Beneath the dominant laissez-faire outlook, we do find examples of federal, state, and municipal policies aimed at immigrants’ integration. Indeed, the Migration Policy Index...scored the United States as 9th...The United States, with its history of slavery and second-class African-American citizenship, also has a range of policies and programs directed to ethnic and racial minorities, such as preferential hiring and contracting policies (affirmative action) and anti-discrimination protections in housing and the workplace. Many of these initiatives are extended to and used by immigrants if they are deemed an ethnic or racial minority. Indeed, in the MIPEX international comparison of integration policies, the United States stood out, with Canada, as having the strongest anti-discrimination infrastructure.
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Bloemraad & de Graauw: Immigrant Integration and Policy in the United States: A Loosely Stitched Patchwork
Thomas Huddleston
Policy Analyst, Migration Policy Group
Thomas Huddleston is a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Group, a European think-and-do-tank. He coordinates MPG’s research for European cooperation on national integration policies, including the second and third editions of the Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) (published in February 2011) and the third edition of the European Commission’s Handbook on Integration.
