When Barack Obama Sr., father of the 44th U.S. president, left Kenya for the United States in 1959, he was part of a relatively small number of Black Africans immigrating to the United States at the time. On average, only 760 Africans were admitted into the United States each year in the [...]

When people arrive at state borders in search of sanctuary, one enduring question emerges across news headlines, in policy debates, and among scholars: Who qualifies as a refugee? This question remains timely because its answer has the power to provide some people with access to a territory, resources, and rights while hindering others from acquiring the same opportunities. Refugee recognition bes[...]

Nearly a decade after a collective awakening to the crisis of unaccompanied minor migration in 2014, migrant children have reemerged in (im)migration debates as the public learns of the pervasiveness of their entry into hazardous low-wage labor occupations. Recent reporting tells [...]

On January 30, 2023, my students at Dartmouth College organized a candlelight vigil as a response to the Monterey Park shooting, in which a gunman stormed a packed dance hall on New Year's[...]

A orillas del Río Bravo  [On the edge of the Rio Grande] Hay una linda región   [There's a beautiful region] Con un pueblito que llevo  [With a little town that I carry] Muy dentro del corazón [Deep inside my heart] —Rigo Tovar, Mexican musician Rigo Tovar sang about Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Rigo sang about the town I knew bef[...]

Maite, in her late 30s when I met her in 2013, has an infectious optimism about her. “This is a country of opportunity,” she tells me. It’s not hard to see why she feels this way. Despite the stress of managing both a sudden divorce and the pains of breast cancer treatment, she continues to steward a successful small business selling housewares door-to-door. Her older daughte[...]

Ten years ago, a New York Times article entitled “The Health Toll of Immigration,” summarized a key finding from decades of research on immigrants’ health in its opening line: “Becoming an American can be bad for your health.” The article highlighted the well-documented pa[...]