Centering Race and Structural Racism in Immigration Policy Research

This brief from the Urban Institute spotlights the deep intersections between the US immigration system and racism. It also calls attention to the neglect of this troubling reality in both policy and policy research circles. The paper draws on the outcomes of a September 2021 workshop with researchers and policy advocates, as well as a scan of recent policy research conducted at think tanks and policy-focused research institutes to assess gaps in the policy research space. The authors focus on how race and structural racism influence the immigrant experience, which immigrant groups have been understudied, and which policies and issues demand research attention. Noting the gaps in policy research around the centrality of racism to immigration policy and the distinct racialized experiences of diverse segments of the immigrant population, the brief emphasizes how overlooking immigrant racial diversity obscures the experience of key groups and hides from policy debates the structures and systems generating racialized outcomes. Immigration policy researchers, the authors write, have a responsibility to be intentional about highlighting racial equity issues, in particular the experience of immigrants of color and anti-Black racism, including the overlap of the immigration enforcement and criminal justice systems and the racial context of exclusionary immigration policies. The authors conclude with recommendations for areas where policymakers, policy research organizations, philanthropies, and advocacy organizations can work together to address these challenges, including addressing gaps in data sources, building capacity for multilingual data collection, elevating immigration and language concerns in equity measures, analyzing structures in addition to individual outcomes, cultivating trained research teams, and creating more collaborative settings to set research agendas. (Jeffrey Gross, Ph.D.)

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