Post-Midterms, New Analysis Examines How States Address Immigrant Well-Being and Economic Potential

New interactive tool examines the role of states in shaping immigration policy

WASHINGTON, D.C., Nov. 9, 2026 — As state leaders look ahead to next year’s legislative session following the midterm elections, a new analytical tool by the American Immigration Council examines how states across the political spectrum have adopted policies that support immigrants’ well-being and inclusion into their communities. While comprehensive immigration reform continues to elude Congress, states are passing policies focused on immigrant communities — from limiting coordination with federal immigration enforcement to strengthening local economies and creating greater prosperity for all residents.

The States Index is a comprehensive assessment of state policies across four key areas: workforce, education and occupational licensure; access to services and basic needs; government infrastructure; and immigration enforcement and federal cooperation. States received a score for each policy category and subcategories capturing the extent to which their policies support or hinder an inclusive environment where immigrants can thrive and fully participate in their communities.

One policy area with support across the political spectrum is workforce, education and occupational licensure, with red, purple and blue states focused on immigrant workforce integration.

FIND THE STATES INDEX HERE

One example highlighted in the Index is North Dakota, which directed its Global Talent Office to develop strategies that help businesses recruit and retain immigrant workers. The initiative reflects how states that have not traditionally been major immigrant destinations are recognizing the economic opportunities that immigration brings, particularly in areas facing workforce shortages.

“Policymakers in state houses around the country are recognizing that the economy continues to be the primary concern for most Americans. By embracing policies focused on economic opportunities and the well-being of all community members, including immigrants, states can create safe, connected communities and promote the small businesses that truly power the country,” Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the American Immigration Council, said in a statement.

The Index also finds that many states experiencing the fastest growth in their immigrant populations have been slower to adopt policies that help newcomers fully utilize their skills, education, and professional experience.

States with the fastest-growing immigrant populations scored an average of 1.05 out of 5 on the States Index, compared to the overall state average of 1.65. This points to a disconnect between where immigrant populations are growing and where states have adopted policies that allow communities to maximize immigrants’ contributions. As a result, employers and communities may be missing valuable opportunities to address workforce shortages and support economic growth.

The Index is designed to help policymakers identify practical approaches that support, protect, and uplift all community members, including through policies that promote economic growth and foster inclusive environments for all residents. In Oregon, for example, policymakers created a statewide right-to-counsel program to connect immigrants to legal services, while New Jersey has worked to expand language access across state government services.

While the federal government sets the rules for who can enter and stay in the U.S., states are playing a major role in how immigrants experience daily life. By examining policies already adopted across the country, the States Index presents a clearer picture of where states currently stand and what they can learn from one another.

“By using the States Index, local communities can learn from the experiences of other states to better understand the implications of immigration-related policies. It’s a tool that can inform state advocates and policymakers as they develop a roadmap in response to the needs of their constituents,” Nan Wu, director of research at the American Immigration Council, said in a statement.

“The States Index captures the pivotal role that states play in the protections and well-being of all residents, including immigrant communities. It also gives policymakers and advocates a tool to better understand the range of state policies available to them, allowing them to learn from other states, iterate and improve policy ideas, and advance solutions informed by local needs, political context, and best practices,” Rich André, director of state and local initiatives at the American Immigration Council, said in a statement.

VIEW THE STATES INDEX HERE

VIEW POLICY SPOTLIGHTS HERE

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New Report Shows Immigrants in Northeast Indiana Paid $453.1 Million in Taxes and Held $1.3 Billion in Spending Power in 2024

Immigrants in Northeast Indiana contributed $3.7 million to the region’s GDP.

Wabash County, IN, October 22^nd 2026—A new report, Immigrants in Northeast Indiana, released on September 18^th by the American Immigration Council—in partnership with Community Connections: A Wabash County Diversity Coalition underscores the crucial role immigrants play in the region’s labor force, business creation, and consumer spending power.

Although immigrants made up 4.9 percent of the region’s total population, they represented 6.2 percent of its employed labor force and 8.0 percent of its workers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields in 2024.

The new report was awarded to Community Connections: A Wabash County Diversity Coalition as part of the Gateways for Growth Challenge, a competitive opportunity for localities to receive research support and technical assistance from the American Immigration Council and Welcoming America to improve immigrant inclusion in their communities.

The report and strategic welcoming plan for Wabash County will launch on Thursday, November 5^th at the N Manchester Public Library from 4-6pm in the Blocher Community room. The event will showcase the new plan with a time for questions, it will also include food and drinks by local New American entrepreneurs, a song performance by students in our local DLI program, and testimonials from both kids in the DLI program as well as newcomers to our community about their experiences here.

“Each of the statistics in this report represents a child, a family, a friend, and a member of our community that helps make Wabash County the vibrant community that it is. Gateways for Growth and the Strategic Welcoming plan helps us to understand our area through data and illustrates how EVERYONE here contributes to our communities. With this plan, it is our responsibility to listen to what makes people feel welcome, to remove barriers to belonging, and to be a bridge between our community members and the resources they need to thrive and put down roots. As we work to grow Wabash County and reverse population decline, we want every person here to feel that they belong and have a place in the future of Wabash County.”

“Immigrants are an integral part of Northeast Indiana’s communities, contributing their talents, skills, and experiences in ways that strengthen the region every day. As this report demonstrates, immigrants help drive economic growth as entrepreneurs, workers, and community leaders while also enriching the social and cultural fabric. Their contributions are helping build a more vibrant, connected, and prosperous future in Northeast Indiana,” said Micaela McConnell, policy manager of state and local initiatives at the American Immigration Council.

“Communities like Wabash County are showing what welcoming looks like when it’s grounded in data and driven by the people who live there — neighbors and local leaders who want to understand what residents need and build a place where everyone can put down roots. The Gateways for Growth Challenge was designed to support communities ready to do that work, and we’re proud to be part of it,” said Briana Broberg, Director of the Welcoming Network at Welcoming America.

The new research report, Immigrants in Northeast Indiana, finds:

• Immigrants are helping the region meet its labor force demands. In 2024, immigrants were 37.8 percent more likely to be of working age than their U.S.-born counterparts.
• Immigrants support the federal safety net. Immigrants contributed $291.4 million to federal taxes and $161.7 million to state and local taxes in Northeast Indiana in 2024.
• Immigrants are helping the area meet its rising labor needs in key industries. While making up 4.9 percent of the region’s total population in 2024, immigrants represented 10.6 percent of transportation and warehousing workers, 8.2 percent of manufacturing workers, 7.2 percent of hospitality workers, and 6.9 percent of construction workers.
• Immigrants can build deep roots in the region. As of 2024, 83.0 percent of immigrants in Northeast Indiana had resided in the United States for more than five years.

Read the full research brief at the Council’s website.

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About Community Connections: A Wabash County Diversity Coalition

Community Connections: A Wabash County Diversity Coalition helps connect newcomers with resources in Wabash County to help them thrive. Our mission is to inspire a safe and nurturing environment by building relationships, educating, and celebrating the uniqueness of every person. With a commitment to growth, we are broadcasting this as a welcoming community where industry is growing, education is a high priority, and new housing is going up. The invitation is out to come to Wabash County, put down roots here, and enrich the quality of life in the county.

About the American Immigration Council

The American Immigration Council works to strengthen America by shaping how America thinks about and acts towards immigrants and immigration and by working toward a more fair and just immigration system that opens its doors to those in need of protection and unleashes the energy and skills that immigrants bring. The Council brings together problem solvers and employs four coordinated approaches to advance change—litigation, research, legislative and administrative advocacy, and communications. Follow us on Bluesky@immcouncil.org and on Instagram @immcouncil.

About Welcoming America

Welcoming America is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that leads a movement of inclusive communities becoming more prosperous by ensuring everyone belongs. Through the Welcoming Network, we work to change systems and culture by providing communities with the roadmap they need to create welcoming policies and share new approaches to inclusion to create an environment where everyone can truly thrive. Learn more at www.welcomingamerica.org.  

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Dear Immigrant: The Language Inside the Language

Letter 11

Re: The Language Inside the Language

Dear Immigrant,

You learned the language before you came. You studied it in school, you practiced it, you passed the test. You arrived and discovered that the language you learned is not quite the language people speak.

The language inside the language is the informal register — the idioms, the slang, the references, the humor that depends on shared cultural knowledge, the things that are said between the lines, the way that the same words mean different things depending on who is speaking and to whom and in what context. This language cannot be learned from a textbook. It is learned by being in the country, listening carefully, and making mistakes.

The language gap is not just about vocabulary. It is about cultural access. When your colleagues make a joke and everyone laughs and you do not understand why it is funny, the gap is not just linguistic. The joke references something — a television show, a historical event, a shared cultural experience — that you were not present for. The laughter marks a boundary between people who share that cultural knowledge and people who do not. You are, for now, on the outside of that boundary.

The way through is patience and observation and the willingness to ask. When you do not understand a reference, ask about it. Most people will explain cheerfully if you ask sincerely. The asking is not weakness. It is the fastest way to close the gap.

Your accent is not a deficit. It is information about where you have been. There will be people who hear it as inferior and people who hear it as interesting. The people who hear it as inferior are telling you something about themselves, not about you. Your voice carries your history. Carry it with accuracy, not with apology.

From someone who still learns new idioms,
A former immigrant

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New Lawsuit Seeks Information About ICE’s Efforts to Restrict Public Access to Records

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 28, 2026 — The American Immigration Council, the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), and researcher Meghan Conley filed a lawsuit today seeking information about what ICE is telling local police and sheriffs about sharing immigration enforcement records with the public. 

The lawsuit, filed in Tennessee, seeks details of ICE’s instructions to state and local law enforcement agencies about whether to release records requested under state laws. The requested records would shed light on what ICE tells state police and other local law enforcement to do when they receive public record requests regarding their collaboration with ICE.  

According to the lawsuit, ICE has told local police and sheriffs they need to check with federal officials before sharing certain records with the public, even when state transparency laws say otherwise. This raises concerns that ICE may be making it harder for journalists, advocates , and the general public to find out how local police and sheriffs are working with federal immigration authorities.

In August, the plaintiffs in this lawsuit filed a FOIA request with ICE seeking records of the instructions ICE gave to state and local law enforcement. ICE did not produce the records sought.  

The lawsuit comes as ICE is working with a growing number of police and sheriff departments across the country to carry out the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, an effort that is increasingly unpopular with Americans and is inflicting enormous harm on families and communities across the country. 

“As ICE works with more local police and sheriffs across the country, more people are going to have questions about what these partnerships mean for their communities. How is taxpayer money being spent? What role are local police officers playing in immigration arrests? How are people being treated in detention? The public deserves answers to these questions, and ICE shouldn’t be making it harder to get them,” said Raul Pinto, deputy legal director for transparency at the American Immigration Council.  

In Tennessee, the push for answers is particularly urgent. ICE has rapidly expanded its partnerships with local law enforcement across the state, with 163 agreements in place as of September 2026. This has led to a four-fold increase in immigration arrests and detentions, the majority involving people with no criminal record.  

“Families across Tennessee are living with the consequences of this horrific immigration crackdown. Longtime U.S. residents are being arrested in their neighborhoods, families are being separated, mothers pulled away from their children, and local police and sheriffs are playing a growing role in making it all happen. Tennesseans deserve to know what their local law enforcement agencies are doing and who is being affected. We can’t hold our government accountable if we can’t even get basic information about what’s happening in our communities,” said Spring Miller, Senior Legal Strategy Director at TIRCC.  

 READ THE COMPLAINT HERE

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In Major Setback for Due Process, Fifth Circuit Ruling Denies Immigrants the Opportunity to Challenge Their Detention

Oct 23 Friday, Washington DC — In response to today’s U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruling in Sosnava Rodriguez v. Ortega, a case concerning noncitizens’ constitutional right to challenge their detention when they are held without access to a bond hearing, the American Immigration Council and the National Immigration Project issued the following statements: 

“Today’s ruling is an affront to the U.S. Constitution. The principle at stake here is simple: if the government wants to detain someone, it has to explain why depriving them of their liberty is necessary. And anyone who is detained has the right to ask a judge for review of that detention. Instead, this ruling allows the government to lock people up when detention plainly serves no purpose, and without any way to challenge it,” said Rebecca Cassler, senior litigation attorney at the American Immigration Council, who argued the case before the Fifth Circuit. “The right to due process is a fundamental constitutional protection, and it is meant to protect every person in this country.  Because of today’s decision, that right is hollow for immigrants in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. But the logic of the Fifth Circuit’s decision threatens everyone in this country: when courts degrade the meaning of liberty for some, we all suffer the consequences. We will continue fighting to ensure that no one, not even this administration, is above the Constitution.” 

“Due process only means something if courts are willing to uphold it, and today the Fifth Circuit refused to. The consequences of this ruling will be felt by families and communities across Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, as well as the countless individuals the government intentionally transfers to immigration jails in these states to strip them of their rights,” said Ellie Norton, Supervising Attorney at the National Immigration Project. “This case is about three fathers who have lived in the United States for years, contributing to their communities and supporting their U.S. citizen children. They were torn from their families and locked up without ever being given the chance to go before an immigration judge to seek release. Their circumstances are far from unique. At a time when conditions in immigration detention are increasingly dangerous, this ruling opens the door to more people being locked up for no reason, with devastating consequences for them, their loved ones, and their community.” 

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