In 2023, approximately 51 million foreign-born people lived in the United States. Almost three-quarters were in the country legally. Half of the rest had some legal protection from deportation.

Past symposia have focused on issues such as: emerging methods in family research, African American families, diverging destinies of families in an era of increasing inequality, transitions to adulthood, and Hispanic children in immigrant families.

In Texas-Style Exclusion, sociologists Jennifer Van Hook and James D. Bachmeier investigate such claims by comparing how American society has responded to different groups of immigrants over time.