Immigrants and Refugees
You are in the Immigrants and Refugeessection of the Casey Foundation Knowledge Center, which offers resources that are either published or funded by the Casey Foundation. The following resources address access to services that encourage existing family strengths while supporting healthy social and economic integration.
See also Our Work: Immigrants and Refugees, an overview of Casey's investment in this issue.
Featured Publications
Integration of Immigrants in Maryland's Growing Economy
2008
This brief summarizes the contribution of immigrants to Maryland’s workforce and trends in the workforce between 2000 and 2006. Maryland’s immigrant workers are unusually highly educated and work in key skilled industries such as healthcare, information technology and the sciences. However, there are also large numbers of immigrant workers with low educational attainment and English proficiency—they largely work in construction, agriculture, and services. Education, English language, and job training programs if properly tailored to immigrants’ and employers’ needs could potentially raise the incomes of immigrant workers and increase their tax contributions to the state.
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Adult Literacy Education in Immigrant Communities: Identifying Policy and Program Priorities for Helping Newcomers Learn English
2007
This report offers an in-depth exploration of the pressing language barriers facing the estimated 2.23 million adults in this country who are Limited English Proficient – and how best to solve them. The report provides an overview of issues discussed at the Adult Literacy Education in Immigrant Communities summit held in Washington, D.C., led by the Asian American Justice Center and held in partnership with the National Immigration Forum and the National Council of La Raza.
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Making the Most of Family Remittances
2007
This report provides recommendations on policies for further lowering the cost of remittances and banking "unbanked" remittance senders and recipients. It also explores the potential of remittances to be a source of sustainable development in home countries.
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Creating a Fair Playing Field for Consumers: The Need for Transparency in the U.S. Remittance Market
2005
This report provides remitters and policymakers with vital information on how the remittance market functions, and sets forth recommendations to create greater protection for this vulnerable consumer group while allowing the industry to maintain market control.
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Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration - A Toolkit for Grantmakers
Foundations across the country are recognizing that their grantmaking strategies must respond to the needs and contributions of immigrants. Built on extensive research and interviews with foundation, community, business, and government leaders, this multimedia toolkit intends to better inform the development of program, policy, and grantmaking strategies that promote immigrant integration. It also aims to help foundations understand the importance of supporting efforts that incorporate newcomers into the fabric of our society.
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Banking in a Global Market: A Financial Institution Guide for Offering International Remittance Service—A Supplement
2008
This supplement to the financial institution guide for offering international remittance service contains detailed profiles of financial institution remittance programs.
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Immigrant Integration in Low-Income Urban Neighborhoods: Improving Economic Prospects and Strengthening Connections for Vulnerable Families
2007
How well are immigrants integrating in U.S. inner cities? To answer this question, this report draws on a unique survey of residents in 10 vulnerable urban neighborhoods (part of Casey’s Making Connections initiative) to examine the financial well-being and economic integration of families of different racial, ethnic, and nativity status. Among the main findings is that families with children across all groups are especially vulnerable, and immigrants and native minorities in the neighborhoods we examine face similar types of economic difficulties ─ although to varying degrees. Overall, the report’s findings suggest that even in these tough neighborhoods, the potential for economic integration of immigrants is strong.
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The Frontera Asset Building Network: Building Strong Partnerships for Community Change Along the Southwest Border
2007
This report summarizes the work of and lessons learned from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Frontera Asset Building Network, a dynamic learning community composed of local and regional border coalitions from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas. The mission of the network is to increase coalition members’ collective and local impact by creating and promoting asset-building vehicles for families living along the Southwest border.
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View the Social Networks Series >>
Data Snapshot: One Out of Five U.S. Children is Living in an Immigrant Family
2007
Using data from the KIDS COUNT State Level Data Online System, this snapshot highlights the 15.7 million children in immigrant families currently residing in the U.S. and includes background on why it is critical to help this growing group of children as well as resources for improving the well-being of children living in immigrant families.
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View the KIDS COUNT Data and Research Reports Series >>
Banking in a Global Market: A Financial Institution Guide for Offering International Remittance Service
2007
This guide provides users with a step-by-step approach to establishing a remittance program that is beneficial to both consumers and the financial institutions serving them. The report describes several effective remittance programs, drawing on the experiences of financial institutions throughout the U.S.
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