Report

Charting a Course to Rebuild and Strengthen the US Refugee Admissions Program

This report analyzes the US refugee resettlement program – known as “USRAP” (the US Refugee Admissions Program) – leveraging data from a national survey of resettlement stakeholders conducted in 2020. The survey examined USRAP from the time that refugees arrive in the United States. The survey’s design and questionnaire were informed by three community gatherings organized by Refugee Council USA in the fall and winter of 2019, extensive input from an expert advisory group, and a literature review.

This report finds that USRAP serves important purposes, enjoys extensive community support, and offers a variety of effective services. Overall, the survey finds a high degree of consensus on the US resettlement program’s strengths and objectives, and close alignment between its services and the needs of refugees at different stages of their settlement and integration. Because USRAP’s infrastructure and community-based resettlement networks have been decimated in recent years, the Biden administration’s main challenges will be to rebuild and revitalize the program, educate the public on it, and try to regain broad, bi-partisan support for it. The report also points to specific ways in which USRAP’s programs and services should be strengthened.

Improving the U.S. Immigration System in the First Year of the Biden Administration

The Biden administration will face substantial challenges in putting immigration and refugee policy back on track—not just reversing ill-advised policies of the past four years but also improving a system that was in need of reform well before the current administration took office. In this paper, T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Donald Kerwin highlight a number of reforms that should be prioritized by the Biden administration in its first year.

US Foreign-Born Essential Workers by Status and State, and the Global Pandemic

This paper provides comprehensive estimates on immigrant (foreign-born) workers in the United States, employed in “essential critical infrastructure” categories, as defined by the US Department of Homeland Security. It finds that immigrants in the labor force and age 16 and over, work at disproportionate rates in “essential critical infrastructure” jobs. In particular, 69 percent of all immigrants in the labor force and 74 percent of undocumented workers are essential infrastructure workers, compared to 65 percent of the native-born labor force

Immigrant Detention and COVID-19: How a Pandemic Exploited and Spread through the US Immigrant Detention System

This report reviews US detention developments from March 1 to August 1, 2020, a period when COVID-19 established itself and spread through the sprawling US detention system and beyond it. The report – which CMS updated regularly during this period – documents ICE’s fatally flawed response to this crisis, paying particular attention to the role of the private corporations that largely operate this system. It explores how the pandemic exploited and exacerbated longstanding problems in this system, such as its privatization, prison-like facilities, correctional standards, lack of transparency, and perverse financial incentives.

Statelessness in the United States: A Study to Estimate and Profile the US Stateless Population

This report describes a unique methodology to produce estimates and set forth the characteristics of US residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. It also lifts up the voices and challenges of stateless persons, and outlines steps to reduce statelessness and to safeguard the rights of stateless persons in the United States.

As part of the study, CMS developed extensive, well-documented profiles of non-US citizen residents who are potentially stateless or potentially at risk of statelessness. It then used these profiles to query American Community Survey data in order to develop provisional estimates and determine the characteristics of these populations.

DACA and the Supreme Court

On June 15, 2012, President Obama announced the establishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program opened a floodgate that allowed thousands of young Americans to pursue higher education, better job opportunities, and deepen their social ties in the country. DACA soon proved to be a program of national scope and importance with life-altering impact for its beneficiaries, their families and communities. This paper provides provides a demographic and social portrait of DACA recipients, which shows their deep level of integration and their extensive ties in US communities. For the report, CMS also interviewed several DACA recipients in the New York metro area on DACA’s impact in their lives and what its termination would entail.

Proposed Public Charge Rule Would Significantly Reduce Legal Admissions and Adjustment to Lawful Permanent Resident Status of Working Class Persons

On October 10, 2018, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued its long-anticipated proposed rule on inadmissibility on public charge grounds. Under the proposed rule, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers would consider receipt of cash benefits and, in a break from the past, non-cash medical, housing, and food benefits in making public charge determinations. This focuses on the potential effect of the proposed rule on two populations, undocumented immigrants and nonimmigrants that would otherwise be eligible for legal permanent resident (LPR) status based on a legally qualifying relationship to a US citizen or LPR living in their household. This CMS report analyzes how these populations in 2016 would have fared under the proposed rule. After placing the rule in historic context, the paper profiles these two populations and examines the characteristics that would mitigate in favor of and against their inadmissibility. The study offers a snapshot of these two groups based on estimates derived from the 2016 American Community Survey (ACS).

Communities in Crisis: Interior Removals and Their Human Consequences

The Kino Border Initiative (KBI), CMS, and the Office of Justice and Ecology (OJE) of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States released a new report examining the characteristics of deportees and the effects of deportation. This report details findings from the CRISIS Study (Catholic Removal Impact Survey in Society), which interviewed deportees at KBI’s migrant shelter in Nogales, Sonora, and those affected by deportation in Catholic parishes in Florida, Michigan, and Minnesota. The interviews explored: (1) the impact of removals on deportees, their families, and other community members; (2) the deportation process; and (3) the relationship between deportees and their families. The report also includes policy recommendations to mitigate the ill effects of the administration’s policies and promote the integrity of families and communities, including: using detention as a “last resort;” reducing funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and limiting collaboration between police and ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Chaos on the US-Mexico Border: A Report on the Migrant Crossing Deaths, Immigrant Families, and Subsistence-Level Laborers

This report analyzes the effect of US immigration policies on migrants and residents along the US-Mexico border. It begins with a discussion of US border enforcement strategies and expenditures. It describes the multifaceted impact of these policies on migrants, their...

The Needless Detention of Immigrants in the United States: Why Are We Locking Up Asylum-Seekers, Children, Stateless Persons, Long-Term Permanent Residents, and Petty Offenders?

This report contributes to the extensive literature on the suffering caused by the US immigration detention system, with a focus on the government’s failure to pursue alternatives to detention for persons that need not and should not be detained. It...