October 29, 2024

Dear John,

The U.S. election one week from today will bring a new president to the White House, capping a momentous campaign in which immigration has been one of the major flashpoints. The election results will surely have profound consequences for how the country with the world’s largest immigrant population manages its borders, receives newcomers, deals with other governments over immigration, and engages with the millions of long-settled immigrants in the United States.

In the final sprint to Election Day, make sure you have accurate, evidence-based, and nonpartisan facts about immigrants and immigration.

The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) has recently published a series of short, graphic-rich explainers that answer key questions:

• Noncitizen Voting in U.S. Elections
• Immigrants and Crime in the United States
• Immigrants and the Use of Public Benefits in the United States
• Who Are Immigrants in the United States?
• Immigrants and the U.S. Economy

Got more questions? Find answers with our wide-ranging guide to the Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States.

Trying to predict what a Trump or Harris administration might look like? The U.S. Policy Beat article “Despite Sharply Different Immigration Rhetoric, Democrats and Republicans Now Have a Similar Approach to the Border,” from our Migration Information Source magazine, offers some clues.

Our analysis of the Trump administration’s actions while in office may also be a preview if the former president returns to the White House:

• Four Years of Profound Change: Immigration Policy during the Trump Presidency
• The “Trump Effect” on Legal Immigration Levels: More Perception than Reality?
• Revving Up the Deportation Machinery: Enforcement under Trump and the Pushback
• In the Age of Trump: Populist Backlash and Progressive Resistance Create Divergent State Immigrant Integration Contexts

Of course, the election will also formally set the stage for the end of the Biden administration. Understand its legacy in the making:

• With New Strategies At and Beyond the U.S. Border, Migrant Encounters Plunge
• The Nascent Architecture for Managing U.S. Border Arrivals Shows Promise
• The Biden Administration Is on Pace to Match Trump Deportation Numbers—Focusing on the Border, Not the U.S. Interior
• In the Twilight Zone: Record Number of U.S. Immigrants Are in Limbo Statuses
• Biden at the Three-Year Mark: The Most Active Immigration Presidency Yet Is Mired in Border Crisis Narrative

Looking for more? MPI analysts will be cataloguing and examining policy changes long after this election cycle ends. Sign up for our monthly U.S. Policy Beat newsletter to stay on top of the latest changes.

And find our most accessible resources at our Immigration: The Basics collection:

Migration Policy Institute
Stay up to date on MPI's events and newest publications.

Migration Data Hub
Find the latest immigration statistics, maps, and numbers for the United States and other countries.

Migration Information Source
Read a unique, online journal that provides fresh thought and global analysis of international migration and refugee trends.