Immigration Research Grants

Overview

<p>Presently, the U.S. immigration system keeps too many from fully participating in the American experience—to the detriment of our society. Reforms that incentivize legal immigration and welcome the majority of prospective immigrants, while preventing those who would come to do us harm, can yield safer communities and a stronger economy.</p> <p>The Foundation supports scholars exploring solutions and innovative alternatives to a system burdened by backlogs in family-based immigration and asylum processing and posing countless employment barriers for foreign graduates of U.S. universities. The Foundation is especially interested in research that:</p> <ul> <li>Examines the costs and benefits of merit- or points-based immigration systems, temporary visa programs, and flexible, provisional, or dual-purpose visa alternatives;</li> <li>Measures the impact of immigration on formal and informal institutions, including social capital;</li> <li>Explores social and cultural integration mechanisms and their effects;</li> <li>Analyzes the consequences of overlapping immigration, law enforcement, and national security policies;</li> <li>Tracks entrepreneurship among immigrant populations and their contribution to economic growth;</li> <li>Evaluates and proposes improvements on: <ul> <li>Interior immigration and border enforcement practices;</li> <li>The adjudication and processing of refugee and asylum claims;</li> </ul> </li> <li>Collects data and produces longitudinal, structured datasets on: <ul> <li>Resident attitudes towards immigration;</li> <li>Measures of immigrant integration such as language acquisition, educational attainment, wage assimilation, or intergenerational social mobility;</li> <li>Status adjustment, naturalization, and emigration rates;</li> <li>Immigrants’ access to, use of, and contribution to welfare and public services.</li> </ul> </li> </ul>