- Home
- About GCIR
- Membership
- Programs
- About Immigration
- Immigrant Integration
- Publications
- FAQs
Minnesota has a long history of immigration with immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century contributing to the state's economic growth. With a new age of immigrants from new parts of the world, the state is beginning to ask critical questions to guide its growth in the coming years: What impact do immigrants have on the state’s economy and our public institutions? What role should immigration play in Minnesota’s future?
This report, commissioned by The Minneapolis Foundation, seeks to answer these questions and also identifies future research topics.
Nearly 1 in 10 families with children have mixed citizenship status, where one or more parents may be a noncitizen and one or more children may be a citizen. This study explores the reasons for the creation of a mixed-status family category and the unintended effects that social policies (such as the 1996 welfare restrictions) can have on citizen children.
This report shows how sharp restrictions of the 1996 immigration law have combined with post-September 11 law and policy changes to create a two-tiered system of justice that singles out immigrants for unequal treatment. The United States should be able to protect its borders, limit illegal immigration, and preserve national security while protecting civil rights, promoting family reunification, and respecting due process. The study combines a clear description of legal changes with stories of affected individuals, and recommends steps to restore due process and fair treatment.
The toolkit is intended to help leaders and organizations strengthen their communications in ways that build broader and more lasting support for social justice in the United States. It will introduce readers to the "Opportunity Frame"--a communications approach, rooted in shared values that we believe can greatly expand the constituency for positive social change. It includes case studies of campaigns that have successfully used elements of the "Opportunity Frame" and concrete tools to help organizations working for social change apply this approach to their own work. For more information contact heath@spinproject.org.
Forty years after the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965, which sought to rectify the nation's history of racism and discrimination in immigration policy, the restorative nature of the act and its civil-rights base are threatened by a growing anti-immigrant movement and the mounting stack of proposed anti-immigrant legislation.
Children in immigrant families account for nearly one-fourth (24 percent) of all children as of 2010, and the vast majority (88 percent) are U.S. citizens. In fact, children of immigrants account for nearly the entire growth in the U.S. child population between 1990 and 2008.1 This policy brief draws on key indicators from the Foundation for Child Development Child Well-Being Index (CWI), as well as additional data, to highlight both similarities and differences in the circumstances of children in immigrant and native-born families.
During the last two years of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) vastly expanded its use of home raid operations as a method to locate and apprehend individuals suspected of civil immigration law violations. ICE has admitted that these are warrantless raids and, therefore, that any entries into homes require the informed consent of residents. However, frequent accounts in the media and in legal filings have told a similar story of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids — a story that includes ICE agents breaking into homes and seizing all occupants without legal basis.
This report is the first public effort to compile and analyze the available evidence regarding the prevalence of constitutional violations occurring during ICE home raids. Through two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, the authors of this report obtained significant samples of ICE arrest records from home raid operations in New York and New Jersey. Analysis of these records, together with other publicly available documents, reveals an established pattern of misconduct by ICE agents in the New York and New Jersey Field Offices. Further, the evidence suggests that such pattern may be a widespread national phenomenon reaching beyond these local offices.
Authored by the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic with funding from the Hagedorn Foundation.
After 9/11, 50 restrictive proposals were introduced in several states to deter immigrants from obtaining or keeping their driver's licenses. Proposals included the prohibition of licenses for the undocumented and new conditions on acceptable documents for proving identity. The impacts on immigrants and efforts to combat the new restrictions are explored here.
This Policy Brief examines four types of criteria for earned legalization (English proficiency, employment, continuous presence, and monetary fines) in the five major legalization bills proposed by Congress since 2006 and considers their projected effects on the ability of unauthorized men, women, and children to gain legal status.
This document represents the synthesis of perspectives developed during a two-year process aimed at identifying key policy and institutional changes that could help a burgeoning regional equity movement in the country become more effective. Supported by the Ford Foundation and managed by the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community at UC Santa Cruz, the initiative brought together a core group of leading 'thinkers and doers' from a range of sectors and perspectives for a series of meetings aimed at distilling key lessons from local and state-level efforts around the country.
This section includes information on restrictionist groups and anti-immigrant activities. It also contains information about discrimination and hate crimes targeting immigrant communities.
Shows how ambivalence towards new immigrants and racial minorities has resulted in residential segregation by race and income, and how this segregation undermines education and job prospects as well as health and safety. Outlines an agenda to expand opportunity and assesses viability of movement for regional solutions.
The author provides insight on the immigrants who have been detained in the post-9/11 era, and the harsh realities they face. A look at where philanthropy has made a difference and where opportunities for funding remain are also detailed.
This book examines how the dramatic increase in economic inequality since the 1970s may have stalled or reversed gains toward the U.S. ideal of participatory, responsive democracy. Scholars marshal evidence that economic inequality has diminished the voice of middle and working classes in politics, and reduced support for inclusive public policies, like the G.I. Bill and Social Security, that opened opportunities in the middle of the twentieth century.
Microsoft, among other corporations, supports pro-bono legal services for immigrants who are detained and face deportation without access to legal counsel.
The story of yesterday's second generation overall is one of progress and advancement. However, exclusively upbeat portrayals fail to capture the complexities of the paths of second-generation Italians and eastern European Jews. Recognizing the possibility of similarities and continuities between the second generation of southern and eastern Europeans and today’s second generation opens up the possibility for learning lessons from the past that have significance for the present and future.
Finds that after five decades of progress in building a middle class, creating a safety net, and erecting legal protections against official segregation and overt exclusion of marginalized groups, opportunity in the United States is at risk. Clear charts and data measure progress along six interrelated dimensions: mobility, equality, participation in democracy, redemption/ rehabilitation, community, and security.
Through the H-2B program, employers fill temporary and seasonal positions outside of the agricultural sector with low-skill immigrant workers. Although a small program with only 66,000 H-2B visas available each year, the program plays a critical role in the economy, helping large and small employers to meet their staffing needs. From ski resorts in Colorado, seafood processing in Maryland, and the hospitality industry in Nantucket, workers on H-2B visas support regional industries. Many critics claim the program hurts American workers and leaves foreign workers vulnerable to exploitation. This report argues there is no economic evidence to support these claims, yet provides recommendations for streamlining and improving the program.
Title VI was enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
This book, which was one of two follow-up reports to the Ford Foundation’s Changing Relations Project from 1987 to 1991, placed multicultural research teams in a variety of U.S. cities. The research revealed that participation across groups in a shared task helps to reduce competition as well as build bonds of trust. The report noted that the challenge is not merely in "harmonizing relations among groups" but in "mobilizing intergroup cooperation into strategies for economic and political advancement." Examples of initiatives included the following areas: affordable housing, economic development, family literacy, and neighborhood and citywide advocacy.
To order a copy of one of GCIR's publications, click here.