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[Henrik Undrgrim]

In one of the games my brother played (40d) he had a novel solution to the migration issue.I struggled in my own fortresses to deal with the overcrowding and other resulting problems of having too many dorfs and too little beds/jobs/food not to mention the effect it has on the FPS.His solution was simple and strangely efficiant.A meeting hall was present at the entrance to the fortress.It remained sealed until migrants arrived whereupon it was opened to allow them in.Once inside they would be sealed in and the room flooded.After a few minutes the hatches were closed and another series opened up draining the room but keeping the bodies inside through the use of floor bars.He would then loot any useful items and bury the unfortunate dorfs and refill the tanks above the meeting hall for the next year. I cant see myself doing the same but I have locked migrants outside during seiges and been happier for it.Whats your way of dealing with them(besides limiting the cap)?

[JackoftheBox]

I usually LIMIT THE CAP draft them in military and let them die in sieges, so my valuable trained soldiers can live another day. If the migrants prove themselves in the battlefield, I will grant them the honor of becoming a part of the fortress usually sticking them with their already awesome military career.

[krisslanza]

It's not migrants themselves I really dislike, it's more of I don't like when they decide to show up in 20+ waves. I can handle having around 10 or so idling around while I get things set up, but getting like 24... then 26 in another wave... just quickly leads to a serious problem.

I don't like to be cruel to the poor migrants, they just wanted a better life! Why should I deny them that 

[krenshala]

The waves get smaller the closer to your pop-cap you get.  Of course, the default cap is 200 dwarves ...

Myself, I've been checking the migrants skills when they arrive.  Anyone that doesn't have a skill I immediately see as useful to the fortress gets tagged as a (potential) recruit, and left to hauling duties.

[King DZA]

Get rid of them? I don't have enough of the little bastards!

There is no such thing as a useless dwarf here at Gorerape! Spent your life training up that dandy cheesemaking skill I have no use for? How about taking up a new hobby like farming gardening, masonry sculpting, or hauling a bunch of crap some healthy weightlifting?

Also, all dwarves here receive a wonderful 5x10 bedroom, complete with a cabinet, coffer, and rapidly spreading cave moss lovely, natural carpet flooring! Of course, you might have to wait a year or two before the room is actually built...but once it is, you can rest assured it will be grand!

[UltraValican]

They come in droves of too many ,too fast an Outpost shouldn't be staffed by 54 people after a season...

[Ieb]

I know I've posted this earlier so here's a condensed version.
Fort made back in 40d, entrance beyond a sealed room with a barrack set in a 10+ level drop around it. Migrants had to wrestle each other and only 1, sometimes 2, would gain entry to the fort proper. Population grew slow and I got a lot of stuff done a lot faster than normal, furniture, smoothing walls and so on.

That and the drop-area was displayed in the dining hall behind clear glass walls.

[Kelenyche]

I make a nice system of airlocks:  One box on the outside of my fort, with three smaller boxes to the sides of that, all operated by floodgates with levers inside of my fort operated by my original seven.  I keep one of the three boxes open, with a meeting area, to the outside, so when migrants come, they immediately collect in the box.  I then close it from the inside, locking them in.  Then I choose the few dwarves which would be useful to the fort, (high master w/e, armorsmiths, whatever is useful at the time).  I have levers inside the big box in the center which are then restricted to the dwarves I want in my fort.  I open the door from the smaller box to the larger, and the three or so dwarves I want go in to pull their lever on repeat, keeping them in the room unless they're starving.  I close the small box, and let them inside, rinsing and repeating for successive waves. 
The reason I keep three boxes is I've learned through some !!science!! that before the first immigrant wave has time to starve and die, a new wave will come, and mill around irritatingly if they don't have a place to go.  Hence the second box.  The third is for caravans to get in and out, however far inside the fort I choose to let them come. 
This method has issues with invasions, making things really messy, or they just run around the map wasting all the immigrants and caravans. But once you have 50 or so high master/legendary dwarves, it doesn't even matter!
Anyway, really effective for getting the exact dwarves you want!

[khearn]

I usually accept all comers in my forts. The only time it's a problem is usually in the second year, when I have around 20 dwarves and a wave of 20+ will arrive. But even then it's not really a problem, just some of them will have to wait a bit to get a private room. I typically have a dorm set up with a dozen beds or so, which will serve nicely for a few dozen homeless. I tend to go with modular bedrooms that I can quickly designate for digging in groups of 10. So I just designate a set of 10 rooms, and at the same time I add to the job queue:
10 rock doors
10 beds
10 coffers
10 rock cabinets
When the mining is done, the furniture is usually close to done, so I can just put it all in place. Then I designate another 10 rooms and queue up 10 more sets of furniture.

By the end of the second year, my miners and mason are skilled enough that I've gotten caught up and then I keep 10 or so more rooms than I have dwarves. Considering that married couples share a room (and I think their children do too), that means I actually have well over 10 rooms available for new arrivals.

I also use Dwarf Therapist to screen the newcomers. As soon as I get the announcement I re-read the dwarves in DT. It shows the newcomers immediately, unlike the units list in the game. In DT I group by migration wave so I can see the newcomers, and go down the list looking at skills. For skills that I only need/want one of, I just leave it on for the dwarf with the highest skill, which may be the newcomer or may be a current resident.

"So, Urist McMigrant, you're a professional bonecrafter? Well, we've already got a great bonecrafter, so no bonecrafting for you! You get to be a hauler, unless you get drafted. Report to the dining room on level 4 to wait for hauling jobs, it's just below the kitchens. Next!
Ahh, you're an adept cook? You're in luck, we have enough work for 2 cooks here, and we have an expert and a proficient, so you get to replace the proficient. He gets to go into the hauling pool. You can head down to the kitchens on level 3, right below the farms. Next!
An expert miner? We can always use miners! Grab your pick and head down to level 6 and start digging out your new bedroom. Next!
A skilled surgeon and skilled bone setter. Well, we've got a talented surgeon, and a competent bone setter, but it's always good to have extra doctors around in case one is sleeping when we need emergency surgery, so we're happy to have you. Head on down to the hospital, it's on level 5, right above the bedrooms. Next!
A talented leatherworker, eh? Boy, Urist McMason will be happy to see you. He's been moonlighting as a leatherworker since we founded this fort, and he'll be happy to let you take over the job. You'll find him in his mason's shop down on level 8, where you'll also find your leatherworking shop. Confidentially, the soldiers will be happy to see you, too. Urist McMason does his best, but he's only a novice leatherworker and frankly, his cloaks suck. I'd rather have one taken off a dead goblin. But don't tell him that. Next! Holy Armok, how many migrants are in this wave?"

[Delta Foxtrot]

Even back when I played with the default cap (200?), I never found immigrants to really be an issue. I have a tendency to make ~20 extra bedrooms for the first year, and close to a hundred in the following years. Unless my first migrant wave is one of those 20+ mobs, I very rarely find myself in a situation where I run out of bedrooms. Likewise, farms are the first thing I ever build with an original 7 dwarf whose sole duty is tending the fields. This ensures that by the time I get a migrant wave (with some embark booze still left), I can get a still up and running by assigning a migrant to it. Plump helmets are the main dish in my fort for the first year or two as sometimes I forget about the chef for good few years if I don't get a decent cook as a migrant.

It's not a steady job, but when I need haulers or designate larger constructions, there's no such thing as too many. Likewise, militia can always use a few good men. Every once in a while, in a fit of sadistic boredom, I randomly pick a mason/hauler, equip them with some abundant material equipment, a melee weapon, a shield and enough armour to cover head + torso. I then have them attack an enemy they're unlikely to beat (troglodytes are common) for my amusement. The idea of a single dwarf fighting for his life and triumphing appeals to me. Vaguely reminds me of Conan. Too bad none of my 'champions' ever survive their first battle. The dwarfslaying beast(s) of course proceed to be wiped out by the righteous fury of my professional militia. After all, I can't just let named monsters walk the land with kill lists detailing my dwarves.

I'm with khearn on DT screening the newcomers. Most of my migrants have their future careers decided before they've even set foot on my map.

[Pawns4Mons]

a migrant is just a friend I haven't tormented, traumatized and caused death to. I like to think of them as bowling pins; many fall, some stand and they always when the seasonal death count isn't unsually high come back.

[Poindexterity]

See, i take a totally different approach to this problem.
As soon as ive got a decent temporary dorm set up as well as a functioning food/liquor industry and basic defenses, i dig out enough rooms to house my population max. Then turn production up to full blast until you've filled them all with the necessary furniture and BANG! you've got a legendary carpenter, a mason, and a miner or two, usually before you're at 50 pop.

[Kogut]

They come in droves of too many ,too fast an Outpost shouldn't be staffed by 54 people after a season...

It is supposed to change during Caravan Arc, as migrants will really migrate.

[Nan]

I recruit them into a squad which is assigned only a helmet and station them in the very dangerous room which is four upright spear traps each armed with either a wooden spear from the elves, or a menacing wooden spike. I then pull the lever. The freshly impaled recruits (if they don't get stabbed in the brain) crawl to the nearby hospital beds and my doctors practice on them. The only problem is that usually they are pretty ecstatic because dwarves get lots of happy thoughts from being treated, served and cared for 24/7. And once they're treated they eagerly run back into the very dangerous room to get re-stabbed so they can loaf around for a few more months. Sometimes it really feels like they're just really just freeloading off of the dwarvern medical welfare system. Really it's just like being a noble complete with the unfortunate accidents involving upright spear traps.

Note: This is also a way to make immigrant children useful.

[Iton Ibrukrithzam]

See, i take a totally different approach to this problem.
As soon as ive got a decent temporary dorm set up as well as a functioning food/liquor industry and basic defenses, i dig out enough rooms to house my population max. Then turn production up to full blast until you've filled them all with the necessary furniture and BANG! you've got a legendary carpenter, a mason, and a miner or two, usually before you're at 50 pop.

I tend to follow a similar pattern, and then when a ton of migrants arrive, I look over them, pick out, say, 8 more dwarves that will important jobs, then look at the other 60 and wonder what the heck to do with them once the hauling is done.

Eventually I found the pop cap and the problem went away.