Through these recent years (2009-2012), the NAID Center has been widely publicized from the New York Times, from the US Senate Floor, and even from Rubert Murdoch, (NewsCorp, CEO). The NAID Center has been praised for its innovative and comprehensive economic research and for its successful transnational research agenda in the field.  The NAID Center is known as a transformative higher education research center at UCLA, and is viewed as one of the best in the world due to its real world impacts, renowned leadership and incredibly talented staff. It is recognized as a world class leader in social science academic research in the US by national leadership, and by governments abroad.

The major research areas at the NAID Center include economic and policy analysis of integration, including both economic modeling projections and empirical data tracking employment and incomes as related to trade, capital, migration and remittances flows. In addition, the NAID Center has received a number of grants focused on action-oriented field work designed to pilot innovative policy approaches to address issues of inequality in the process of economic integration. 

Comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes currently unauthorized immigrants and creates flexible legal limits on future immigration in the context of full labor rights would help American workers and the U.S. economy. Unlike the current enforcement-only strategy, comprehensive reform would raise the “wage floor” for the entire U.S. economy. Debates about the economic and fiscal benefits and drawbacks of immigrants typically oversimplify the role that immigrants play in our economy.

The NAID Center has partnered with the Government of El Salvador and the UNDP El Salvador to promote transnational research and policy agendas in the U.S. and El Salvador. Projects include the elaboration of a FIRST-EVER UNDP Transnational Human Development Report, a Research-Action Program of Transnational Policy Interventions, the institutionalization of transnational policy research and action in the U.S., El Salvador, and other areas affected by transnational dynamics, and the linking of local municipal leaders with members of the Diaspora in the U.S.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in March 2010 is poised to have a major effect on the United States’ health service delivery system. However, it will do so without the participation of a large segment of the immigrant population upon which this country so consistently depends. Approximately 11 million immigrants in the U.S. are uninsured, representing nearly one quarter of the overall uninsured population. Many of them stand to gain little from the new legislation.

In 2010, SMB board members considered terminating its remittance service due to high transaction costs. NAID met with the board in Miahuatlán, Oaxaca on several occasions. The board came to understand the potential of participating in an expanded financial ecosystem facilitated by mobile banking to extend the reach of its brick-and-mortar member microbanks; how mobile banking reduces CFIs’ transaction costs; and agreed in principal to partner with NAIDs recommended DCOs.

The NAID Center has been researching and working with municipal governments about the possibilities of a City ID and benefits card. Many immigrants cannot operate a normal because they cannot interact with the police, libraries, healthcare facilities, or schools. Many are unbanked due to lack of identification as well. Under a new program expected to launch this January 2013 in Oakland has changed the way cities view how they should treat undocumented immigrants. 

For almost 20 years, the NAID Center has translated research findings into concrete projects and public policy strategies by bringing together researchers, international leaders and both undergraduate and graduate students at UCLA symposiums.  The NAID Center has published research think tanks from the Center of American Progress (CAP) to the CATO Institute. Our partners are from all across the world, from the Mexican government, El Salvadoran government, US Government, California city governments, national think tanks and action-based organizations, as well as with other higher education research centers in the US and around the world.

The NAID Center has provided action research and recommendations to institutions ranging from the United States Congress to United Nations agencies and the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles. Some of our major funders and partner for our publications include the Packard Foundation, Center for American Progress, UCLA Office of Instructional Development, among others.

Debates about the economic and fiscal benefits and drawbacks of immigrants typically oversimplify the role that immigrants play in our economy. Linked here are all the reports related to this study: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Virginia. Each state has a different economic impact and outlook. Comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes currently unauthorized immigrants and creates flexible legal limits on future immigration in the context of full labor rights would help American workers and the U.S. economy.

NAID created new transnational data base aggregation and analytic techniques to allow the combined use of data bases from different countries, creating new transnational social accounting matrices (SAMs), as well as the creation of new transnational forecasting applications.  To initiate the transnational corridor identification analysis NAID developed a Web Based Corridor Search Engine as a GIS (geographic information systems) data base tool for micro-regional data mapping necessary for the comparative analysis of transnational corridors. 

California is home to nearly 10 million immigrants, more than one quarter of the state’s population. Of those, 2.7 million are undocumented, and the vast majority of them have been living in the United States for more than 10 years. California’s immigrant contributions to the Golden State cannot be overstated. From Cesar Chavez, the pioneering agricultural labor-rights leader in the 20th century to Sergei Brin, the Russian entrepreneur behind one of the 21st cen- tury’s most revolutionary companies, Google Inc., the foreign born and their descendants are woven into the state’s cultural and economic fabric.

The DREAM Act’s primary goal is to legalize the more than 2 million undocumented youths who have resided in the U.S. and attended schools in this country, but the bill’s education requirements have an underlying economic stimulus potential that has largely gone unnoticed by members of Congress. The legislation requires undocumented youths to attain at least an associate-level college degree to be eligible for legalization. 

As one of the most cited and publicized NAID Center publications, this report uses a computable general equilibrium model to estimate the economic ramifications of three different scenarios: 

1. Comprehensive immigration reform with pathway to legal status.
   
2. A program for temporary workers only.
   
3. Mass deportation to expel all unauthorized immigrants.