she/her
Silva Mathema is an associate director for policy on the Immigration Policy team at American Progress. Her research focuses on the effects of U.S. immigration policies on the daily lives of immigrants. Previously, she worked as a research associate for the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, where she studied the intersections between race and ethnicity issues and policies regarding affordable housing and education.
Mathema earned her Ph.D. in public policy from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where she specialized in immigration policy, and her B.A. in economics from Salem College. She is originally from Kathmandu, Nepal.
Immigrants are playing a key role in reviving and growing many rural communities and with the right policies could play an even bigger role in sustaining them.
People are still fleeing their home countries in the Northern Triangle and Venezuela in search of a safer place to live away from violence and instability.
Many U.S. organizations have developed practical and effective ways to boost refugee integration, and these programs are worth preserving.
A national and state-by-state look at family members of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States.
Syrian immigrants are thriving members of American society and represent a strong receiving community for new refugees.
Over time, refugees who have resettled in the United States integrate well into local economies and their new communities, and a majority of them become citizens.
Over the medium and long term, the United States and its partners must protect asylum seekers from the Northern Triangle and tackle the root causes of violence and structural poverty.
Expanding access to and acceptance of identification cards and driver’s licenses for unauthorized immigrants would bring broad societal benefits.