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21. Putting Migrant Reintegration Programs to the Test: A Road Map to a Monitoring System

Author:
Lucía Salgado, Radu-Mihai Triculescu, Camille Le Coz, and Hanne Beirens
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Abstract:
European policymakers have renewed their commitment to increase returns of migrants determined not to have a right to stay in the European Union, and to cooperate with returnees’ countries of origin to support their reintegration. And as investments in assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) initiatives have grown, so too has pressure to demonstrate that these programs are living up to the high expectations for them. Yet there is little clarity, let alone consensus, on what “successful” reintegration is or how best to achieve it. This MPI Europe report examines what is and is not known about returnees' economic, psychosocial, and social reintegration. It also discusses the need to build and strengthen monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems to help address pressing knowledge gaps, track the impact of AVRR investments, and inform program decision-making. To do so, it lays out a set of guiding principles and explores key questions about the design, ownership, funding, and impact of M&E efforts.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Governance, Border Control, European Union, Immigrants, Deportation, Immigration Policy, and Illegal Immigration
Political Geography:
Europe

22. Four Years of Profound Change: Immigration Policy during the Trump Presidency

Author:
Jessica Bolter, Emma Israel, and Sarah Pierce
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Abstract:
Over the course of four years, the Trump administration set an unprecedented pace for executive action on immigration, enacting 472 administrative changes that dismantled and reconstructed many elements of the U.S. immigration system. Humanitarian protections were severely diminished. The U.S.-Mexico border became more closed off. Immigration enforcement appeared more random. And legal immigration became out of reach for many. All of this was accomplished nearly exclusively by the executive branch, with sweeping presidential proclamations and executive orders, departmental policy guidance, and hundreds of small, technical adjustments. This report, which concludes a series of MPI reports providing an overview of policies at different points during the Trump administration, chronicles the immigration actions, large and small, that President Donald Trump and his administration took from January 20, 2017, through January 20, 2021. After an overview of the transformation of the U.S. immigration system during this historic period, the report breaks these hundreds of changes down by issue area: the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic; border and interior enforcement; actions involving the Department of Justice and the immigration court system; the admission of refugees, asylum seekers, and other humanitarian migrants; changes to vetting and visa processes, which involve the State Department, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Department of Labor; and actions involving agencies usually less central to immigration policy discussions. As the authors write, “While it may be possible for subsequent administrations to rescind many of these changes, others cannot simply be unwound.” Many are likely to remain on the books for years to come, with a lasting impact on the U.S. immigration system.
Topic:
Law Enforcement, Border Control, Employment, Refugees, Citizenship, Economy, Resettlement, Donald Trump, Asylum, Integration, Deportation, COVID-19, Immigration Policy, Illegal Immigration, and DREAM Act
Political Geography:
United States of America

23. The Challenge of Coordinating Border Management Assistance between Europe and the Maghreb

Author:
Matt Herbert
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Abstract:
Europe’s border security needs and interests do not stop at its frontiers. Over the last 25 years, the European Union and its Member States have increasingly partnered with and relied on neighboring countries to mitigate cross-border challenges, ranging from irregular migration to drug trafficking and terrorism. Within this transnational architecture, the states of the Maghreb—Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia—have come to play a critical role. Cultivating cooperation with these countries and building their border security capacity have become vital concerns for European policymakers. This Transatlantic Council on Migration report examines the border security situation within the Maghreb, including Maghrebi states’ cross-border priorities and the structural factors impeding the development of better border security. It then takes stock of efforts by the European Union and its Member States to work with partners in the region to address border security challenges and offers lessons learned from experiences to date. “While they have little choice but to engage,” the report’s author writes, “European states have great latitude in deciding how they engage with Maghrebi states.” To be effective, this cooperation must be shaped not only around European policy aims but also the needs and interests of governments and citizens in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Science and Technology, Infrastructure, Governance, Border Control, European Union, Trafficking, Smuggling, and Illegal Immigration
Political Geography:
Europe and North Africa

24. The Central Role of Cooperation in Australia’s Immigration Enforcement Strategy

Author:
Henry Sherrell
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Abstract:
Over the past three decades, cooperation with other countries has become a central part of Australia’s immigration enforcement strategy. These partnerships are central to Australian efforts to deter irregular maritime migration, tackle people smuggling, provide access to humanitarian protection while minimizing abuse of the asylum process, and return people without grounds to remain. International cooperation has not been without challenges, however. While effective in curbing irregular maritime arrivals, Australian policies—including boat turnbacks and offshore processing of asylum claims in other countries—have raised serious concerns about asylum seekers’ access to effective refugee status determination processes, human-rights violations, and the substantial costs of such policies. This report from MPI's Transatlantic Council on Migration examines the role cooperation plays within Australian immigration enforcement. It looks at bilateral cooperation with countries such as Indonesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia, and the United States, as well as regional cooperation through the Bali Process. Among the questions it asks: What should Australia prioritize for future cooperation? How can partnerships be made more sustainable? And how should Australia approach the tradeoffs inherent to this cooperation, particularly those surrounding access to humanitarian protection?
Topic:
International Cooperation, Governance, Border Control, Refugees, Smuggling, Asylum, Deportation, Immigration Policy, and Illegal Immigration
Political Geography:
Australia

25. 2020 American Community Survey: Use with Caution, An Analysis of the Undercount in the 2020 ACS Data Used to Derive Estimates of the Undocumented Population

Author:
Robert Warren
Publication Date:
07-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
This paper analyzes and provides estimates of the undercount of the foreign-born in the US Census Bureau’s 2020 American Community Survey (ACS). It confirms that a differential undercount occurred in the 2020 ACS. In particular, noncitizens that arrived from Central American countries after 1981 had undercount rates of 15–25 percent, but undercount of noncitizens that arrived from European countries in the same period was not detectable by the methods described in this paper. The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and others use ACS data to derive annual estimates of the US undocumented population. The Census Bureau recently reported that the total population count for the 2020 Census was consistent with the count for recent censuses, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the Trump administration’s interference in the 2020 Census. Nonetheless, the accuracy of 2020 ACS data for the noncitizen population that arrived after 1981 remains a major concern given the fear generated by the Trump administration’s abusive rhetoric and anti-immigrant policies. The estimates set forth in this paper were derived by analyzing trends in annual ACS data for 2016–2020 compiled from the IPUMS website (Ruggles et al. 2021). Decennial census data cannot be used for this purpose because data on country of birth, citizenship, and year of immigration are not collected in the census. However, it is reasonable to believe that the 2020 census and the 2020 ACS experienced similar challenges because they were conducted under comparable conditions. The patterns of undercount of noncitizens described here for the 2020 ACS are likely mirrored in the 2020 census and will reduce federal funding and representation to affected cities and states for the next decade.
Topic:
Migration, Border Control, Survey, and Undocumented Population
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

26. Migrating through the Corridor of Death: The Making of a Complex Humanitarian Crisis

Author:
Priscilla Solano and Douglas S. Massey
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Drawing on the concept of a “complex humanitarian crisis,” this paper describes how outflows of migrants from Central America were transformed into such a crisis by intransigent immigration and border policies enacted in both Mexico and the United States. We describe the origins of the migration in U.S. Cold War interventions that created many thousands of displaced people fleeing violence and economic degradation in the region, leading to a sustained process of undocumented migration to the United States. Owing to rising levels of gang violence and weather events associated with climate change, the number of people seeking to escape threats in Central America has multiplied and unauthorized migration through Mexico toward the United States has increased. However, the securitization of migration in both Mexico and the United States has blocked these migrants from exercising their right to petition for asylum, creating a growing backlog of migrants who are subject to human rights violations and predations both by criminals and government authorities, leading migrants to label Mexican routes northward as a “corridor of death.” We draw on data from annual reports of Mexico’s Red de Documentación de las Organizaciones Defensoras de Migrantes (Network for the Documentation of Migrant Defense Organizations) to construct a statistical profile of transit migrants and the threats they face as reported by humanitarian actors in Mexico. These reports allow us to better understand the practical realities of the “complex humanitarian crisis” facing undocumented migrants, both as unauthorized border crossers and as transit migrants moving between the southern frontiers of Mexico and the United States.
Topic:
Migration, Border Control, Humanitarian Crisis, and Migrants
Political Geography:
North America, Mexico, and United States of America

27. Implications from the Guard's Extensive Use: A Cautionary Tale of 2020

Author:
Michael G. Anderson
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Advanced Military Studies
Institution:
Marine Corps University Press, National Defense University
Abstract:
From 2020–22, the National Guard saw extensive use domestically to respond to a wide variety of crises, including natural disasters, civil unrest, pandemics, and border security in addition to overseas deployments. As these emergencies perpetuate, balancing the National Guard’s use domestically and overseas is critical to preserving a sustainable and capable force. It is important for a broader understanding across local, state, and federal governments of the sustainability of these cumulative effects on this force.
Topic:
Armed Forces, Border Control, COVID-19, Civil Unrest, and National Guard
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

28. Beyond Border Security, Keeping Pace with Migrants, Refugees, and Climate Change

Author:
Marsha Michel
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS)
Abstract:
Mexico is no longer just a transit country for migrants, it has become a destination country for those seeking refuge from their home country. According to Refugee International, in 2021 Mexico saw over 70 percent increase in asylum cases. In addition, Mexico is seeing a growing number of internally displaced Mexicans due to religion, human rights violations, natural disasters, and clashes between rival gangs. While this has been an issue since the 1970s, it’s only in 2019 that it's been getting the official attention of the Mexican government, human rights organizations as well as international organizations.
Topic:
Security, Climate Change, Migration, Border Control, and Refugees
Political Geography:
Latin America, North America, and Mexico

29. Obscure but Powerful: Shaping U.S. Immigration Policy through Attorney General Referral and Review

Author:
Sarah Pierce
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Migration Policy Institute (MPI)
Abstract:
Over the course of four years, the Trump administration used a wide range of executive action tools to make sweeping changes to the U.S. immigration system. Among them is an obscure but powerful bureaucratic authority known as the attorney general’s “referral and review” power. By allowing the attorney general to review and overrule decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals (the immigration appellate body within the U.S. Department of Justice), referral and review makes it possible to alter or reinterpret the application of immigration laws—at times with wide-reaching effects. While the frequent and consequential use of this power by Trump-era attorneys general drew increased attention to it, many of the concerns that have been raised about it predate the Trump administration. Among them: that it allows the attorney general—the country’s chief law enforcement officer—to intercede in individual cases, raising questions about the independence of the immigration adjudication system; that referral and review decisions are made with minimal procedural safeguards or transparency; and that the power has remained in the Justice Department, even as most immigration functions were moved to the Department of Homeland Security when that agency was created nearly two decades ago. This report explores how referral and review has evolved over time, including under the Trump administration, whose attorneys general referred more cases to themselves for review than those in any prior administration, Republican or Democrat. The report also looks closely at the two areas of U.S. immigration policy most affected by Trump-era referral and review decisions: the U.S. asylum system and court procedures, including how immigration judges manage their own dockets. Finally, it looks ahead to how the power might be used in the future and recommends ways to improve its use and placement within the immigration bureaucracy.
Topic:
Immigration, Law, Border Control, and Asylum
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

30. The EU Settlement Scheme

Author:
Catherine Barnard and Fiona Costello
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
UK in a Changing Europe, King's College London
Abstract:
The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) allows EU nationals who arrived by 31 December 2020 (and some others) to protect their rights to live and work in the UK. The aim of this report is to explain the scheme, its background, how it works, who has applied, who may not have, and the lessons we have learned so far.
Topic:
Border Control, European Union, Citizenship, and Immigration Policy
Political Geography:
United Kingdom and Europe