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This article examines the critical role of fast Monte Carlo dose calculations in advancing proton therapy techniques, particularly in the context of increasing treatment customization and precision. As adaptive radiotherapy and other patient-specific approaches evolve, the need for accurate and precise dose calculations, essential for techniques like proton-based stereotactic radiosurgery, becomes more prominent. These calculations, however, are time-intensive, with the treatment planning/optimization process constrained by the achievable speed of dose computations. Thus, enhancing the speed of Monte Carlo methods is vital, as it not only facilitates the implementation of novel treatment modalities but also improves the optimality of treatment plans. Today, the state-of-the-art in Monte Carlo dose calculation speeds is 106 - 107 protons per second. This review highlights the latest advancements in fast Monte Carlo dose calculations that have led to such speeds, including emerging artificial intelligence-based techniques, and discusses their application in both current and emerging proton therapy strategies., Comment: 41 pages

College-educated immigrants in the United States are more likely to have advanced degrees and to major in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields than their U.S.-born peers with college degrees. But their educational levels have not always translated into occupational gains: They are more likely than U.S.-born workers to be overeducated for their positions. Even as the U.S. labor market faces persistent shortages, about 2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States worked in jobs that require no more than a high school degree or were unemployed as of 2019. This outcome is the result of lower levels of English proficiency, licensing barriers, limited social and professional networks, and other issues. Immigrants' literacy, numeracy, and digital skills may also play a role. Drawing on an innovative international survey that tests skills needed for full participation in today's increasingly knowledge-based world, this fact sheet finds a 22 percentage point gap in literacy and 11 percentage point gap in numeracy between immigrant college graduates and their U.S.-born peers. By pooling the results of the three most recent Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) tests, which were carried out internationally in 2012, 2014 and 2017, MPI researchers sketch educational characteristics, labor force participation, monthly earnings, skill underutilization, and self-assessed job quality for immigrant and U.S.-born college graduates alike.

For most people in the United States, quality postsecondary credentials--which include two- and four-year college degrees, vocational training certificates, and professional licenses--offer the most direct path to economic and social mobility. In fact, 80 percent of today's jobs require more than a high school degree. Yet as of 2019, about 115.3 million U.S. adults ages 16-64 did not have a postsecondary credential. About one in five of these adults (23.9 million) were immigrants. As the U.S. economy seeks to adapt to forces such as population aging and technological change that are reshaping the labor market, much will depend on how well the United States trains and utilizes its available workforce. Immigrants are an important, but often overlooked, target for initiatives seeking to increase the number of credential holders. Including them more fully would help fill gaps in the labor force, expand local economies, and address racial/ethnic disparities in credential access and attainment given that nearly three-quarters of immigrants without postsecondary credentials are Latino or Black. This issue brief uses MPI's unique methodology for assigning legal status to immigrants in the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey to explore the characteristics of adults without postsecondary credentials, broken down by U.S. citizenship and legal status. In doing so, it highlights characteristics that can make credential acquisition more straightforward or more challenging and that should be taken into account in policies and programs that aim to promote workforce development and economic mobility.

The nation's health-care system has strained to keep up with the COVID-19 crisis. This pressure is occurring alongside mismatches in the supply and demand for health-care professionals that predate the pandemic, shaped by the aging of the U.S. population, declining birth rates, and other trends. Immigrant professionals have long played a vital role at all levels of the U.S. health-care workforce, but not all of those with in-demand expertise have been able to put their skills to work. Large numbers of immigrants with health and medical college degrees are underemployed or out of work, with many facing challenges having their foreign-earned academic and professional credentials recognized. This issue brief explores the extent and nature of this skill underutilization, or "brain waste," among highly skilled immigrant health-care professionals in Illinois, a state with the sixth largest immigrant population in the country and one that boasts a long history of innovative immigrant integration efforts. The brief also examines key demographic, linguistic, and employment characteristics of the estimated 12,000 under- and unemployed immigrants with health or medical degrees in the state, and highlights opportunities to more fully leverage their skills. [This document was funded by the Walder Foundation.]

With rising job vacancies and a workforce and society that are aging, the United States already has a reservoir of human capital that is not fully tapped: The millions of U.S.-born and immigrant college graduates who are in jobs requiring no more than a high school credential or who are unemployed. This human capital, if well leveraged, could bring important benefits to the U.S. economy, local communities, and the workers themselves. Nonetheless, few strategic efforts have been made to address this skill underutilization, often referred to as "brain waste." Its effects fall particularly hard on Black and Latino college graduates, whether immigrant or U.S. born, as this report details. Using U.S. Census Bureau data, this report analyzes state and national factors linked to brain waste, with particular attention to the stark patterns of racial and ethnic disadvantage that emerge in underemployment trends. It also discusses how place of education, English-language proficiency, legal status, and profession may predict the likelihood of skill underutilization for highly educated immigrants. The report concludes with recommendations for federal and state policymakers and other stakeholders to improve credentialing and other barriers that prevent immigrants and the U.S. born from working at their skill level.

This study estimated the economic penalty that immigrant underemployment imposes, both in forgone earnings and tax payments, using U.S. Census Bureau data to analyze demographic characteristics and estimate the forgone earnings and taxes at federal, state, and local levels. It focuses on three groups of workers: (1) Immigrants who are foreign-educated college graduates; (2) Immigrants who are U.S.-educated college graduates; and (3) U.S.-born college graduates. The research produces findings nationally, as well as for seven states that include a mix of traditional immigrant destinations (California, Florida, New York, and Texas), a relatively new destination state (Washington), and two industrial states that have recently sought to attract skilled immigrants (Michigan and Ohio). Findings indicate that the underemployment of immigrant college graduates results in tens of billions of dollars in forgone earnings and taxes annually, which in turn affects our economy at every level by lowering productivity and consumer demand. Given that skills and education degrade over time if not put to productive use, brain waste can also have long-term detrimental effects on foreign-born workers. Highly skilled immigrants who cannot fully utilize their skills are less likely to earn family-sustaining wages and achieve financial stability for themselves and their families. Finding a way to tap underutilized skills would have a positive impact on national and local economies. [For the full report, see ED586143.]

The coronavirus pandemic that swept into communities across the United States beginning in Spring 2020 has placed enormous strain on health-care systems and highlighted the work of both U.S.- and foreign-born health professionals. But even as the need for testing, treatment, and care is high, an estimated 263,000 immigrants and refugees with at least a four-year degree in a health field have largely been sidelined, either employed in jobs that require no more than a high school diploma or out of work. This fact sheet offers the first state-level profile of this untapped pool of immigrant health professionals. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Labor, it provides estimates of the number and key characteristics of underutilized immigrants with health degrees, including their English proficiency, the other languages they speak, their top fields of study, and the legal statuses they hold. Among the key findings of this analysis are that these immigrants are widely distributed across the United States, not concentrated in traditional immigrant-gateway states. There is also considerable overlap between the languages other than English that they speak and those spoken by Limited English Proficient populations in the states where they live, making them a potentially valuable resource in providing linguistically and culturally competent care.

Immigrants and their U.S.-born children, who together comprise the immigrant-origin population, are an important if sometimes under-recognized source of talent for U.S. and state economies. With the country facing both an aging population and declining birth rate, immigrant-origin adults are expected to provide nearly all labor-force growth in the next two decades. Many first- and second-generation adults already have postsecondary credentials (i.e., academic degrees or professional certifications and licenses), but approximately 30 million do not. These adults are an important target for efforts to build up the skills of the workforce as the U.S. economy becomes ever more knowledge based. This fact sheet provides a profile of immigrant-origin adults without postsecondary credentials nationwide and for 50 states and the District of Columbia. It explores key state-level and regional trends behind the nationwide findings described in the MPI [Migration Policy Institute] report it accompanies: "Credentials for the Future: Mapping the Potential for Immigrant-Origin Adults in the United States." Among the key takeaways from this state-level analysis: (1) Immigrant-origin adults made up 30 percent of all adults without postsecondary credentials nationwide in 2017, but considerably higher shares in states such as California, New York, Nevada, and Massachusetts; (2) First-generation immigrant adults are less likely to hold postsecondary credentials than their U.S.-born counterparts in most but not all states; in several Rust Belt states, including Michigan and Ohio, they are more likely to hold such credentials; and (3) In most states, the second generation outperforms the first, attaining postsecondary credentials at rates that are similar to those of U.S.-born adults from nonimmigrant families. [For "Credentials for the Future: Mapping the Potential for Immigrant-Origin Adults in the United States," see ED598104.]

As the U.S. workforce ages, baby boomers retire, and birth rates decline, the United States is facing an estimated shortfall of 8 million workers between now and 2027. At the same time, the U.S. economy is becoming ever more knowledge-based. Having a marketable postsecondary credential, whether an academic degree or a professional certification or license, has become more of a necessity to secure a job that pays a family-sustaining wage. Amid these economic changes, immigrant-origin adults--that is, immigrants and their U.S.-born children--are projected to be the primary source of future labor-force growth. Yet about 30 million of the 58 million immigrant-origin adults in the country as of 2017 did not have a postsecondary credential, representing 30 percent of all U.S. adults without one. These immigrants and their children are thus an important target group for efforts by governments, educational institutions, civil society, and employers to boost the credential attainment of U.S. workers. This report offers a first-of-its-kind profile of immigrant-origin adults without postsecondary credentials, including a look at key sociodemographic characteristics, geographic distribution, and factors such as English proficiency and legal status that can affect their access to workforce programs. It also considers the labor-market returns of nondegree credentials, finding that immigrant-origin adults who hold such certifications or licenses have higher rates of labor-market participation, higher wages, and lower unemployment than counterparts who lack them.

Migration Policy Institute (MPI) research finds that nearly 2 million, or one-quarter, of immigrant college graduates are either unemployed or work in jobs that require no more than a high school degree. This brain waste comes with a price tag of $10 billion in forgone federal, state, and local taxes each year. But there are also harder-to-quantify costs such as the impact of talent shortage on labor productivity and business competitiveness--a perennial challenge reported by U.S. employers. This document seeks to capture the deliberations of a summit meeting convened by MPI on June 14, 2017, that drew together more than 30 leading experts, practitioners, and government and foundation officials focused on the topics of immigration and U.S. employment trends. The participants shared their collective U.S. and international knowledge and discussed how to maximize the recognition and use of the human capital of highly skilled immigrants in the United States. The participants were also called upon to think creatively about the future path of those seeking to address the issue of brain waste. This report summarizes and builds on selected themes that emerged from discussions at the summit, namely: (1) Changing Demographic, Economic, and Political Context; (2) Opportunities for Reform; and (3) Future Research Directions.

Enactment of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA) in 2015 introduced opportunities to use federal funds to strengthen the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce as a means of better meeting the needs of the growing and increasingly diverse young child population. Children under the age of 5 who have at least one parent or guardian who speaks a language other than English at home stand to benefit significantly from improvements in the quality and accessibility of ECEC services. Yet there is a shortage of ECEC workers, one that is expected to only get more acute in the years ahead. And while immigrant ECEC workers may be well equipped to meet the needs of young Dual Language Learners (DLLs) and their families, they are more likely than native-born workers to hold positions that earn a lower wage--and many struggle to access the training and education needed to advance their careers. This policy brief analyses the opportunities ESSA introduced for DLLs and the ECEC workforce. It begins by setting out key demographics of the DLL population, then discusses trends in the ECEC workforce and its capacity to meet the needs of DLLs and other children in ECEC settings. It maps the ESSA provisions intended to address these needs through support for ECEC workers. Finally, it highlights opportunities to support the recruitment, training, and ongoing development of a robust and culturally responsive workforce.

Immigrants compose an increasingly large share of the U.S. labor force and growing share of low-wage workers. Immigrants' hourly wages are lower on average than those for natives. Immigrant workers are much more likely than native workers to drop out of high school. Three-fourths of all U.S. workers with less than a ninth grade education are immigrants. Nearly two-thirds of low-wage immigrant workers do not speak English proficiently, and most of these workers have little formal education. Two of every five low-wage immigrant workers are undocumented. While the low-wage native labor force is mainly female, men dominate the low-wage immigrant labor force. Even though they are less likely to participate in the labor force, female immigrant workers are better educated and more likely to be in the country legally than male immigrants. Foreign-born women earn substantially lower wages than foreign-born men and native women. Although immigrants dominate a few low-wage occupations, such as farming and private household work, immigrants in these occupations represent a small share of all immigrant workers. There are more foreign-born workers in low-skilled manufacturing and services. (SM)

This brief examines changes in the number of naturalized citizens in the United States and the rate of naturalization, also exploring the size and characteristics of the pool of immigrants now or soon to be eligible to naturalize. Analysis of data from the Current Population Survey indicates that beginning in the mid-1990s, the number of naturalized citizens rose for the first time in decades, from 6.5 million to 11 million citizens by 2002. The share of legal immigrants who had naturalized rose to 49 percent in 2002 after a steep downward trend from 64 percent in 1970 to 39 percent in 1996. Despite rising numbers and rates, a large pool of immigrants, almost 8 million, is now eligible to naturalize. Of these, 2.7 million live in Canada, and another 2.7 legal immigrants are likely to soon become eligible to naturalize. Eligible immigrants who have not yet naturalized differ significantly from recently naturalized citizens. For example, those not yet naturalized have more limited English language skills, have less education, and are more heavily Mexican. A table shows the number of eligible and naturalized immigrants in each state, and lists the major destination and new growth states.(SM)

This paper examines policies regarding access to social benefits and the labor market in nine representative liberal industrialized democracies. Five are self-consciously nations of immigration: the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel, and France. Four are de-facto immigration nations within the European Union (EU): Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Britain. The countries reflect substantial variation in size and character of immigration flows, as well as differing regimes of access to both the social welfare state and labor market and approaches to granting citizenship. This analysis focuses on legal or tolerated immigrants. After section 1, "Introduction," section 2, "Access to Public Benefits: General Policy Trends," discusses the path to permanent status; rationing benefits by citizenship in the United States, Austria, and Britain; indirect bars to benefits; restrictions to contributory benefit programs; and whether rationing by citizenship makes good policy. Section 3, "Rationing Access to the Labor Market on the Basis of Citizenship," discusses public sector employment, private sector employment, and self-employment. Section 4 focuses on "Is Citizenship Enough? Antidiscrimination Policies." Section 5, "Policy Recommendations," offers five recommendations. An appendix presents summary tables (benefit eligibility by country). (Contains 63 references.) (SM)

In 1999 and 2000, immigrants in Los Angeles, California, and New York, New York were aurveyed about their status in the context of welfare reform, examining the living conditions of 3,447 immigrant families roughly 3 years after welfare reform was implemented and several months before the federal government issued guidance about the public charge implications of benefits participation. Results were augmented with follow-up interviews with 200 households, analysis of data about native-born families from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, and analysis of the Urban Institute's National Survey of America's Families. About 30 percent of immigrants were poor, and poverty rates were twice as high as rates for native citizens. Immigrants tended to have lower incomes despite high labor force attachment. Many respondents reported food insecurity; moderate hunger; trouble paying rent, mortgage, or utilities; and lack of health insurance. Relatively small shares of low-income immigrant families reported receiving benefits like food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or Medicaid. Nearly 40 percent of respondents did not completely understand program eligibility. Four appendixes present survey methodology; editing and imputation; measurement of food insecurity; and food stamp receipt, loss and reduction. (Contains 55 references, 30 tables, and 7 figures.) (SM)

This paper discusses the background and character of changes introduced by the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), examining post enactment responses by Congress, the states, and the courts. It explores the impact of the law on benefit use among immigrants, highlighting changes in usage among different immigrant groups and factors related to these changes, such as naturalization and rising incomes. For immigrants, the law set out a comprehensive scheme for determining immigrant eligibility for a wide range of social benefits provided by governments at all levels. Data from the 1995 through 2000 Current Population Survey indicated that PRWORA reduced immigrants' overall use of all major public benefits, and decreases in use were greater for non-citizens than citizens. Low-income immigrant families with children had lower use rates for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamps than did their low-income citizen counterparts. Low-income, working age non-citizens had substantially larger declines in Medicaid use than their citizen counterparts. Declines in immigrants' use of benefits were evident nationwide. The declining benefit use was not accounted for by increased naturalizations or rising incomes within immigrant families. (Contains 23 references.) (SM)

Since its launch by the Obama administration in August 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has provided work authorization and a two-year reprieve from deportation to nearly 800,000 unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States as children. Having marked its fifth anniversary, the program--and its recipients--face an uncertain future, as ten state attorneys general have pledged to challenge the program in court if the Trump administration does not phase it out by September 5, 2017. This issue brief employs a unique MPI methodology to analyze the educational and labor force characteristics of the young adults eligible for DACA, comparing their outcomes to the overall U.S. population in the 15-32 age bracket, as well as similarly aged unauthorized immigrants ineligible for DACA. Compared to DACA-ineligible unauthorized immigrants, many of whom hold jobs that require manual labor, DACA-eligible workers are most commonly found in white-collar occupations. One-fourth of DACA-eligible workers are also enrolled in higher education--a finding that suggests many need to work to afford college, but also that better jobs may be on the horizon as they complete their degrees. For both educational attainment and occupational distribution, gender makes a difference. Although fewer women than men are eligible for DACA, they are more likely to hold a bachelor's degree and a higher-skilled job. As policymakers debate the future of the DACA program, the stakes are significant. If the deferred action program is terminated, most DACA-eligible workers in medium- and high-skilled occupations will be unable to continue this work, while those enrolled in higher education may be unable or have fewer incentives to complete their degrees. [Additional support was provided by Unbound Philanthropy.]

Youth and young adults from immigrant families today represent one in four people in the United States between the ages of 16 and 26--up from one in five just 15 years ago. This population will assume a greater role as the US workforce ages, and how it fares in the classroom and in the workplace is of signal importance not just for these individuals but for the vibrancy of the overall US economy and local communities. In this report, the authors profile first- and second-generation young adults ages 16 to 26 as they pass through differing stages of life, from adolescence to early and full adulthood. They define "first generation" (or immigrants) as persons with no US citizenship at birth and the "second generation" as those born in the United States to immigrant parents. Together the first and second generations make up "youth" of immigrant origin. They find that these 11.3 million young immigrant-origin adults are far from a monolithic group: they differ widely in their language, age of arrival, citizenship status, gender, and race and ethnicity--all factors that have a profound effect on their educational and workforce outcomes. This diverse population is notable for its substantial generational progress in terms of high school graduation, college enrollment, and ability to earn family-sustaining wages, in some cases making strides that equal or better those of third-generation/higher whites. However, they find that some of these young adults, particularly second-generation Hispanics, are not graduating from college at the same rate or on the same timeline because of family, work, or economic reasons. Appended are: (1) Description of the Datasets Used; (2) Population Projections Methodology; (3) State-Level Estimates of First- and Second-Generation Young Adults, 2010; (4) Percent of Young Adults (Ages 19 to 24) Enrolled in Postsecondary Education by Generation and Race/Ethnicity; and (5) Percent of Young Adults (Ages 22 to 26) with an Associate's or Higher Degree by Generation and Race/Ethnicity. (Contains 11 tables, 16 figures and 66 footnotes.)

With 1 in 10 children in US schools having limited English proficiency, school districts across the country face challenges in meeting the students' educational needs and finding enough qualified bilingual and English as a Second Language educators. This report identifies international teacher exchanges as an innovative, near-term strategy for school administrators to respond to immediate teaching needs, particularly in subject areas where knowledge of a foreign language is necessary. In conjunction with efforts to recruit local teachers, foreign teachers can help alleviate endemic shortages--particularly in districts that face rapid, unexpected, or short-term changes in the student population. Appended are: (1) Credential and Experience Requirements for States Participating in the US-Spain Visiting Teacher Program; (2) US-Spain Visiting Teacher Program Exchange Teachers by State, 1997 to 2008; (3) US-Spain Visiting Teacher Program Exchange Teachers by State, 1997 to 2008; and (4) Acronyms. (Contains 11 figures and 95 footnotes.)

This new report by Migration Policy Institute's (MPI's) National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy examines the funding formula used to distribute Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Title II federal funds for adult education, literacy, and English as a Second Language instruction. Though all adults with limited English proficiency (LEP) are eligible for WIA Title II programs, the authors report that the formula used to distribute $554 million to the states in fiscal 2009 excludes 11.2 million LEP adults with at least a high school education. With WIA up for reauthorization, the authors suggest there is an opportunity for policymakers to revisit the funding formula and related issues. Educational Attainment of LEP Adults Age 16 and Older, 2005-2007 is appended. (Contains 3 tables and 14 footnotes.)

An overview is provided of the basic elements of the nation's immigrant integration and immigration policies as they affect immigrant families. The focus is on two sets of reforms under consideration by Congress that would have far-reaching effects. One set of changes would curb legal immigrants' access to a wide array of public benefits. The other set of reforms would substantially reduce legal immigration levels, severely restrict the immigration of extended family members, and place tough new requirements on those seeking to bring in family members. These proposals would demote the civic status of legal immigrants and redefine the membership in society in unprecedented ways. They would eliminate the safety net for many immigrant families, impose heavier support obligations on the families of immigrants than those of natives, draw irrational distinctions among immigrant families, and fail to distinguish between types of services in ways that reduce social and administrative costs. The impacts of restricted immigration policies for family members might eliminate a significant source of social capital. The cumulative effects of these proposed policy changes raise important unanswered questions. (Contains 40 references.) (SLD)