Immigration Policy Climate Index:
US State Immigration Policies
The Immigration Policy Climate (IPC) Index is a longitudinal measure of structural xenophobia that examines state-level immigration policies annually across the United States. Grounded in a theoretically informed framework of social determinants of immigrant health, the IPC Index tracks the evolution of exclusionary, neutral, and inclusionary immigration policies. Currently, the IPC Index is coded over a 16-year period (2009–2024).
By examining 714 state policies annually across four key domains, access to benefits, education, employment and identification, and immigration enforcement, the IPC Index provides opportunities to better understand how immigration policies affect immigrant lives, health, and well-being. With data on all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, the IPC Index empowers researchers, policymakers, and advocates with the evidence needed to understand and address the implications of immigration policies.
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The IPC Index offers an in-depth coding of 714 state policies annually across 50 states and the District of Columbia over sixteen years (2009–2024).
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The IPC Index tracks the evolution of structural xenophobia in U.S. over time, providing valuable data on systemic exclusion and inclusion at the state level.
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By applying a social and policy determinants of immigrant health framework, the IPC Index offers a pathway to connect state policies to health inequities among immigrant populations.
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The IPC Index serves as a rigorous, evidence-based tool for researchers, providing an objective measure of policy impacts on disparities among immigrant populations in the United States.
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With fifteen years of data on state-level immigration policies, the IPC Index enables researchers to track long-term trends in policy changes and their relation to immigrant lives and well-being.