Democratizing Data and Promoting Legalization/Regularization without Federal Immigration Reform

On Monday, September 29, 2014, the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) hosted a conference, entitled, “Democratizing Data and Promoting Legalization/Regularization without Federal Immigration Reform.”  The conference featured the release of a variable developed by Robert Warren (Senior Visiting Fellow, Center for Migration Studies) that will allow researchers and others to tabulate data based on the legal status of non-citizens in the American Community Survey. Detailed estimates can be derived for states or for localities with population sizes of 100,000 or more. The conference also released the results from a survey of community-based legal service providers by Tom Wong (Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of California San Diego) that attempts to estimate the percentage of unauthorized persons that may be eligible for immigration status/relief under current law. In addition, Roberto Suro (Professor, University of Southern California and Director of the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute) discussed his research on state and local initiatives that have attempted to stabilize the lives and regularize the status of unauthorized persons and their families. Findings from each of the panels will be synthesized and published in forthcoming issues of the Journal on Migration and Human Security (www.jmhs.cmsny.org).

The conference was part of CMS’s yearlong celebration of its 50th Anniversary and was made possible through the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.