The U.S. refugee resettlement program is facing an extraordinary set of pressures and challenges. Following the Trump administration’s decision to sharply reduce refugee admissions, the number plunged in fiscal 2018 to an unprecedented low of 22,491 since the program’s formal creation in 1980. This has in turn caused drastic funding cuts for resettlement programs and uncertainty about the future—threatening the network’s sustainability and capacity for larger-scale refugee resettlement in the future. These challenges make this an important time to consider how programs can better serve the full spectrum of refugee integration needs, and how to strengthen partnerships with local governments and nongovernmental actors.

Traditionally the refugee resettlement system has concentrated on helping adults find employment quickly, with limited resources focused on children or nonworking family members. However, research and experience point to the benefits of adopting strategies that address the needs of the whole family. Strong and supportive families promote better outcomes for children. Grounded in that knowledge, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) released a study on how a two-generation approach could strengthen refugee integration in the United States.

On this webinar, MPI researchers Mark Greenberg, Julia Gelatt, and Jessica Bolter explore promising practices to better serve refugee families, including innovative efforts to secure better jobs for adult refugees over time. In a conversation with Utah's Director of Refugee Services Asha Parekh and Colorado's State Refugee Coordinator Kit Taintor, study authors discuss the potential for implementing and supporting two-generation approaches to refugee integration at a time when the system’s funding and capacity are in peril.   

The international migrant population includes some of the most vulnerable people in the world, including unaccompanied children and children in detention. Yet these children are often invisible in data and in many places denied entry into schools, while they are often the ones most in need of the safe haven, stability, and path to a brighter future that education can provide.

Marking the U.S. release of the 2019 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, this event convened by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the GEM Report includes a presentation of the report that focuses mainly on migration and displacement in its continued assessment of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda. This global study presents evidence on the implications of different types of migration and displacement for education and how reforming curricula, pedagogy, and teacher preparation can impact attitudes toward diversity. The report analyzes the challenges to effective humanitarian financing for education and makes the case for investing in the education of children whose parents migrate for work, in countries with high rates of emigration and those seeing high rates of immigration, and in short-term refugee emergencies and in protracted crises. It also offers recommendations that advance the aims of SDG 4.

Drawing on the experience of the United States, the discussion looks at different ways education policymakers, teachers, and civil society have responded to the educational needs of migrants and how to address the legal, administrative, or linguistic barriers that sometimes inhibit children from participating meaningfully and equally in education programs. Speakers--including the 2018 Teacher of the Year Mandy Manning; Refugee Council USA's Director Mary Giovagnoli; former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development Joan Lombardi; and Priyadarshani Joshi from the GEM Report--highlighted the centrality of education for the process of inclusion and reflect on the capacity of education systems to serve children and youth from migrant backgrounds. The discussion moderated by MPI's Margie McHugh explored possible solutions, and offered fresh ideas on how to ensure that education addresses diversity in and outside the classroom.

Getting recently arrived immigrants and refugees into work has long been considered the lynchpin of successful integration, with the legitimacy of migration and asylum systems often linked to positive economic outcomes. Spurred in part by the European migration crisis, significant social innovations and public-sector investments have focused on assessing newcomers’ existing skills, matching them with available jobs, and providing training to those in need. But with labour markets increasingly characterized by technological disruption and the flexible but precarious "gig economy," this model risks being severely upended.

This Migration Policy Institute Europe webinar marks the release of two publications produced in the framework of its Integration Futures Working Group. Jobs in 2028: How Will Changing Labor Markets Affect Immigrant Integration in Europe? examines possible scenarios for how social, economic, and technological trends could affect jobs, labor market policy, education and social policies, and migrant integration. The second report, Tech Jobs for Refugees: Assessing the Potential of Coding Schools for Refugee Integration in Germany, explores the potential of coding schools for refugees to help alleviate skills shortages and provide a pathway to work—for more than only a high-skilled minority. Join the experts for a discussion of key questions: How can governments equip newcomers—and indeed citizens—with the skills to thrive in the job markets of the future? How can governments prepare public services and contribution-based benefit schemes for a changing world of work? And for those unable to find work, what are the alternative ways that newcomers can meaningfully and measurably contribute to society?

Young children in refugee families often endure significant direct or indirect trauma from their experiences during conflict, flight, or resettlement. Extensive research demonstrates that trauma can seriously impact the brain, cognitive, and socioemotional development of young children, potentially interfering with their learning capacity and ability to form healthy attachments. The issue of trauma has therefore gained increasing visibility across the early childhood field, yet relatively little research has explored the specific traumatic experiences and needs of young refugee children or strategies to address them.  

High-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs can have enormous benefits, particularly for the children of immigrants and refugees. ECEC programs also present an important opportunity to provide trauma-informed services in a nonclinical setting, significantly expanding access to important socioemotional and mental health supports for this vulnerable population. However, Migration Policy Institute research shows that many U.S. ECEC programs and systems lack the capacity and knowledge to take a trauma-informed approach in their services.

Experts, on this webinar, discuss the effects of trauma on the development of young refugee children. They also highlight ways ECEC programs can address this trauma, including practical strategies that child-care providers in Canada are using to support the resiliency of refugee children and families. This webinar is the first of two discussions that MPI is hosting on the issue of trauma-informed care for young children of refugees in early childhood programs. The second webinar is on September 13.

Ample data on English Learner (EL) student outcomes provide evidence of the steep challenge these students face in developing grade-level academic language and content knowledge. These data point to a critical question: are local schools and school districts using appropriate instructional program models to meet EL needs? While the effectiveness of specific instructional models for these students—such as dual language, transitional bilingual, and English-only approaches—have attracted the attention of researchers and policymakers, instructional programming actually provided by schools or school districts is often a mix of different models or approaches. For this reason, it is crucial that a range of stakeholders—including state and local education agency leaders, legislators, school board members, and community advocates—have a clear picture of what programs are offered to EL students and factors that might indicate whether they are appropriate and effective choices.

To improve understanding about the critical nature of the choices schools make with regard to EL instruction programs, MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy released an issue brief, the second in an EL Insights series, that describes the goals and main features of common instructional models and key factors that often shape their selection and implementation by schools. In this webinar, the brief’s author, Julie Sugarman, discusses the key features of EL instructional models, how they are sometimes woven together to address language- and content-learning needs of students, and factors that can account for varied approaches within and across schools.

Other experts discuss state- and district-level approaches to supporting schools in implementing effective EL program models. They highlight the evolution of bilingual and dual language programming in Madison, Wisconsin, and New York State’s implementation of English as a New Language units of study as the foundation for more effective EL programming. Both speakers illustrate how, in order to improve the academic trajectories of EL students, ongoing reflection guided policy revisions and changes to the design and support of EL programs.

The audio from this webinar highlights findings from a Migration Policy Institute report examining the potential impacts of expected changes to the public charge rule by the Trump administration. Leaked draft versions indicate that the rule could allow the administration to make changes to the legal immigration system, in part by making it more difficult for legally present noncitizens to acquire a green card or visa if they or their family members have used public benefits. The rule likely would discourage millions from accessing health, nutrition, and social services for which they or their U.S.-citizen dependents are eligible.

As asylum seekers and refugees have arrived in significant numbers in Europe and North America in recent years, many countries have struggled to address the newcomers’ basic reception needs and provide effective integration services. Young children comprise a substantial share of these arrivals, and many have experienced significant trauma and stress that pose serious risks to their cognitive, psychosocial, and physical development. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs present an important opportunity to mitigate many risks these children may face, improving their education trajectories and supporting longer-term success. They can also play a critical role in the integration of refugee parents and families more broadly. In many countries, however, services for young refugee children are highly limited and lack the capacity to meet their learning and development needs.

This webinar marks the release of an Migration Policy Institute report examining the challenges and successes major host countries in Europe and North America are experiencing in providing high-quality ECEC services. The report draws on fieldwork conducted in nine countries: Belgium, Canada, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Turkey, and the United States. It is an initiative of the Transatlantic Forum on Inclusive Early Years, a consortium of European and U.S. foundations convened by the Brussels-based King Baudouin Foundation.

During the webinar, authors, Maki Park and Margie McHugh discuss the report’s findings, highlighting promising policies and practices identified in field research, as well as key areas in which ECEC services for this population need to be strengthened. They are joined by Anna Österlund, from the Swedish National Agency for Education, who highlights innovative national and local policies in Sweden that support young refugee children in their early learning experiences.

Across many early childhood education and care (ECEC) and K-12 school systems in the United States, the diversity of languages spoken, countries of origin, and other characteristics of the young child population is rapidly rising. An increasing number of communities in the United States are experiencing conditions of “superdiversity,” creating learning environments that require different instructional strategies and approaches than those used in more homogeneous or bilingual settings to support Dual Language Learners’ access to high-quality early childhood services that can support their healthy development and future academic success.

This webinar marks the release of two research reports that illustrate the challenges and opportunities related to teaching and learning in a superdiverse environment, pointing to promising approaches to work effectively in multilingual, multicultural classrooms. The reports focus on patterns of home language use across different ECEC program types, and the potential of the Sobrato Early Academic Language (SEAL) model to improve instruction and outcomes for Dual Language Learners in superdiverse settings. During the webinar, authors present findings and highlights from their work, and key implications for policy and practice will be discussed.

The reports discussed are:

The Language of the Classroom: Dual Language Learners in Head Start, Public Pre-K, and Private Preschool Programs

Supporting Dual Language Learner Success in Superdiverse PreK-3 Classrooms: The Sobrato Early Academic Language Model

With immigration increasingly visible in the news and the political space in the United States and internationally, getting access to accurate, high-quality data is essential for publics and policymakers to understand immigration’s demographic effects and impacts on the economy, education and labor systems, and the communities in which immigrants and their families live and work.

This event marks the release of an updated version of the popular Immigration Data Matters guide, which directs users to more than 220 international and U.S. data sources, and explains how to navigate sometimes complex datasets issued by government statistical agencies, international organizations, and reputable research organizations. This handy online guide includes data sources covering everything from the size of foreign-born population stocks and flows to citizenship applications, children in immigrant families, refugee admissions, migrant deaths, international student enrollment, global remittance flows, enforcement activities, and much more. 

At a time of proliferating data sources on immigration and immigrants, the presenters (Jeanne Batalova, MPI Senior Policy Analyst and Data Hub Manager, MPI; Mark Mather, Population Reference Bureau Associate Vice President for U.S. Programs; Elizabeth M. Grieco, Pew Research Center Senior Writer/Editor and former U.S. Census Bureau Foreign-Born Population Branch Chief; and Marc Rosenblum, Deputy Assistant Secretary and Director of the Office of Immigration Statistics at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) discuss where some of the most user-friendly data can be accessed, including MPI’s own Migration Data Hub. They share their insights on how to avoid common pitfalls in using existing immigration data and highlight relevant data sources available from international organizations and national governments, including the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  

Immigrants, who account for 17 percent of the U.S. labor force, are twice as likely as native-born workers to work in industries where core labor and safety standard violations are widespread. Many immigrants have been driven into low-wage, under-regulated work by a confluence of immigration policies and economic transformations in which companies now routinely contract out for their labor needs, such as occurs in the cleaning, warehousing, food preparation, construction, and transportation sectors. In these sectors, it is commonplace for employers to misclassify workers as independent contractors to avoid paying employer-related taxes and workers compensation, and to evade responsibility for compliance with labor standards. Pushing back against the deterioration of labor standards in these sectors requires robust and strategic enforcement, but both government and private-sector driven enforcement are stymied by limited resources and disincentives for workers to file complaints.

State and local governments, with their broad enforcement powers, access to tax and insurance data, and their role in regulating unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation, are uniquely positioned to respond. As a Migration Policy Institute report outlines, state innovations in enforcement can benefit both native-born and immigrant workers alike, increase state tax revenue, and level competition in the marketplace for law-abiding employers. However, since states also contend with limited resources, strategic enforcement of workplace statutes that change employer behavior is key. 

At this report release discussion, the authors, Muzaffar Chishti, Director, MPI's office at New York University (NYU) School of Law, and Andrew Elmore, NYU School of Law Acting Assistant Professor and former New York Office of Attorney General Labor Bureau Section Chief, discuss the dynamics in low-wage workplaces and immigration law that have contributed to systematic violations of labor standards. They also highlight the new and effective enforcement strategies that state and local governments across the United States are utilizing. And California Labor Commissioner Julie Su and Tennessee Bureau of Workers’ Compensation Administrator Abbie Hudgens discuss how they have leveraged existing resources to more effectively enforce labor laws. 

As the number and share of Dual Language Learners (DLLs) continues to grow across the United States, diversity within this population is also increasing. Although Spanish remains the most commonly spoken language among DLL families in most states, other minority languages have substantial representation in many school districts, cities, and counties. DLLs also span a wide range of races and ethnicities, countries of origin, levels of education, and migration histories. This “superdiversity” has important implications for early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs, schools, and other systems that face the challenge of building the capacity to effectively serve children with unique learning strengths and needs. And while a strong research base has proven the benefits of bilingual education models in supporting DLLs’ academic development, much less is known about effective strategies to serve these children in classrooms where multiple languages and cultures are represented, and no single non-English language is dominant.

This webinar marks the release of a Migration Policy Institute report that provides an analysis of the diversity within the DLL population nationwide and at the state and local levels. The report also offers a closer look at three rapidly growing subgroups within the DLL population: Black and Asian American and Pacific Islander DLLs and young children of refugees. This is the first in a series of three reports that will explore the implications of superdiverse contexts for ECEC programs and systems.

On the webinar, authors of the report, Maki Park and Jie Zong, provide an overview of its findings and policy implications. This was followed by reflections from KaYing Yang, Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Coalition of Asian American Leaders in Minnesota, who discussed on-the-ground challenges and responses related to early learning service provision in superdiverse settings. 

The arrival of hundreds of thousands of children during the migration crisis exacerbated existing structural limitations in how school systems support children with migrant backgrounds, including insufficient teacher capacity and training, and underdeveloped systems for identifying and diagnosing needs. Faced with rising levels of language learners in their classrooms, some schools have turned to innovations in technology and pedagogy—such as personalized learning and differentiated instruction, translation software, ‘flipped’ classrooms, and massive open online courses (MOOCs)—to support teachers and help diverse learners keep up.

Do these innovations represent new solutions, partial supports, or a distraction from the broader challenges of supporting diverse learners? How can educators and integration policymakers use these tools to improve the outcomes for the most disadvantaged students, without widening existing inequalities? And what are the broader structural reforms needed to rethink the way that schools are designed, operated, and staffed to update education systems for diverse populations?

This Migration Policy Institute Europe webinar considers what the future of education might hold for diverse learners. It marks the release of a report, Mainstreaming 2.0: How Europe’s Education Systems Can Boost Migrant Inclusion, produced in the framework of its Integration Futures Working Group. 

Following the arrival of large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers in Europe from 2015 onwards, many non-traditional actors—from tech start-ups to social enterprises—have pioneered innovative solutions to foster the social and economic inclusion of newcomers. In the context of this experimentation, business has played a fundamental role, with companies on both sides of the Atlantic leveraging their potential as employers, donors, and partners in innovative alliances. This two-day conference reflected on how innovative initiatives for refugee inclusion can grow beyond pockets of good practice and inspire large-scale, long-term change. The event brought together a diverse group of public officials, business leaders, service designers, social entrepreneurs, civil society organisations, and refugee initiatives from Europe, the United States, and Canada.

The final interactive panel session “From Niche to Mainstream: Unlocking the Potential of Innovation for Lasting Change” included contributions from:

• Chair: Elizabeth Collett, Director, Migration Policy Institute Europe
• Louisa Taylor, Director, Refugee 613, Canada 
• Ben Mason, Project lead on digital innovation around refugees and migration, Betterplace lab, Germany
• David Manicom, Assistant Deputy Minister, Settlement and Integration Sector, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada
• Laura Corrado, Head of Unit Legal Migration and Integration, DG HOME, European Commission

Following the arrival of large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers in Europe from 2015 onwards, many non-traditional actors—from tech start-ups to social enterprises—have pioneered innovative solutions to foster the social and economic inclusion of newcomers. In the context of this experimentation, business has played a fundamental role, with companies on both sides of the Atlantic leveraging their potential as employers, donors, and partners in innovative alliances. This two-day conference reflected on how innovative initiatives for refugee inclusion can grow beyond pockets of good practice and inspire large-scale, long-term change. The event brought together a diverse group of public officials, business leaders, service designers, social entrepreneurs, civil society organisations, and refugee initiatives from Europe, the United States, and Canada.

This workshop on Employer Engagement: Innovative Approaches to Training and Hiring Refugees featured:  

• Chair: Laurent Aujean, Policy Officer, Unit Legal Migration and Integration, DG Home, European Commission
• Sayre Nyce, Executive Director, Talent Beyond Boundaries, United States
• Peter O’Sullivan, Resettlement Officer, UNHCR, Bureau for Europe
• Mustafa Alroomi, Web Developer & Askim Kintziger, Innovation Consultant, Cronos Groep, Belgium

Following the arrival of large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers in Europe from 2015 onwards, many non-traditional actors—from tech start-ups to social enterprises—have pioneered innovative solutions to foster the social and economic inclusion of newcomers. In the context of this experimentation, business has played a fundamental role, with companies on both sides of the Atlantic leveraging their potential as employers, donors, and partners in innovative alliances. This two-day conference reflected on how innovative initiatives for refugee inclusion can grow beyond pockets of good practice and inspire large-scale, long-term change. The event brought together a diverse group of public officials, business leaders, service designers, social entrepreneurs, civil society organisations, and refugee initiatives from Europe, the United States, and Canada.

In the opening session on the second day of the conference, Maher Ismaail, DaliliNow.com Co-founder and Saeed Kamali Dehghan, a journalist from The Guardian, engaged in a discussion on refugees as agents of innovation. 

Following the arrival of large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers in Europe from 2015 onwards, many non-traditional actors—from tech start-ups to social enterprises—have pioneered innovative solutions to foster the social and economic inclusion of newcomers. In the context of this experimentation, business has played a fundamental role, with companies on both sides of the Atlantic leveraging their potential as employers, donors, and partners in innovative alliances. This two-day conference reflected on how innovative initiatives for refugee inclusion can grow beyond pockets of good practice and inspire large-scale, long-term change. The event brought together a diverse group of public officials, business leaders, service designers, social entrepreneurs, civil society organisations, and refugee initiatives from Europe, the United States, and Canada.

This panel is entitled "Business, not as usual: Private sector innovation for refugee inclusion”, and the speakers are:

• Chair: Irini Pari, European Economic and Social Committee
• Pastora Valero, Vice President, Government Affairs, EMEAR, Cisco
• Justina Spencer, Manager, Global Corporate Responsibility, Deloitte
• Samuel Engblom, Policy Director, TCO Swedish Confederation for Professional Employees, Sweden
• Kavita Brahmbhatt, Co-founder, Action Emploi Réfugiés, France

This webinar marks the release of a Migration Policy Institute report that explores some of the responses made by school districts to bring immigrant and refugee newcomer students up to speed in English and basic academic skills, all while focused on the educational system’s ultimate goal of high school completion with the skills necessary for today’s college and career demands. During the webinar, the author, Julie Sugarman, summarizes findings based on insights from interviews and activities conducted for MPI’s Learning Network for Newcomer Youth Success, a private network that brings together administrators and practitioners in the education, social services, and health and mental health fields who are engaged in providing services to immigrant and refugee newcomers ages 12 to 21. The discussion focuses on how schools create and expand systems around the identification of students’ immediate and ongoing academic and socioemotional needs, and how they design programs and curricular pathways to balance these needs with state policy constraints.

Also in this webinar, two practitioners illustrate specific responses to serving newcomer youth. Nicole Mitchell discusses the efforts of Los Angeles Unified School District's School Enrollment Placement & Assessment Center to address the academic and socioemotional needs of incoming newcomer students. Marguerite Lukes discusses how educators in schools supported by the Internationals Network for Public Schools create systemic supports, such as team teaching, to ensure quality instruction for ELs.

Since the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law in December 2015, community-based groups have been working with states to ensure that English Learners (ELs) are appropriately included in the state accountability system. These systems are complex, leading to questions about the best practices states should adopt and processes to hold schools and states accountable for ELs’ achievement in the fairest and most accurate manner. This webinar, with MPI's Delia Pompa and Margie McHugh, and Susan Lyons from the National Center for Assessment, provides an overview of the decisions states are making. 

MPI has released a related set of 13 state fact sheets that provide a sketch of EL demographics, student outcomes, and accountability mechanisms under ESSA and its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). These fact sheets (covering California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington) are on MPI's web page, English Learners and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The web page offers one-stop access to a number of resources that could help policymakers, community groups, parents, and others understand ongoing issues surrounding implementation of ESSA regulations at the state level.

Nearly 2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States are unemployed or working in low-skilled jobs, resulting in both a waste of the education and training they obtained as well as billions in forgone earnings and lost tax revenue. Foreign-trained doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, and other professionals face diverse barriers to accessing skilled employment, including difficulty gaining recognition for education and training completed abroad, filling gaps in academic or work experience, building professional-level English proficiency, and navigating the U.S. job search and application process. Unnecessary licensing requirements also frequently prevent individuals with years of experience in their home countries from practicing in the United States.

This webinar marks the release of a Migration Policy Institute report examining programs and initiatives that ease the barriers to credential recognition, employment, and relicensure facing foreign-trained immigrants, as well as recent policy developments and ongoing challenges in the field. Speakers talk about lessons from policies and practices being pioneered across the United States to overcome obstacles to career re-entry, and discuss recommendations for community-based organizations, employers, and state and local governments to expand successful efforts aimed at preventing brain waste. They also examine recent initiatives launched by Michigan’s Office for New Americans that are designed to improve immigrants’ access to professional English-language instruction, employment services, and licensing guidance. 

The United States has long attracted some of the world’s best and brightest, drawn by the strong U.S. economy, renowned universities, and reputation for entrepreneurship and innovation. But because of language, credential-recognition, and other barriers many of these highly skilled, college-educated immigrants cannot fully contribute their academic and professional training and skills once in the United States. As a result they work in low-skilled jobs or cannot find a job—a phenomenon known as brain waste.

On this podcast, MPI experts give a presentation of the first-ever U.S. estimates on the economic costs of this skill underutilization for immigrants, their families, and the U.S. economy, along with estimates on forgone earnings and tax payments for: California, Florida, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. The panel discusses the factors linked to immigrant skill underutilization; highlight the potential for current city, state, and U.S. labor policy (including implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) to reduce this brain waste; and offer an employer-based view of skill underutilization and how it can be addressed.

The report and related state research can be found here: https://bit.ly/mpiuntappedtalent