The Mexico Institute’s current immigration-related programming includes a partnership with the Latin American Program and the Migration Policy Institute to facilitate a series of collaborative regional approaches to migration in the U.S., Mexico and Central America.

The Mexico Institute also manages a U.S.-Mexico Migration Dialogue that brings together federal, state, and local policymakers from both countries, as well as civil society to address shared binational challenges on migration, including improving enforcement regimes, addressing development needs, and preparing both governments for the administrative challenges of legal reform. The Wilson Center recently released a report examining the links between development and migration in the U.S. and Mexico, and a brief analyzing the legal side of Mexican immigration.

Latest Migration Publications from the Mexico Institute
 

 

Major Initiatives on Migration and Migrants

 

Regional Migration Study Group

The Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute and Latin America program and the Migration Policy Institute have partnered to facilitate a series of conversations about developing a collaborative, regional approach to these issues. The Regional Migration Study Group, consisting of two dozen former officials, civil-society leaders, policy intellectuals, and specialists in the United States, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, will meet twice yearly over a three-year period. The Study Group will be co-chaired by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, former US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, and former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein.

U.S.-Mexico Migration Dialogue

This project seeks to generate a dialogue on the practical steps that the two governments can take to address bilateral migration issues. It brings together federal, state, and local policymakers from both countries, along with civil society stakeholders, to discuss how policy may be improved to better manage migration flows, protect migrants, and ensure their successful integration. As part of these discussions a paper was published by the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity at the University of California, Berkeley Law School in February 2011. The report, titled “Borders, Jails, and Jobsites: An Overview of Federal Immigration Enforcement Programs in the U.S.”, provides an overview of the current state of immigration enforcement in the U.S. in order to facilitate a productive discussion toward reform

Latino Migrant Civic And Political Participation

This project documents the ways in which Latin American immigrants are engaging civically and politically in diverse communities of settlement in the United States. The project includes case studies of nine U.S. cities; some with longer histories of immigration, others more recent sites of long-term settlement.

The Mexico Institute has several research paper series looking at civic engagement and political participation of Latino immigrants in the United States:

Context Matters
The project seeks to document the ways in which Latino and Latin American immigrants are expressing themselves politically and civically in new communities of settlement in the United States and as transnational actors. The significant influence of Latino voters in the 2008 elections reinforces a need to better analyze the evolving phenomenon of immigrant integration, particularly in regions of the country that are historically unaccustomed to assimilating recent Latino populations. This project consists of a national report along with nine city reports: Charlotte, NC; Washington, DC; San Jose, CA; Las Vegas, NV; Omaha, NE; Tucson, AZ; Los Angeles, CA; Fresno, CA; and Chicago, IL. All publications are available in English and Spanish.To view discussions from the conference on "Latino Immigrant Civic Engagement Trends,'' click here.

Invisible No More
This report explores the various ways that Mexican migrants to the United States are becoming civically and politically active in both countries. This collection of brief essays looks at how recent migrants interact with traditional Latino organizations, the labor movement, religious communities, the media, and both the U.S. and Mexican political systems, transforming each through their engagement. This publication is the result of a conference held on November 4–5, 2005 at the Woodrow Wilson Center, co-sponsored by the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The conference brought together migrant leaders, scholars, and representatives of civic, labor, and religious organizations. Jonathan Fox, Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, and Xóchitl Bada organized this conference, with support from Andrew Selee and Kate Brick at the Wilson Center.

Additional Research Papers
These papers complement the investigations in the "Context Matters" and "Invisible No More" series.

 
 

 

 

 

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