The Graduate Center is home to a unique concentration of leading scholars and doctoral students working on the social, cultural and political impacts of international migration. This interdisciplinary focus on immigration issues draws on faculty from the doctoral programs Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Anthropology and History as well as visiting scholars from throughout the world. Starting in 2013, the Graduate Center’s Masters in Liberal Arts (MALS) program will offer a concentration in Immigration and Global Cities.

The work of  this  network of scholars focuses not only on international migration itself, but also how the  ethnic  diversity that migration creates  is  changing the  nature of societies  and citizenship throughout the  world. Much of this research explores the vital role immigration plays in the life of New York City as well as that of other world cities. Other projects are devoted to international comparison and the ways in which immigration and ethnic diversity are remaking the social and political make up of various migration receiving societies. In recent years, Graduate Center migration studies faculty have led collaborative teams  with colleagues from the Netherlands, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and China.

In addition to research projects on a wide  variety of topics, the Graduate Center is  host  to the New York Migration Seminar, the  leading forum for scholarly and policy discussion of the  issue in the New York Metropolitan area.