Holly E. Reed

Internet search data may reveal people’s intentions to migrate, as aspiring migrants tend to use online search engines to explore migration opportunities. However, unlike official migration statistics, search data may only reflect the behavior of a self-selected subset of the population, raising concerns about its generalizability. This article integrates traditional survey data - Gallup World Poll (GWP) - with Google Trends, search engine market share, and internet adoption rate to examine the extent to which search trends of migration-related topics can serve as proxies for migration intentions. The results reveal that, on a global scale, passport-related search queries strongly correlate with individuals’ intentions to migrate. However, at the country level, particularly in the global south, migration intentions are more accurately predicted by the adoption rates of Google search rather than search topics per se. These findings underscore the importance of detecting and correcting user selection biases when leveraging digital trace data for migration research, ensuring robust and representative insights into the spatial-temporal patterns of human mobility.

This contribution introduces the special issue commemorating the 60th anniversary of International Migration Review . We first review the scholarly themes of articles published in the journal during the last 10 years, since the 50th-anniversary issue. We identify seven broad trends and aspects of international population movements, migration, and the migrant experience, including mixed migration, access to asylum, climate migration, South-South models of integration and assistance, studies of legal and liminal status, and attitudes and national political response to immigrants, as key themes represented in the last decade of IMR articles. We then discuss the process of creating the special issue and introduce the scholars and their contributions to the issue around the analytical and conceptual themes of (i) knowledge, expertise, and policy; (ii) migration theory; (iii) methods and analysis; (iv) assimilation and transnationalism; (v) borders and bordering; (vi) legal statuses and in-between experiences; and (vii) migrant well-being and health. Finally, we reflect on what we have accomplished so far, but also challenges IMR as a journal and the broader community of international migration scholars, practitioners, and advocates to continue to work toward further diversity, interdisciplinarity, innovation, and collaboration in our work.

Contributing to the literature on the institutional experiences of undocumented youth, this essay by Holly E. Reed, Sofya Aptekar, and Amy Hsin explores undocumented and “DACAmented” students’ experiences managing their illegality on campus and how college staff and faculty manage that illegality while organizing programs and support. Their analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with more than a hundred undocumented college students and former students and thirty-five faculty and staff members at the City University of New York identifies multiple points of tension. The “undocumented mismatch” between campus management of illegality and student experiences was evident in the exclusion and alienation of non-Latinx undocumented students, stress around legal status disclosure, and challenges around the issue of data confidentiality. These findings contribute to the literature on the institutional experiences of undocumented youth.

This introduction to this special issue of the Journal on Migration and Human Security discusses the background and focus of two meetings precursory to this collection, considers refugee resettlement and integration in the United States within the broader framework of the literature on migrant integration, and reflects on the role that population research can play in promoting successful and healthy refugee resettlement in the United States. Other contributions to the special issue are based on five of the presentations at a scientific workshop held in May 2019 in Washington, DC, entitled, “Forced Migration Research: From Theory to Practice in Promoting Migrant Well-Being.” A sixth article evolved from a virtual stakeholder meeting held as a follow-up activity in December 2020, entitled, “Refugee Resettlement in the United States: The Role of Migration Research in Promoting Migrant Well-being in a Post-Pandemic Era.” Both the workshop and the virtual meeting were hosted by the Committee on Population of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, with dedicated support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

This paper summarizes the presentations and discussions of a virtual stakeholder meeting on Refugee Resettlement in the United States which built on the foundation of the May 2019 workshop represented in this special issue. With support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and hosted by the Committee on Population (CPOP) of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on Dec 1–2, 2020, ¹ the meeting convened migration researchers, representatives of US voluntary resettlement agencies, and other practitioners to consider the role of migration research in informing programs serving refugees and migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic, continuing an emphasis on bringing global learning to those on the ground working with refugees. The goal of CPOP's work in this area has always been to build bridges between communities of research and practice and to create a dialogue for a shared agenda. We present the goals and framework for the 2020 meeting, followed by a summary of each of the four sessions and themes that emerged from these discussions. The paper ends by considering effective ways of amplifying the role of research in refugee policy and programs of refugee resettlement in the United States and how demographers and population researchers might contribute to this goal.

Our understanding of the sources of educational inequality for the estimated 250,000 undocumented immigrant college students in the United States is limited by poor data. We use student administrative data from a large public university, which accurately identify legal status and include pre-enrollment characteristics, to determine the effect of legal status on GPA and graduation. We find that undocumented students are hyper-selected relative to peers; failing to account for this difference underestimates the effect of legal status on academic outcomes. Our findings also highlight the ways legal status interacts with institutional settings and race/ethnicity to affect educational outcomes.

Much health-disparities research focuses on race and ethnicity, but nativity has proved to be a crucial factor in explaining the immigrant health advantage. Foreign-born subgroups with certain immigration statuses, such as refugees, may have an initial disadvantage. Using nationally representative survey data, we explore differences in health outcomes by analyzing two visa category subgroups in the United States: refugees and nonrefugee immigrants. Our findings show that refugees have a significant disadvantage across multiple health outcomes. This suggests that current refugee health-screening practices should be changed to take into account broader issues, such as chronic disease and functional limitation.

As Nigeria enters a period of potentially rapid economic growth due to the increase in the working age population, it is critical to understand why fertility remains so high there. Nigeria’s current total fertility rate (TFR) of 5.5 (0.2 fewer children per woman than the TFR of 5.7 reported in both the 2003 and 2008 NDHS surveys) is projected to continue to decline, but questions remain about whether this decline is inevitable and whether it will continue apace. Regardless, Nigeria’s population growth will continue through at least 2050 due to simple population momentum. Other challenges are the persistent and vast fertility differentials; many groups remain above replacement fertility across various social and geographical sub-units of the country. Using data primarily from the 2013 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), as well as from 2003 and 2008 surveys, we document that many population subgroups and zones of the country are finally beginning to show signs of fertility convergence and decline. Nevertheless, some population subgroups still have higher fertility, especially: Hausa/Fulani/Kanuri women, women who live in the North West geopolitical zone, Muslim and traditionalist women, women who live in poor households, women who have lower levels of education, women who are opposed to family planning, women who marry early, and women who give birth early. In order for the projected decline in the TFR to continue, these subgroups must be highlighted, understood, and targeted with fertility- and poverty-reducing interventions.