Migration Policy Institute Podcasts

The U.S. refugee resettlement program is facing an extraordinary set of pressures and challenges. Following the Trump administration’s decision to sharply reduce refugee admissions, the number plunged in fiscal 2018 to an unprecedented low of 22,491 since the program’s formal creation in 1980. This has in turn caused drastic funding cuts for resettlement programs and uncertainty about the future—threatening the network’s sustainability and capacity for larger-scale refugee resettlement in the future. These challenges make this an important time to consider how programs can better serve the full spectrum of refugee integration needs, and how to strengthen partnerships with local governments and nongovernmental actors. Traditionally the refugee resettlement system has concentrated on helping adults find employment quickly, with limited resources focused on children or nonworking family members. However, research and experience point to the benefits of adopting strategies that address the needs of the whole family. Strong and supportive families promote better outcomes for children. Grounded in that knowledge, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) released a study on how a two-generation approach could strengthen refugee integration in the United States. On this webinar, MPI researchers Mark Greenberg, Julia Gelatt, and Jessica Bolter explore promising practices to better serve refugee families, including innovative efforts to secure better jobs for adult refugees over time. In a conversation with Utah's Director of Refugee Services Asha Parekh and Colorado's State Refugee Coordinator Kit Taintor, study authors discuss the potential for implementing and supporting two-generation approaches to refugee integration at a time when the system’s funding and capacity are in peril.   

  In recent years, more than 3 million Venezuelans have fled in response to the deepening political and economic crisis in their country, becoming one of the largest and fastest outflows anywhere in the world. More than 80 percent of these migrants and refugees have settled in other Latin American countries or in the Caribbean. For the most part, countries in the region have opened their doors to the Venezuelans, finding creative ways to incorporate them into local economies and societies by regularizing their status and giving them access to public services. Still, this generous welcome is being tested amid growing recognition these arrivals will be more than short-term guests. In this webinar, Felipe Muñoz, Advisor to the President of Colombia for the Colombian-Venezuelan Border; Francisco Carrión Mena, Ambassador of Ecuador to the United States; and Frieda Roxana Del Águila Tuesta, Superintendent of Peru's Migration Agency—representatives from the governments of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, which are home to more than half of the Venezuelan migrants and refugees—discussed their countries' responses to the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of newcomers. Andrew Selee, MPI's President, and Feline Freier, Professor of political science at Universidad del Pacífico in Peru, talked on the broader trend across the region and the prospects for future policy responses.

The Migration Policy Institute Europe and Ghent University held a discussion on vital new research into the experiences of young refugees and migrants who have traveled across Europe unaccompanied by their families. In a discussion led by MPI Europe Acting Director Hanne Beirens, Ghent University Professor and ChildMove Project Lead Ilse Derluyn presented the early results of ChildMove, a project funded by the European Research Council, before engaging in a conversation on the implications with Isabela Atanasiu, Legal Officer at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs; Valeria Setti, European Commission Coordinator for the Rights of the Child; European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) Secretary General Catherine Woollard; and David Lowyck, Director of Minor-Ndako. Despite images of children in peril becoming a staple of the media during the migration crisis of 2015 and 2016, there is relatively little understanding of how these journeys affect their mental wellbeing. Without detailed research, policymakers face an uphill task to cater for the needs of such young people. The ChildMove project is a unique attempt to fill this gap. The team is following young refugees and migrants as they travel from Libya and Turkey to Europe and beyond, allowing them to describe in their own words what it means to be on the move.     

The international migrant population includes some of the most vulnerable people in the world, including unaccompanied children and children in detention. Yet these children are often invisible in data and in many places denied entry into schools, while they are often the ones most in need of the safe haven, stability, and path to a brighter future that education can provide. Marking the U.S. release of the 2019 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report, this event convened by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the GEM Report includes a presentation of the report that focuses mainly on migration and displacement in its continued assessment of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda. This global study presents evidence on the implications of different types of migration and displacement for education and how reforming curricula, pedagogy, and teacher preparation can impact attitudes toward diversity. The report analyzes the challenges to effective humanitarian financing for education and makes the case for investing in the education of children whose parents migrate for work, in countries with high rates of emigration and those seeing high rates of immigration, and in short-term refugee emergencies and in protracted crises. It also offers recommendations that advance the aims of SDG 4. Drawing on the experience of the United States, the discussion looks at different ways education policymakers, teachers, and civil society have responded to the educational needs of migrants and how to address the legal, administrative, or linguistic barriers that sometimes inhibit children from participating meaningfully and equally in education programs. Speakers--including the 2018 Teacher of the Year Mandy Manning; Refugee Council USA's Director Mary Giovagnoli; former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development Joan Lombardi; and Priyadarshani Joshi from the GEM Report--highlighted the centrality of education for the process of inclusion and reflect on the capacity of education systems to serve children and youth from migrant backgrounds. The discussion moderated by MPI's Margie McHugh explored possible solutions, and offered fresh ideas on how to ensure that education addresses diversity in and outside the classroom.

In December 2018 in Marrakech, UN Member States are scheduled to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. Among the compact’s many groundbreaking ambitions is a commitment to facilitate the return, readmission, and reintegration of migrants that recognizes the priorities of both origin and destination countries. Implementing this commitment may, however, prove extremely challenging. Migrant returns take place along a spectrum ranging from wholly voluntary—at times even solicited by countries of origin—to compulsory or, at the extreme, physically forced. The ways in which returns are carried out vary widely, from individualized legal proceedings with due process and reintegration support, to coercive mass returns with no legal or humanitarian safeguards. This webinar examines the policies, practices, and contextual factors that make compulsory returns such a difficult issue for international cooperation, and the programs that are being implemented to make reintegration of returnees sustainable. Speakers explore the competing perspectives migration policymakers must attempt to reconcile when considering returns—from the rule of law to humanitarian, development, security, and stability concerns. With all eyes turning towards the challenges of compact implementation, speakers discuss the possibility for international cooperation on returns and how reintegration assistance and development cooperation can mitigate shocks to often-fragile communities of origin, add positive incentives for return, and ameliorate the conditions at origin that motivate people to migrate. The discussion draws on an MPI policy brief that explores the policy frameworks of return and the role of reintegration and development assistance in international cooperation on safe and sustainable returns. The brief forms part of a collaboration between MPI and GIZ supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

It is generally recognized that successful long-term immigrant integration requires a broad understanding of U.S. culture and systems, combined with strong English proficiency and other basic skills. For the past 50 years, English instruction classes provided via state adult education systems have been the default mechanism to meet immigrants’ English acquisition—and, to a limited extent, integration—needs. However, this federal-state partnership system meets less than 4 percent of adult learner needs nationally and suffers from serious flaws in the nature and design of instruction when viewed through an immigrant integration lens. Leeway within the system to support successful integration has steadily narrowed in recent years, particularly with passage in 2014 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), which instituted mandatory performance measures for adult education programs that focus mainly on employment outcomes and the attainment of postsecondary credentials, placing no value on other essential integration skills or topics. Taking stock of weaknesses in the WIOA-driven design of most current programming, MPI analysts draw on research from the integration, adult education, and postsecondary success fields in arguing for the adoption of a new “English Plus Integration” (EPI) adult education program model. Seeking to make more effective use of immigrant adult learners’ time in a formal program, the model would maintain a central focus on English language acquisition while also building skills and critical systems knowledge to support continued learning long after program exit and speed integration success along multiple individual and family dimensions. On this webinar, MPI analysts Margie McHugh and Catrina Doxsee engage in a discussion with Art Ellison, former Bureau Administrator, New Hampshire Bureau of Adult Education, and former Policy Committee Chair, National Council of State Directors of Adult Education; Charles Kamasaki, Senior Cabinet Advisor, UnidosUS, and Resident Fellow, MPI; and Alison Ascher Webber, Director of Strategic Initiatives, EdTech Center at World Education, on strategies for implementation of this new model that will weave together supports and strengths from a range of intersecting fields.

In its first year and a half, the Trump administration tested the limits of its power to reduce immigration, targeting longstanding humanitarian programs and scrutinizing immigration benefits. These unprecedented actions included deciding to end Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure for nationals from seven countries, attempting to terminate DACA, introducing new limitations on applying for Special Immigrant Juvenile status, releasing several iterations of the much-litigated travel ban, slashing refugee resettlement numbers, tightening visa screening guidelines, and changing H-1B processing. Many of these actions, as well as the way decisions have been implemented, have been challenged in the courts. In a discussion moderated by CLINIC Director of Advocacy Jill Bussey, CARECEN Executive Director Abel Nunez, International Refugee Assistance Project Staff Attorney Julie Kornfeld, and Council for Global Immigration Director of Government Affairs Rebecca K. Peters discussed the legal questions presented in litigation, as well as the consequences of these actions domestically and abroad.

Whether at the border or in the interior, the government is taking a hardline stance: separating arriving migrant families in a bid to deter future flows from Central America; stepping up pressure on “sanctuary” jurisdictions; increasing focus on denaturalization; and releasing a public-charge ruling that could deter vast numbers of legal immigrants and their U.S.-citizen dependents from accessing public benefits. What legal and political issues do these policies raise? What is their impact likely to be? And how are immigrant communities and their representatives reacting? Muzaffar Chishti, Director of MPI's office at NYU School of Law, moderated a discussion on these issues between "The New Yorker"'s Staff Writer Jonathan Blitzer; Ur Jaddou, Former Chief Counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; James F. Peterson, Judicial Watch Attorney; and Bitta Mostofi, Commissioner of the New York City's Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs. The panel was opened by remarks from Georgetown Law Center Dean William Treanor.

The administration has acted strongly and quickly to restrict the pathways to seek and gain asylum in the United States. In Matter of A-B the Attorney General overturned a Board of Immigration Appeals case in an attempt to eliminate domestic and gang violence as grounds for granting asylum. Such serious harm is often one of the central reasons why asylum seekers, especially from Central America, flee. Other new policies include criminally prosecuting asylum seekers who cross the border unlawfully for the first time; pushing back families without valid visas who seek asylum at ports of entry (despite laws that allow people to apply for protection at legal crossing points); detaining families, including pregnant women, while they pursue an asylum claim; and imposing case completion quotas on immigration judges so that they issue asylum and other immigration decisions more quickly. Whither asylum? This panel--including Georgetown Law Professor Andrew I. Schoenholtz; Dilley Pro Bono Project Managing Attorney Shalyn Fluharty; Immigration Reform Law Institute Director of Litigation Christopher J. Hajec; and U.C. Hastings College of the Law Bank of America Chair Karen Musalo--discussed the legal issues underpinning the asylum system changes and the immediate and longer-term effects of the administration’s actions on the U.S. asylum system. They also considered whether the new policies are in conflict with the international treaties to which the United States is signatory and other international law obligations.

Immigration has played an uncommonly prominent role in elections and on Americans’ TV screens since the 2016 presidential campaign. Recent coverage has been non-stop due to family separations and zero-tolerance policies at the border. Heading into a highly contested election season, campaign strategists contend that immigration is the single issue that could move the conservative base and save GOP majorities in Congress. Yet polling shows a larger share of people say immigration is good for the nation than at any point since 2001. What role is immigration likely to play in the November mid-terms? Underneath national debates, the immigration landscape continues to fracture under the pressure of communities embracing different policies of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, protection of vulnerable immigrants, and more. The federal government is pushing back by threatening to withhold federal dollars and heading into court to challenge state and local policies it views as harmful. This panel--with MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner, Democratic Political Strategist Maria Cardona, the New Center's Co-Chair William A. Galston, Vox Senior Reporter Dara Lind, and Barry Jackson, Former Chief of Staff for Speaker Boehner and Senior Staff to President George W. Bush--assesses these and associated political and policy trends.

L. Francis Cissna, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), delivered the keynote at the 15th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference on October 1, 2018. In his remarks, he discussed his priorities for USCIS; the proposed public charge regulation; USCIS's role in the administration of the U.S. asylum and refugee admission system, including recent developments and operational challenges; policy changes surrounding the adjudication of applications and notices to appear; and USCIS's work in identifying cases that may be referred for denaturalization.

Can tiny tweaks in how public policy is designed and how services work really “nudge” us to become better citizens? An increasing number of governments think so. Policymakers have used behavioral insights—an interdisciplinary, research-based approach to policy design grounded in understanding how people make choices in practice—to great effect to inspire people to become organ donors, encourage them to pay their taxes on time, and more.  But while behavioral insights have been adopted in everything from education to health policy, their application in the field of immigrant integration has so far been limited. Could this method be used to promote social mixing and reduce inequality between those with and without a migrant background? Emerging experimental and real-world evidence suggests a range of ways a behavioral lens could to help policymakers reach their integration goals, from fostering open-mindedness among young people and reducing classroom segregation to encouraging immigrants to become citizens.  On this webinar, speakers—Meghan Benton, MPI Assistant Director for Research in the International Programme; Antonio Silva, Behavioural Insights Team Senior Advisor; Laura Gonzalez-Murphy, New York State Department of State Director of Immigration Policy and Research; and Will Somerville, Unbound Philanthropy UK Programme Director and MPI UK Senior Fellow—explored what untapped potential behavioral insights may hold for integration policy, and how policymakers can start fitting this approach into their work. The webinar marked the release of an MPI Europe-Behavioural Insights Team report, Applying Behavioural Insights to Support Immigrant Integration and Social Cohesion, produced under the framework of MPI Europe's Integration Futures Working Group. 

Getting recently arrived immigrants and refugees into work has long been considered the lynchpin of successful integration, with the legitimacy of migration and asylum systems often linked to positive economic outcomes. Spurred in part by the European migration crisis, significant social innovations and public-sector investments have focused on assessing newcomers’ existing skills, matching them with available jobs, and providing training to those in need. But with labour markets increasingly characterized by technological disruption and the flexible but precarious "gig economy," this model risks being severely upended. This Migration Policy Institute Europe webinar marks the release of two publications produced in the framework of its Integration Futures Working Group. Jobs in 2028: How Will Changing Labor Markets Affect Immigrant Integration in Europe? examines possible scenarios for how social, economic, and technological trends could affect jobs, labor market policy, education and social policies, and migrant integration. The second report, Tech Jobs for Refugees: Assessing the Potential of Coding Schools for Refugee Integration in Germany, explores the potential of coding schools for refugees to help alleviate skills shortages and provide a pathway to work—for more than only a high-skilled minority. Join the experts for a discussion of key questions: How can governments equip newcomers—and indeed citizens—with the skills to thrive in the job markets of the future? How can governments prepare public services and contribution-based benefit schemes for a changing world of work? And for those unable to find work, what are the alternative ways that newcomers can meaningfully and measurably contribute to society?

The United States has a long tradition of offering humanitarian protection to those in need. Yet in recent years, a confluence of factors has led to a large and growing backlog of asylum cases, with many applicants waiting years for a decision. This slowdown has both harmed those eligible for protection and invited misuse, with some claims filed to secure the right to remain in the country and receive the work authorization granted when cases are delayed. Faced with a system in crisis, the Trump administration has taken a number of actions to narrow access to asylum in the United States. These include largely eliminating gang and domestic violence as grounds for asylum and introducing a “zero-tolerance” approach to border enforcement that entails prosecuting all first-time border crossers, including adult asylum seekers, for illegal entry—a policy that for a time led to the separation of apprehended parents from their children. This webinar marks the publication of an important MPI report that analyses the factors that have brought the U.S. asylum system to a crisis point and proposes common-sense steps that can be implemented now to jump-start rescuing it. The report co-authors, Doris Meissner, Faye Hipsman, and T. Alexander Aleinikoff, and commentator Eleanor Acer from Human Rights First discuss the findings and measures that focus on the affirmative asylum system as the path to restoring timeliness and fairness to the system, while also deterring abuses. 

Due to the nature of their forced migration experiences, refugees can face numerous sources of stress, including exposure to violence, separation from family members, loss of community supports, time spent in refugee camps or other precarious situations, and adjustment to a new and dramatically different culture. Such experiences, as well as the potential for intergenerational trauma, have critical implications for young children of refugees and their healthy socioemotional and cognitive development. However, mental health services and supports for refugees—when available—often overlook the unique needs of the youngest children of refugees and their parents.   Building off of prior research by MPI’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy that underscores the need for early childhood programs to attempt to mitigate the effects of trauma on refugee families with young children, experts on this webinar will discuss state and local efforts being undertaken in Maryland to serve refugee families with young children through tailored, trauma-informed approaches that address their specific mental health needs. Speakers discuss state-level services available for newly arrived refugee families through the U.S refugee resettlement program, as well as ongoing barriers and other challenges related to these provisions. They also highlight innovative initiatives serving refugee and asylum-seeker mothers in Baltimore through a two-generation approach, along with efforts across Maryland to support early childhood providers in adopting a trauma-informed approach to serving refugee children.