.This study provides a uniquely comprehensive, jargon‐free explanation of U.S. rules for legal permanent immigration. Some steps are simple and reasonable, but most steps serve only as unjustified obstacles to immigrating legally. For some immigrants, this restrictive system sends them into the black market of illegal immigration. For others, it sends them to other countries, where they contribute to the quality of life in their new homes. And for still others, it requires them to remain in their homeland, often underemployed and sometimes in danger. Whatever the outcome, the system punishes both the prospective immigrants and Americans who would associate, contract, and trade with them. Congress and the administration can do better, and this paper explains how.

Research & Evaluation

What the Border Looked Like in FY2022

May 4, 2023

The release of fiscal year 2022 border data was again marked by headlines touting a record-breaking year for encounters. In the following issue brief, we delve into the border data further, analyzing the migration patterns and trends that occurred in FY2022, how Title 8 was used at the border in FY2022, how trends at the northern border and at sea changed this fiscal year, and what process changes were implemented at the border.

Litigation/Legal Services; Research & Evaluation

Immigrant and Native Consumption of Means‐Tested Welfare and Entitlement Benefits in 2020

January 31, 2023

This brief updates previous Cato policy briefs on immigrant welfare consumption to supply more up‐to‐date information to policymakers and the public. Based on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we find that immigrants consumed 27 percent less welfare and entitlement benefits than native‐born Americans on a per capita basis in 2020. Immigrants were 14.6 percent of the U.S. population and consumed just 11.1 percent of all means‐tested welfare and entitlement benefits in 2020. By comparison, immigrants consumed 21 percent less welfare and entitlement benefits in 2016 and 28 percent less in 2019. From 2016 to 2020, the underconsumption of welfare by immigrants relative to native‐born Americans widened by about 6 percentage points. From 2019 to 2020, the gap shrank only slightly, by 0.6 percentage points.

Research & Evaluation

"There Is a Target On Us": The Impact of Anti-Black Racism on African Migrants at Mexico’s Southern Border

January 18, 2021

Each year, Africans continue to flee their countries of origin in order to find safety and survival. As immigration to Europe has become more difficult, particularly since the continent began externalizing its immigration policy in 2015, many Africans have been forced to take an alternative route – flying to South America and making the harrowing journey through jungles and rivers to reach Mexico and travel onward to the United States or Canada. This has led to an increase in African migration into Mexico, including from Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ghana, and Somalia, over the same period.In this Report, the Authors situate interviews with 20 migrants, and African migration to Mexico in general, within a broader discourse of anti-Black racism in the country. The Report begins with an overview of how discrimination on the bases of race and skin color impacts Afro-Mexicans, Black migrants, and other peoples of African descent. Next, the Report describes the recent migration of Africans to and through Mexico, including the causes of migration out of Africa and through Latin America. The Report then highlights how African migration through Mexico has been impeded by the current Mexican Administration's restrictive immigration enforcement. Within this context, the Report outlines the findings from BAJI's interviews and additional interviews that the Authors conducted with a leader of the Assembly as well as service providers, including about the intersectional discrimination faced by African women in Mexico. Finally, the Authors recommend some steps to address the impact of Mexico's anti-Black racism on African migrants, as well as other Black migrants, at the country's southern border.African migrants rarely form part of the narrative of migration through Latin America, or in Mexican society in general. This Report is a partial response to that failure of public discourse and policy analysis, and points to the need to address that void in a systemic way. The current context in Mexico – like the current global anti-Black racism movement – demands and creates an opening for this work.

Research & Evaluation

Immigration Systems in Transition: Lessons for U.S. Immigration Reform from Australia and Canada

September 29, 2020

The history of both the Australian and Canadian immigration systems covers three distinct periods in which the countries maintained race-based models between the 1920s and 1960s-70s, implemented points-based systems after ending their race-based programs, and revised the points-based systems over time to improve their ability to select migrants and eliminate backlogs.Australia and Canada's successful implementation and revision of their immigration systems depended on governmental decisions, political and bureaucratic institutions, and data gathering operations to provide objective bases for revisions to the systems. The Australian and Canadian cases show that the United States may need to make investments in the agencies that oversee the immigration system and gather data about its outcomes. The adoption of SkillSelect and Express Entry also show that the United States may need to make dramatic revisions of the system to address backlogs and other residual components of the past system during the transition process. The effective selection of migrants and management of migration necessitates institutions that allow governments to make sometimes dramatic changes to their migration programs with public support based on actionable data. U.S. policymakers must understand these factors – and answer the questions in this report – to create an immigration system that represents the best elements of the U.S. political system and the country's immigration heritage.

Research & Evaluation

Lessons From the Local Level: DACA's Implementation and Impact on Education and Training Success

January 5, 2015

This report examines the ways in which local educational institutions, legal service providers, and immigrant youth advocates have responded to the first phase of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Based on extensive interviews with stakeholders in seven states -- California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Texas -- the report identifies initiatives undertaken by educational institutions and other community stakeholders to support DACA youth's education and training success, and examine the impact of deferred action on grantees' academic and career pursuits. It provides examples of promising practices, additional challenges, and key takeaways at the high school, postsecondary, and adult education levels, as well as an exploration of the nature and scope of DACA legal outreach initiatives.

Children; Community-Based Outreach & Activity; Research & Evaluation

Opening Doors to Citizenship (Summary)

August 12, 2014

The New Americans Campaign (the Campaign) was formed in 2011 by a group of funders and national partners, including the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), to increase the number of eligible lawful permanent residents (LPRs) who apply to become United States citizens. The Campaign, led by the ILRC, draws together a national network of legal service providers, communityand faith-based organizations, foundations and other allies in the public and private sectors. In 2012, the Campaign commissioned Harder+Company Community Research to evaluate whether and how the original eight Campaign sites had increased naturalization rates. The evaluation found that the campaign efforts at these sites had produced increased numbers of completed applications, in large part because of beneficial collaboration, use of innovative approaches, and dynamic learning and support between national and local work.

Coalition Building & Collaboration; Litigation/Legal Services; Research & Evaluation

Immigration's Impact on Republican Political Prospects, 1980 to 2012

April 15, 2014

This Backgrounder examines the partisan political implications of large-scale immigration. A comparison of voting patterns in presidential elections across counties over the last three decades shows that mass immigration has caused a steady drop in presidential Republican vote shares, particularly in the nation's largest counties. Each one percentage-point increase in the immigrant share of a large county's population reduces the Republican share of the two-party vote by nearly 0.6 percentage points on average.

Research & Evaluation

Evaluation of a Pilot Project to Advance Pro-Immigrant Advocacy for Center for New Community, National Immigration Law Center, Progressive States Action

March 31, 2014

Since the four pillars were articulated in 2007, the immigrant rights movement has expanded in a number of significant ways. It has built stronger partnerships, both with other progressive groups, and with moderate and conservative allies. It has taken on a more state-level focus, as the continued failure to achieve comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level has led to a proliferation of state-level laws and initiatives. And new voices and leaders have emerged within the movement, most notably the "DREAMers," young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who would benefit from the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship and other benefits for those in their specific situation.The net result of these changes has been a movement that is more adaptable, more localized, and more diverse -- but not necessarily more effective, when judged by the national-level metric of achieving comprehensive immigration reform. And it is debatable to what extent advances at the state level have been the result of state-level, ground-up organizing vs. coordinated action from national organizations.The pilot project that is the subject of this evaluation gets at these very issues. It addresses the possibility of pro-immigrant advocacy at the state level, and tests a model of national-local collaboration to advance this goal.

Advocacy; Coalition Building & Collaboration; Research & Evaluation

Daring Voices

October 22, 2013

This evaluation analyses the outcomes and impact of The One Foundation's investments in NGOs working in the Irish policy context to advance the following advocacy goals: i) make children's rights real; ii) make immigrant rights real; iii) build political will on mental health in Ireland. In a ten-year timeframe, 2004-13, The One Foundation (OF) invested €75 million, of which approximately €15 million (20%) supported direct advocacy work. The report draws on meetings with OF Team and Advisory Board members, interviews with grantees and 'bellwethers' (key informants with insights into the policy change process), and desk research (OF and grantee records). The evaluation uses a case study approach and a common framework of analysis to assess effectiveness in the three policy areas with a focus on how the work contributed to incremental wins towards achievement of ultimate advocacy goals.

Advocacy; Children; Research & Evaluation

Making Immigrant Rights Real

June 17, 2013

This is an overview of Ireland's changed migration landscape, followed by a description of The One Foundation's (OF) thinking on measures to effect change in response to a growing immigrant population, and the investments made to achieve its goal -- to make immigrant rights real in Ireland. A case study of an investment in the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) follows to provide a deeper understanding of some advocacy approaches taken, their impact, and lessons learned.

Advocacy; Research & Evaluation

Young Migrant Women Living in the Republic of Ireland Barriers to Integration

March 1, 2013

AkiDwA is a minority ethnic led national network of migrant women established in 2001 as a not-for-profit organisation in Ireland. The organisation emerged from discussions and meetings among a group of African women, coming together to share their collective experiences of living in Ireland, and in particular, feelings of isolation and exclusion, experiences of race discrimination in employment and access to services, and issues in relation to gender based violence. The organisation brings a gender perspective to issues of migration, to inform policy and practice, and adopts an advocacy based approach. This work is centred on hearing and strengthening the voices of migrant women and addressing the barriers they face in terms of integration in all aspects of social, cultural, economic, civic and political life. AkiDwA has over 2,250 individual members from some 35 counties in Ireland and has gained recognition as a leading non-governmental organisation in Ireland reviewing key legislation, policy and practice, and proposing reforms in relation to issues faced by all migrant women. In August 2012, AkiDwA commissioned Poorman-Skyers Research and Consulting to:a) Undertake a pilot study on young migrant women in Ireland on barriers to integrationb) Locate the study in some of the current literature on gender and migrationc) Identify best practice models of positive integrationd) Develop a series of recommendations targeted at government and non-governmental agencies in Ireland

Advocacy; Research & Evaluation; Women