Ending Automatic Birthright Citizenship Would Significantly Increase the Size of the U.S. Unauthorized Population, New Projections Show
Ending birthright citizenship for babies born on U.S. soil to unauthorized immigrants or certain other non-citizens would have a contrary result from its stated aim of reducing the unauthorized immigrant population. New estimates from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and Penn State’s Population…
This Week in Immigration Podcast: "Estimating the Unauthorized Immigrant Population"
In this week’s episode, BPC Senior Advisor Theresa Cardinal Brown sits down with Robert Warren from the Center for Migration Studies, Jeffrey Passel from the Pew Research Center, and Jennifer Van Hook from Penn State's Migration Policy Institute to discuss methodologies used to estimate the…
News Topics: ImmigrationMigration Research
New estimates reveal size and heterogeneity of unauthorized immigrant population
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) recently released its latest estimates of the size of the U.S. unauthorized immigrant population, finding that between 2019 and 2023, the unauthorized immigrant population grew by 3 million, or an average of 6 percent per year. According to the MPI,…
News Topics: Migration ResearchImmigration
Who are immigrants to the US, where do they come from and where do they live?
This article was originally written for The Conversation by Jennifer Van Hook, PRI Director & Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography. Undocumented immigration is a key issue in American politics, but it can be hard to nail down the basic facts about who these immigrants are, where…
News Topics: Migration ResearchImmigration
Local immigration enforcement was supposed to make communities safer
New research suggests that local cooperation in federal immigration enforcement erodes rather than enhances public safety.1 An examination of three leading forms of federal–local law enforcement collaboration, by Eric Baumer of Pennsylvania State University and Min Xie of the University of Maryland…
News Topics: Migration ResearchImmigration
Mexican Americans' educational history detailed in new book
A new book examining the institutional barriers faced by Mexican immigrants in Texas is now available for purchase. "Texas-Style Exclusion: Mexican Americans and the Legacy of Limited Opportunity," written by Penn State Population Research Institute Director Jennifer Van Hook and Temple University…
Ask an expert: Immigration and the 2024 presidential election
Immigration remains a top concern for American voters, and a topic fueling much debate in the news and on social media. Penn State News spoke with Jennifer Van Hook, distinguished professor of sociology and demography and director of SSRI's Population Research Institute, about immigration and the…
MPI Issues Latest Estimates of the Size and Origins of the U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population
The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) today released its latest estimates of the size of the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States, pegging the number at 11.3 million in mid-2022. That figure is up from 11.2 million in 2021 and 11.0 million in 2019. Penn State's Migration…
Many people in the Arctic are staying put despite climate change, study reports
Temperatures are rising rapidly in the Arctic, raising questions about how communities are coping in the shifting climate. A team led by Penn State researchers reviewed studies from the past 30 years to examine whether these challenges are causing people to migrate out of the area — or if, and why…
Three Penn State faculty members collaborate on immigration initiative
By Rachel Keller, The Daily Collegian At the centennial of the 1924 Johnson-Reed Immigration Act, A K Sandoval-Strausz, Tobias Brinkmann and Jennifer Van Hook, faculty members for Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts, shifted their focus to educating the community on the impacts of immigration…
Liberal Arts initiative to explore historical, societal impacts of immigration
Immigration is the focus of the current offering in the College of the Liberal Arts’ “Moments of Change” initiative — an undertaking that brings students, faculty, staff and alumni together to explore what it means to live through historic and contemporary times of change. Through…
Immigrant families focus of recent national symposium
The 31st Annual National Symposium on Family Issues recently was held at Penn State’s University Park campus and focused on how immigration policies impact the rapidly growing migrant family demographic. “Twenty-six percent of all children living in the United States live with an immigrant…
SSRI sponsors new UNDOCU storytelling seminar series
The UNDOCU storytelling seminar series is chaired by a committee of Penn State graduate students and staff who either have a former undocumented status or come from mixed status families. The first seminar was an information session moderated by Dean Romero, Lyana Sunbhanchang and…
Four Penn State Liberal Arts faculty members receive Fulbright Scholar Awards
Four College of the Liberal Arts faculty members recently received Fulbright Scholar Awards for the 2023-24 academic year: Gary Adler Jr.,associate professor of sociology; Jennifer E. Glick, associate director of the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) and…
Penn State Family Symposium to focus on immigrant families
The 31st Annual National Symposium on Family Issues, being held Oct. 23 - Oct. 24 virtually and in person in 233B HUB-Robeson Center, will focus on immigrant family research and the effects of public policies and practices on this demographic. The first session, “How immigration…
A Turning Point for the Unauthorized Immigrant Population in the United States
By Jennifer Van Hook, Julia Gelatt and Ariel G. Ruiz Soto Approximately 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the United States in 2021, up from 11.0 million in 2019, according to new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) estimates. This represents larger annual growth in the…
Federal-local immigration enforcement policies designed to reduce crime found to raise victimization among Latinos Peer-Reviewed Publication
Efforts to understand the effects of immigration enforcement on crime have largely been informed by police crime statistics. In a new study, researchers used longitudinal data from the U.S. National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) to assess the impact of federal immigration policies on local…