The EU-U.S. relationship is one of the most significant partnerships among wealthy nations. Interconnections between the two on migration issues make dialogue necessary and inevitable, as each relies on each other to attain a number of policy objectives, most clearly in the case of travel and border security.

This report describes the range of policies available to improve immigrants’ economic integration through language acquisition, especially those focused on getting immigrants into jobs or moving into higher-paying jobs. It assesses promising models and practices from Europe and North America.

On this Teachers’ Day, I fondly remember Fraulein Daphne Adams, my first German teacher who influenced my love for languages and who transitioned recently in Jamaica. Miss Adams was first and foremost an excellent, no-nonsense teacher of modern...

MANCHESTER, England (AP): Paul Pogba and Marcus Rashford are expected to be available for Manchester United whenever the Premier League is allowed to resume after the suspension caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Whether United manager Ole Gunnar...

Cavalier’s technical director, Rudolph Speid, says the recent positive ranking by CIES (International Centre for Sports Studies) Football Observatory, a research group based in Switzerland, is a reflection of the work the club is doing in trying to...

THE LAST two months have been two of the worst in the life of former national netball star Nichala Gibson. She lives in New York City, the epicentre for the COVID-19 virus in the United States. Gibson and her sister suffered, then recovered from...

Losses within the entertainment industry are already estimated to be in the billions as the sector continues to reel from the impacts of COVID-19. Major events like Reggae Sumfest, which has already been cancelled this year, had an estimated...

This report finds that the 813,000 U.S. children under the age of 10 who have Black immigrant parents from Africa or the Caribbean generally fall in the middle of multiple well-being indicators, faring less well than Asian and white children but better than their native-born Black and Hispanic peers. Citizenship status, English proficiency, parental characteristics, poverty, housing, and access to social supports are examined.

Immigration from the Caribbean to the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon, beginning largely after 1965. This report provides a demographic profile of the 1.7 million Caribbean immigrants in the United States: their geographic settlement, education and workforce characteristics, earnings, modes of entry, and more.

This report analyzes prenatal behaviors and birth outcomes of Black immigrant mothers, and finds that Black immigrant mothers are less likely to give birth to preterm or low-birth-weight infants than U.S.-born Black women, but more likely to experience these birth outcomes than other immigrant and U.S.-born women.

This report focuses on the development of children of Black immigrants in the United States, comparing against the outcomes for their peers in native-born and other immigrant families. It also compares these U.S. children to those in the United Kingdom, where there is a large Black immigrant population but a notably different policy context of reception.

This report draws on a six-year longitudinal study of Palm Beach County, FL, examining parenting, child care enrollment, and other factors that encourage early school success. The authors find kindergarten-age children of Black immigrants have significantly higher odds of being ready for school than children of Latina immigrant or Black U.S.-born mothers.

Using a nationally representative U.S. birth-cohort study, this report examines levels of school readiness among young children by race/ethnicity and nativity. The authors identify the contextual factors — such as family circumstances, parenting practices, and enrollment in center-based child care — that encourage early school success.

The event discussion, which touched on the intersection of race and immigration, focused on the demographics of Black immigrants (both African and Caribbean) in the United States and their children, their educational success, and the implications of the recently released volume’s findings for research and public policy.

Book release event for MPI's volume on the Children of Black Immigrants, covering topics of education, health, and demographics, with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy Ajay Chaudry; Gerald D. Jaynes, Yale University Departments of Economics and African-American Studies; chapter authors Dylan Patricia Conger and Kevin Thomas; and volume editors MPI's Randy Capps and Michael Fix.

May 9 marked a very special day for all Russians as the day of the victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic war. At 00:16 hours on that day in 1945 Act of Military Surrender was signed by the German military leaders in Berlin. The...

ADVISORY COLUMN: PERSONAL FINANCIAL ADVISER QUESTION: I looked through The Gleaner and saw a response you gave to a question. I realise that most of the housing developments around are superexpensive, so my wife and I are thinking of purchasing...

The operator Jamaica’s two largest airports wants to scrap or delay non-essential capital projects. It forms part of a wider halt of capital projects by the Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacífico – which translate to Pacific Airport Group, or GAP –...

Mandeville, Manchester: Those who have no choice but to face the monster that is wreaking havoc on the land, particularly those who have dependents, cannot be commended enough. For the next few weeks, we will be introducing you to some of the...

There is nothing average about Bishop Cleveland Mattis who uses the skills and knowledge he has acquired over the years, from varying areas, to be more relatable to the people he serves and transform lives through the teachings of the Holy Spirit...

Lady Allen – wife of Jamaica’s Governor General Sir Patrick Allen – says Jamaican women are among the strongest and most resilient in the world, and despite many bearing the full brunt of the coronavirus pandemic as breadwinners for their families...

This edited volume addresses the impact of the economic crisis in seven major immigrant-receiving countries: the United States, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. 

Este manual ofrece a los formuladores de políticas y especialistas una guía accesible y práctica sobre las iniciativas gubernamentales referentes a la diáspora. Este manual contiene un menú, seleccionado cuidadosamente, de opciones normativas y programáticas viables basadas en experiencias reales en distintas partes del mundo.

This interdisciplinary volume examines the health, well-being, school readiness, and academic achievement of children in Black immigrant families (most with parents from Africa and the Caribbean)—a population that has had little academic attention even as it represents an increasing share of the U.S. Black child population.

Millie Small, the first Jamaican vocalist in popular music to make the world stop and look at Jamaica as an emerging musical powerhouse, passed away in London on May 5. She was 72 years old. Speaking to Small by telephone from her home in Shepherd’...

This year’s Mother’s Day has undoubtedly been impacted by the COVID-19 virus. Plans to show appreciation to the one you call ‘mama’ have been thwarted due to worldwide quarantine conditions. But while there may not be the usual elaborate dinner at...

The enactment of President Clinton’s Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Executive Order, issued in 2000, triggered a proliferation of efforts to provide services to individuals who cannot speak, understand, read, or write English fluently. With increased service provision, state and local government agencies have expressed a strong and growing interest in assuring the quality and cost-effectiveness of language access services. This paper attempts to catalog and describe some of those tools and practices.

This report provides an overview of several commonly used translation and interpretation technologies. It aims to assist language access practitioners in understanding and identifying which systems would best meet their agency’s language access needs.

This interactive language access webinar, one in a series offered by the Migration Policy Institute's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, examines how New York and Illinois have broken down some of these barriers to proactively engage LEP communities to obtain workforce services.

This webinar examines how New York and Illinois have proactively engaged Limited English Proficient (LEP) communities to obtain workforce services.

This is the latest in NCIIP’s language access webinar series exploring the policy and program implementation imperatives for government and community agencies serving Limited English Proficient (LEP) populations.

This webinar from the MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Bridging Refugee Youth & Children’s Services program explores federal requirements for providing interpretation and translation in schools and how select school districts in Minnesota and Colorado have managed these requirements.

This MPI webinar features U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials discussing the department’s efforts to improve communications with Limited English Proficient (LEP) communities in federal and federally-funded programs and activities.

This MPI webinar features U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials discussing the department’s efforts to improve communications with Limited English Proficient (LEP) communities in federal and federally-funded programs and activities.

A webinar on language access contracting for federal, state, and local officials, agency administrators, and community stakeholders concerned with the oversight and implementation of language access provision.

A webinar on language access contracting for federal, state, and local officials, agency administrators, and community stakeholders concerned with the oversight and implementation of language access provision.

Public Policy Institute of California researchers Magnus Lofstrom and Laura Hill discuss their research examining the potential labor market outcomes and other possible economic effects of a legalization program.

Public Policy Institute of California researchers Magnus Lofstrom and Laura Hill discuss their research examining the potential labor market outcomes and other possible economic effects of a legalization program. The discussion was moderated by Doris Meissner, MPI Senior Fellow and Director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program, with comments from MPI Senior Policy Analyst Randy Capps and Sherrie A. Kossoudji, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Economics, University of Michigan.

Report release on the immigrant workforce and skills with the U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education; the Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce; and report authors.

Immigrants have been disproportionately hit by the global economic crisis that began in 2008 and now confront a number of challenges. The report, which has a particular focus on Germany, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and United States finds that the unemployment gap between immigrant and native workers has widened in many places.

The release event for MPI’s book, Migration and the Great Recession: The Transatlantic Experience, which reviews how the financial and economic crisis of the late 2000s marked a sudden and dramatic interruption in international migration trends, and the effects of the economic turmoil on immigrant workers in major immigrant-receiving countries in Europe as well as the United States.

This report highlights gaps and anomalies in labor protection, while recognizing that U.S. law sets significant standards for minimum wage, overtime pay, child labor, safe and healthy workplaces, antidiscrimination, labor organizing, and collective bargaining.

This Migration Policy Institute webinar discusses labor enforcement laws during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations and chronicles gaps in labor protection.

This webinar discusses labor enforcement laws during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations and chronicles gaps in labor protection, while also discussing the elements necessary for an effective labor standards enforcement system and why labor standards enforcement should become a pillar of immigration policymaking.

This volume, which brings together research by leading economists and labor market specialists, examines the role immigrants play in the U.S. workforce, how they fare in good and bad economic times, and the effects they have on native-born workers and the labor sectors in which they are engaged. The book traces the powerful economic forces at play in today’s globalized world and includes policy prescriptions for making the American immigration system more responsive to labor market needs.

With the prospects for immigration reform greater than they have been in more than a decade and the U.S. economy slowly shrugging off the effects of the recession, the United States may be on the cusp of historic changes that make the immigration system a more effective tool for innovation, economic growth and the competitiveness of its firms—large and small. 

The release of MPI's book Immigrants in a Changing Labor Market and discussion with Jason Furman, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council; Harry Holzer, Georgetown University Professor of Public Policy; and MPI's Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Madeleine Sumption, and Michael Fix.

New research suggests that neurons which track our movements are also involved in imaginary navigation

Brain cells involved in spatial navigation and mapping the environment also fire when we merely imagine moving through familiar surroundings, according to a new study by researchers at University College London. The research, published today in the journal Current Biology, shows that memory and imagination are intimately linked in the brain at the cellular level, and could help to explain some of the changes that occur in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Related: The fly's neural compass works just like a mammal's

Related: 3D compass cells found in the bat brain

State-of-the-art electron microscopy reveals the large-scale organization of the proteins that regulate neurotransmitter release

This spectacular image – which took the best part of a year to create – shows the fine structure of a nerve terminal at high resolution, revealing, for the very first time, an intricate network of fine filaments that controls the movements of synaptic vesicles.

The brain is soft and wet, with the consistency of a lump of jelly. Yet, it is the most complex and highly organized structure that we know of, containing hundreds of billions of neurons and glial cells, and something on the order of one quadrillion synaptic connections, all of which are arranged in a very specific manner.

Related: 3D model of a nerve terminal in atomic detail | Mo Costandi

Related: Blowing up the brain to reveal its finer details

Research suggests that gut bacteria may directly affect brain structure and function, offering new ways to treat multiple sclerosis and psychiatric conditions

Far from being silent partners that merely help to digest food, the bacteria in your gut may also be exerting subtle influences on your thoughts, moods, and behaviour. And according to a new study from researchers at University College Cork, your gut microbes might affect the structure and function of the brain in a more direct way, by regulating myelination, the process by which nerve fibres are insulated so that they can conduct impulses properly.

The surprising new findings, published today in the journal Translational Psychiatry, provide what is perhaps the strongest evidence yet that gut bacteria can have a direct physical effect on the brain, and suggest that it may one day be possible to treat debilitating demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and even psychiatric disorders, by altering the composition of the gut’s microbial menagerie in some way or another.

Related: Brain’s immune cells hyperactive in schizophrenia

Related: White matter might matter much more than we thought | Mo Costandi