Immigration

The past 25 years in the United States have been marked by growing income inequality, increasing political divisions and rising immigration. A 2006 Princeton University study, “Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches,” looks at possible connections between these trends.

By their very nature, city streets are filled with a broad spectrum of users, from children walking with their parents all the way up to tractor-trailer trucks, which can weigh 80,000 pounds or more. With such an immense disparity in size, those outside motorized vehicles are the ones most likely to suffer in a crash — in 2008, more than 5,000 pedestrians and cyclists were killed by vehicles in the United States, and more than 120,000 were injured.

Highly skilled foreigners are behind some of America’s most celebrated innovations. A new study suggests they drive down native workers’ wages, but benefit consumers overall.

Immigration is an explosive topic in politics and news. In Europe and the United States, many people focus on new arrivals’ short-term impacts. But what about immigrants’ long-term effects on their new communities?

For more than a half-century, social scientists have been exploring and debating the idea of “racial threat,” in which white citizens adopt more racist attitudes, and support more racially biased policies, as their perceived dominance becomes “threatened” by the growth of African-American or other minority populations in or near white communities.

The announcement in late 2014 that the United States and Cuba would resume relations has brought renewed focus to the complex and politically fraught history of the two countries. Cuban-Americans have long held intense feelings about their ancestral country, and deep issues of identity will continue to evolve as the political situation shifts.

From the Scholars Strategy Network, written by Heather R. Lee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Whether it is the flow of displaced persons to Europe from the Middle East and North Africa or the ebbs and flows of Mexicans across America’s southern border, issues of migration, immigration and population movement controls are often politically radioactive.