The growing importance of immigration in the United States today prompted this examination of the adequacy of U.S. immigration data. This volume summarizes data needs in four areas: immigration trends, assimilation and impacts, labor force issues, and family and social networks. It includes recommendations on additional sources for the data needed for program and research purposes, and new questions and refinements of questions within existing data sources to improve the understanding of immigration and immigrant trends.

Relevant demographic, statistical information can inform policy decisions on immigration, but concerns continue to be expressed about an apparent lack of such information. There have been repeated indications that statistics that could inform key debates are lacking, misleading, or otherwise inadequate. This report studies policy-related needs for demographic, statistical information on immigration; reports on federal statistics that address those needs, includes what is known about the quality of those statistics; identifies data gaps; and suggests strategies for improving statistics. Charts and tables.

The recent level of illegal immigration to the United States has increased debates about the effect of these immigrants on the cost of public services, and states have begun to enact policies that limit the public services available to illegal immigrants. The central issues are how many illegal immigrants reside in particular local areas and states and their effect on public expenditures and revenues and the economy in general. The Local Fiscal Effects of Illegal Immigration workshop selected six studies for analysis. The six case studies focused on one specific aspect of the complex question of the demographic, economic, and social effects of immigration: the net public services costs of illegal immigrants to selected geographical regions.