Immigration Policy Lab

Join IPL executive director Adam Lichtenheld, PhD in Washington, DC and NYC next week to hear about his new book on forced #displacement in civil wars:

Join IPL executive director Adam Lichtenheld, PhD in Washington, DC and NYC next week to hear about his new book on forced #displacement in civil wars:

Last week, IPL Faculty Co-Director Jens Hainmueller and Executive Director Adam Lichtenheld, PhD participated in an engaging panel discussion "Digital Technologies and Refugee Support: Opportunities and Risks," hosted by the Stanford King Center on Global Development. In the conversation, IPL joined UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency's Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Kelly T. Clements, Techplomacy Team Lead Christian Mogensen at the Office of Denmark's Tech Ambassador, Assistant Professor of Statistics at Stanford University Dominik Rothenhäusler and moderator Martine Gram Barbry, Denmark’s Deputy Tech Ambassador, to discuss how governments and practitioners can use #AI technologies like #GeoMatch to improve refugee response, highlighting the ethical and practical considerations involved in responsible implementation. This conversation underscores the importance of collaboration between researchers, governments, and international organizations in generating solutions to some of today's most challenging immigration policy questions. #TechForGood #RefugeeSupport #DigitalInclusion #HumanitarianTech

When forcibly displaced people experience violence and exploitation, knowing where to get help in a new country can be daunting. A new working paper by IPL researchers at ETH Zürich and UCL looks at legal empowerment of #refugees and asylum seekers in Greece. The study compares engagement with two modes of information provision: generic information on a website or personalized information through direct one-on-one WhatsApp chat conversations. While both modes improved participants’ knowledge of exploitation under Greek law and confidence in responding to violence, the study found greater impact for those who received personalized information. Read the full paper, "Empowerment on the move? An experiment on supporting forcibly displaced people in Greece" by Marine Casalis, Dominik Hangartner, Alexandra Hartman, and Rodrigo Sánchez Sienra: https://lnkd.in/g3XfjmY4 #LegalEmpowerment #Greece #Asylum #Research

IPL Stanford is recruiting #postdocs for the 2025-2026 academic year! Apply your analytic skills to real-world #MigrationPolicy issues in a dynamic, highly collaborative environment. Applications due in early December. Read more: https://lnkd.in/g9zESSFf #CareerOpportunity #Research #Immigration

The divisive rhetoric surrounding US #Immigrationpolicy often drowns out the potential benefits reforms can offer migrants and host communities alike. States act as vital testing grounds for these reforms, but evidence on which approaches actually work is often missing. In this Carnegie Endowment for International Peace article, IPL's Executive Director Adam Lichtenheld, PhD, Natalie Chaudhuri, and Sigrid Lupieri highlight innovative policies including using #AI to enhance refugee integration and creating legal pathways for workers in less-common destinations. The piece underscores where further research is needed to help drive more effective, evidence-based solutions. https://lnkd.in/gG8Ubtyk #Evidence #Data #ImmigrationReform #GeoMatch

For #refugees fleeing conflict and restarting their lives, access to reliable information on things like safe travel routes, asylum, and jobs is paramount. But incorrect or incomplete information often found on platforms like Facebook can result in refugees wasting extremely limited resources—or worse, can endanger lives. Humanitarian organizations like have developed digital platforms to combat such information precarity in the last decade, but relatively little is understood about these online ecosystems. In a study published in the Journal of Quantitative Description last week, IPL researchers Alexandra Siegel, Jessica Sadye Wolff, and Jeremy Weinstein analyzed data from 2013-18 on public Arabic-language Facebook pages for #SyrianRefugees. Their research sheds light on the types of content users encountered and interacted with, contributing critical insights for the humanitarian organizations supporting refugees in making well-informed choices for themselves and their families. https://lnkd.in/gHEgP8Jb International Rescue Committee Mercy Corps #InformationAccess #CrisisResponse #techforgood 

What shapes which migrants are welcomed or rejected by the public? A new IPL paper analyzes data from 83 studies in 43 countries to assess what we know about why some migrants are perceived more positively than others. Contrary to popular narratives, the study finds no evidence that fears of competition for jobs play a significant role. Meanwhile, concerns about the impact of migrants on the larger economy, cultural and religious differences—specifically, widespread anti-Muslim bias—and humanitarian concerns do shape the public’s attitudes. Across contexts as diverse as the US, Turkey and South Korea, the public prefers women, Christians, migrants who speak the local language, are highly educated and skilled, and are fleeing violence rather than relocating for job opportunities. Read the paper by Dr. Sigrid Weber, Nik Stoop, Peter van der Windt, and Haoyü Zhai, Ph.D. in IPL’s Working Paper series: https://lnkd.in/daasDcj6 #migration #refugees #research #metaanalysis #attitudes #antimuslim

Passionate about using data for social change? Stanford IPL is seeking a talented Data Scientist to join our team in evaluating policies and designing solutions for immigrants and refugees globally, with a particular focus on the Global South. Apply today! https://lnkd.in/gJV9Jj4C #Hiring #DataScience #Migration #Refugees

Latin America is currently facing its largest displacement crisis in a generation. Over 7 million Venezuelans have fled their homes since 2015, and an estimated 1.5 million now live in Peru, where they are three times as likely to live in extreme poverty as the native Peruvian population. IOM - UN Migration partnered with IPL researchers at ETH Zürich to evaluate the effects of a one-time cash transfer to vulnerable Venezuelan households, predominantly women, in Peru. IPL’s study found that the payment resulted in higher rates of self employment, increased intentions to emigrate from Peru, and led to greater integration into Peruvian society—even among immigrants who had been in-country for more than three years. Read the paper in the Elsevier journal World Development by Achim Ahrens, Marine Casalis, Dominik Hangartner, and Rodrigo Sánchez Sienra: https://lnkd.in/gSkUV2nB #immigration #integration #Venezuela #Peru #povertyreduction