David North

Mr. North was a Fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies, and an internationally recognized authority on immigration policy. His concentration was predominantly on the interaction between immigration and domestic systems, such as education and labor markets. He passed away in 2024.

He examined legal, illegal, and temporary migration, as well as immigration law enforcement and refugee resettlement policies, for a variety of governmental and non-governmental agencies, both in the US and overseas.

Prior to his work at the Center, Mr. North conducted two studies for the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation on what happens to foreign-born students in science and engineering when they attend American graduate schools. He also conducted a year-long evaluation of the impact of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act for the Ford Foundation.

In earlier years he served in the U.S. Labor Department as the Assistant for Farm Labor to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, and as the executive director of LBJ’s Cabinet Committee on Mexican-American Affairs. Both assignments involved extensive contact with U.S. immigration policy. His work overseas included research for the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. in Europe and Canada; diaspora research for a post-Duvalier government of Haiti, and immigrant investor program research for Australia.

Mr. North testified frequently before the Senate and the House as well as before every federal immigration policy commission since the 1970s. His analysis and commentary appeared on CNN, in the Economist, the Melbourne Age (Aus.), the Auckland Star (NZ), and the International Labor Organization. Mr. North was a guest on national broadcasts and cable news programs, from Fox News to NPR.

Mr. North received a Fulbright Scholarship to attend Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, where he earned a MA (NZ). He was a magna cum laude graduate from Princeton University.