La Situación de Cambio Constante entre EE UU y México: Tendencias y Políticas de Migración, Incluyendo Menores No Acompañados

This is a Spanish language call. 
La migración de México a Estados Unidos ha disminuido debido a una combinación de factores en Mexico (una economía en mejora, una tasa de natalidad decreciente y mejores oportunidades educativas y laborales), asi como mas seguridad fronterizo del lado estadounidense. Hoy en dia el número de detenciones de migrantes de otros países supera el número de detenciones de mexicanos en la frontera. Por primera vez la Oficina del Censo de Estados Unidos ha reportado que China y India han superado a México en términos de nuevos flujos de inmigrantes al país. Al mismo tiempo, el Congreso de los Estados Unidos debate si se debe extender mas el muro en la frontera con México y agregar miles de agentes adicionales a la Patrulla Fronteriza. 
Durante los últimos años ambos países han incrementado el número de detenciones de migrantes de Centroamérica que transitan por México para llegar a los Estados Unidos. Con la reciente decisión de la administración Trump de poner fin al trámite de la libertad condicional para los menores que buscan ingresar a los Estados Unidos a través del Programa de Menores de Centroamérica (CAM, por sus siglas en inglés), el tema de los menores no acompañados en México, su tratamiento, protección internacional y otras necesidades serán cuestiones políticas más urgentes para México, que ha detenido a más de 50,000 menores no acompañados de Centroamérica desde 2014. Esta oleada ha cuestionado la capacidad de las autoridades mexicanas de inmigración para mantener los requisitos legales para la protección de menores. 
Durante este seminario, ponentes presentaron hallazgos de un reciente informe del Instituto de Políticas Migratorias (MPI, por sus siglas en inglés) que utiliza datos de agencias gubernamentales mexicanas, entrevistas con funcionarios clave y relatos de la sociedad civil para examinar el marco legal para la protección de menores no acompañados y su aplicación, al igual que las brechas entre este marco y su aplicación durante los procesos de detención, interrogación y alojamiento. El nuevo presidente de MPI, Andrew Selee, también expuso cómo el cambio en la dinámica política en Estados Unidos puede afectar las cuestiones migratorias con México, así como los efectos en la relación bilateral en medio de tensiones sobre el muro fronterizo, la renegociación del acuerdo del TLCAN y una cifra significativa de repatriaciones de migrantes mexicanos. Después de breves presentaciones, los ponentes respondieron preguntas de la audiencia. 

The International Migration System: Reflections on the Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

An estimated 244 million people—or about 3.2 percent of the world’s population—were international migrants in 2015. Migration will only grow both in size and complexity, partly in response to the inexorable aging and persistent low fertility of a growing number of wealthy and middle-income countries. It has become increasingly unclear, however, whether the migration system can be managed well enough so that all actors—immigrants, members of the communities they leave and in which they settle, and sending and receiving societies—can fully draw its many benefits. 
As Migration Policy Institute co-founder, President (2002-2014), and since then, Distinguished Senior Fellow and President Emeritus Demetrios G. Papademetriou steps down from his day-to-day work at the Institute, he provides a far-ranging presentation of what migration's challenges and opportunities are likely to look like in the next couple of decades. His presentation is followed by a conversation with Andrew Selee, MPI's incoming President. Drawing from his decades of experience as a thought leader on migration policy around the globe, Papademetriou sets forth his views on the immediate and long-term challenges governments face as they grapple with the economic, social, and political impacts of aging populations and low fertility—and the proper role for migration as one of the responses to it. He offers suggestions on how governments on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond might better manage migration and thus capitalize on the opportunities it presents while reducing its negative effects on those who lose from the process.  

Building an Evidence Base to Support Refugee Resettlement

The scale of the global refugee crisis has ratcheted up the pressure on governments and their international partners to find sustainable avenues for protection of the displaced. Successive international conferences, including the September 2016 UN summit for refugees and migrants, have highlighted the need for more resettlement places as an integral part of the international response to the crisis. At the EU level, Member State governments are under increasing pressure to open more legal channels to protection as part of a larger effort to reduce the demands on national asylum systems. Yet governments seeking to expand their resettlement program—or engage in resettlement for the first time—face a dearth of solid evidence on what resettlement practices work and why.
This webinar highlights the findings of an MPI Europe report on critical gaps in research and evaluation of resettlement programs, and recommendations for improving evidence gathering and knowledge sharing between resettlement countries. The discussion also includes insights from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and national resettlement actors on the knowledge and support needs that new and expanding resettlement countries face, and what role international initiatives such as the Emerging Resettlement Countries Joint Support Mechanism (ERCM) and the European Action on Facilitating Resettlement and Refugee Admission through New Knowledge (EU-FRANK) can play in filling these gaps.
This webinar is part of the European Action on Facilitating Resettlement and Refugee Admission through New Knowledge (EU-FRANK) project. The project is funded by the European Asylum, Migration, and Integration Fund (AMIF).

The Tech Turn in Refugee Protection and Integration: New Solutions or Hot Air?

Smartphones have become unlikely symbols of the global refugee crisis: selfies of refugees in harrowing situations abound on social media, people in conflict call for help on Skype or What’s App, and mapping and GPS technology have sometimes acted as a literal lifeline. Seeing an opportunity, numerous tech startups and social entrepreneurs have designed apps and tech tools to protect refugees along their journeys and help them settle in. The last few years have seen hundreds of “civic tech” initiatives emerge in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and beyond. But dozens of hackathons, hundreds of prototypes, and countless newspaper column inches later—has all this energy and enthusiasm actually made a difference to refugee lives? 
 
In addition to all the energy abounding in the tech sector for a tech-based solution to the current refugee crisis, more traditional stakeholders in the global protection system—such as national governments and NGO actors—have also made a major shift towards integrating technology into their protection strategy. Notably, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has set a goal of ensuring that “all refugees, and the communities that host them, are connected to mobile networks and the Internet so that they can leverage these technologies to improve their lives." 
 
This MPI webinar explores the recent “tech turn” in refugee protection and integration, and considers whether it is likely to make a lasting impact. Speakers discuss the most promising innovations and their broader implications for policymakers. They discuss the challenges and opportunities for governments, as they seek to work with new actors such as tech companies. And they discuss the broader digital infrastructure needs of refugee camps and services—including the crucial issue of Internet connectivity for refugees.
 
The reports discussed on this webinar are: 
A Global Broadband Plan for Refugees: http://bit.ly/2nwA400
Digital Humanitarianism: How Tech Entrepreneurs Are Supporting Refugee Integration: http://bit.ly/2dMiTlT 

Immigration and its Discontents: European Elections and Future Policy

Public anxiety about immigration and the fast pace of social change has reached a boiling point in many parts of Europe, contributing (in part) to the ascent of populist far-right parties. The strong showing of Geert Wilders' right-wing, anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) in the March 2017 Dutch elections, along with the increasing strength of Marine Le Pen’s National Front ahead of the first round of the French presidential elections on April 23rd, have raised questions about why so many are casting their votes in favor of radical change.
While these votes represent citizen discontent with many aspects of globalization, it is immigration, concerns about the loss of cultural identity, and the fear that the nation-state has been losing ground almost irreversibly to supranational institutions that may be at the heart of the popular reaction. This discussion focuses on what we can learn from Brexit and the Dutch elections, along with the election of Donald Trump in the United States, and what these results portend (if anything) for the next round of contests in France, Germany, and elsewhere.
Will this trend continue? Will national and subnational politicians in countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, and Belgium, along with the leaders of the European institutions, learn the right or wrong lessons from these upheavals? And if the power shift continues, what impact will it have on migration policy at European Union and national levels? Finally, how will governments manage broader public concerns about rapid social change, economic opportunity, and security in ways that can reduce public anxiety about immigration and the pace of change it has brought while also regaining, slowly, the trust the public has clearly lost?
In this discussion, experts explore the implications of recent and upcoming elections for the future of migration policy.

European Union Third-Country Partnerships: Where Do We Go From Here?

As European leaders prepare to meet in Malta early next month, their search for means to reduce the number of boats departing the Libyan coast is becoming ever more desperate. In the year since the Valletta Summit, the European Union and Member State governments have ramped up cooperation with origin, transit, and hosting countries, yet questions remain over how effective these partnerships have been and how far they can be reasonably be pursued. Faced with mixed results thus far, there is a growing chorus calling for offshore processing for asylum seekers and greater efforts to bolster Libyan capacities in "pulling back" boats headed towards Europe. 
 
In this context, discussions around longer-term interventions —notably the ability of humanitarian and development support to affect migration drivers— are less prominent. While policymakers discuss the pros and cons of making development aid conditional on third-country cooperation, less focus has been placed on effectively forecasting humanitarian and development needs, shaping successful policy interventions, and filling gaps in our existing knowledge about who, why, and when individuals decide to move.  
 
In this webinar, experts assess how policymakers can best reflect on the lessons learned over the past year, align their objectives with the realities on the ground, and shape a longer-term agenda going forward. 

Cooperation on Migration: The Role of the European Union in the Follow-Up to the UN Summit

World leaders gathered at the United Nations in September 2016 for an unprecedented summit focused on discussing major movements of refugees and migrants. This historic gathering, spurred in part by the massive asylum seeker and migrant flows to Europe in 2015, was intended to launch a strengthened global effort to coordinate responses to refugee and migration flows. The absence of concrete commitments in the resulting New York Declaration disappointed many observers. 
During this Migration Policy Institute Europe event in Brussels, leading experts discussed how the slow progress on multilateral cooperation around migration evidenced in New York has particular salience for the European Union. Speakers included the European External Action Service’s Managing Director for Global Issues, the Director General for Asylum and Migration Policy in Sweden’s Ministry of Justice, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development’s Southern Dimension Director, and a key advisor to the UN Special Representative for Migration, in a discussion moderated by the Director of MPI Europe. 
The discussants examined what lessons the European Union’s experience offers for the prospect of multilateral cooperation on migration at the global level? What implications might better global coordination have for cooperation within the European Union? And finally, is there a role for EU institutions, and the EU-28, to play in ensuring that the UN effort to strengthen global collaboration is concrete and meaningful? 

Taming the Seas: Safety, Protection, and Attempts to Create Order in Maritime Migration Corridors

In recent years, dramatic images of migration—struggling boats crammed dangerously beyond capacity; two sisters, champion swimmers, towing their foundering boat to safety; a little boy’s body lying face down in the sand—have seized worldwide attention and catapulted unauthorized maritime migration onto national and international policy agendas. Whether it is the overwhelming Mediterranean crisis or movements across the Bay of Bengal and the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden, in the Caribbean, or around Australia, crisis has followed crisis, leaving almost intractable problems for policymakers. The challenges have only become more complex, widespread, and dangerous in recent years.  
  
While the issues presented by unauthorized maritime migration are constantly evolving, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) provides analysis, in a book discussed at this event, on some common themes that have emerged over the past decade, along with practical recommendations. This book, All at Sea: The Policy Challenges of Rescue, Interception, and Long-Term Response to Maritime Migration, is based on case studies of unauthorized movements by sea in several parts of the world. This book discussion explores the different facets of maritime migration—the multiple state and nonstate actors; the mixed flows of refugees and other migrants; the overlapping and sometimes contradictory legal regimes; fluctuating state policies; the secondary movements of people from countries of first asylum; the constantly shifting sources, routes, and destinations; and the inter-relatedness with other equally complex problems—and how these together create a “wicked problem” for governments, civil society, the private sector, and international organizations to tackle together.

The Mediterranean Dimension of the Refugee Crisis: Session II (New Solutions: Forging Alliances for Innovative Integration Models) & Closing Remarks

As record numbers of refugees and migrants undertake journeys across the Mediterranean, policymakers are faced with the challenging tasks of receiving, protecting, and integrating new arrivals—at every stage of their migration journey—while maintaining public confidence in an increasingly immigration-skeptic climate. 
  
This second session, in an event co-organized by the Migration Policy Institute during September 2016 in New York, examines what is known about promising approaches to settle and integrate newcomers, including the links between development and stability in the region and integration, and how to garner support for these policies in host communities. The session also examines what drives complex public reactions to immigration, and how policymakers and civil society can innovate to combat xenophobia, better understand rising support for populist parties, and assuage fears of loss of identity. The session is followed by brief closing remarks. 

The Mediterranean Dimension of the Refugee Crisis: Opening Remarks & Session I (New Regional Perspectives and Solutions to Address the Mediterranean Crisis)

Record numbers of people are on the move throughout the
Mediterranean region in search of protection or opportunity, placing
considerable pressure on national asylum and migration systems and fueling
anxiety among publics about their governments’ ability to manage these flows.
This discussion, co-organized by the Migration Policy
Institute during September 2016 in New York, focuses on how governments and
actors in the Mediterranean region can work together to expand durable
solutions for refugees and coordinate efforts to build welcoming communities
for newcomers.
Opening comments and welcome are followed by the first session that examines
how regional cooperation can complement international action to address the
refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. What factors are driving current flows of
refugees and migrants across the Mediterranean, and how have the routes they
are using to access protection and opportunity shifted? What roles are
different actors playing at the international, national, regional, and local
levels to help manage mixed flows across the Mediterranean, and expand
protection for those in need? How can policymakers in the Mediterranean better
share responsibility for providing protection and help countries on the
frontline manage these flows and meet refugees’ needs?

A New Era in Refugee Protection and Migration Management? Looking Forward After UN Summit on Refugees and Migrants

World leaders met with significant fanfare in New York in September 2016 for the UN Summit on Large Movements of Refugees and Migrants, with the aim of developing a more humane and coordinated approach by Member States to address sizable movements of refugees and migrants. The following day, President Obama convened a Leaders Summit on the Global Refugee Crisis, and private-sector leaders also met to focus on ways to respond to the rising humanitarian crisis.
Though the UN Summit fell short of producing the outcomes sought by many in the advocacy world, it did result in a New York Declaration where UN Member States affirmed the benefits of migration, standardized international protection of migrants and refugees, committed to programs to counter xenophobia and discrimination, affirmed international cooperation and responsibility sharing for refugee protection and solutions, and committed to draft a Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration and a Global Compact on Refugees by 2018.  The Obama summit gathered commitments from countries to resettle 360,000 refugees and rallied an estimated $650 million from private business leaders to empower refugees and improve their lives.
In this podcast, Migration Policy Institute experts, Kathleen Newland, T. Alexander Aleinikoff, and Gregory Maniatis, discuss the impacts of the summits and whether these efforts will gain enough momentum to respond capably to the complex threats that refugees and migrants are facing. 

An Uncertain Future for Somali Refugees in Dadaab

Housing an estimated 263,000 Somali refugees, the Dadaab camp is one of the world's largest refugee camps, and for more than 20 years, it has been home to generations of Somalis who have fled conflict. However, in 2016, the Kenyan government closed its Department of Refugee Affairs and announced its intention to close Dadaab camp, or at the very least drastically reduce the number of refugees in the camp by the end of the year. Based on a 2013 agreement with Somalia and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the “voluntary repatriation" of Somali refugees, the Kenyan government has been encouraging Somalis in the camp to volunteer to return in exchange for cash assistance. What these refugees will find on return to Somalia, however, is questionable, as conditions there do not appear stable or conducive to large-scale return. For those Somalis who remain in the camp and do not take the volunteer repatriation package, the future is no less uncertain—will they be forced to return without assistance if the camp closes, and if they do manage to remain in Kenya, will they be left without food assistance and subject to arrest for illegal presence?
Back from a recent trip to the region, Human Rights Watch researchers have released a report exploring the situation of refugees in Dadaab. Hear them share their findings from on-the-ground interviews and observations, along with their recommendations for the Kenyan government and international community. 

Beyond Brexit: The Policy and Political Lessons for Immigration-Anxious Countries

The United Kingdom’s vote to exit the European Union has given new momentum to euroskeptic, nationalist, and anti-immigration movements elsewhere in Europe. While many of the policy impacts of the referendum will not be known for a while yet, the vote has pointed, in stunning fashion, to the rising public anxiety over immigration levels and concerns over governments' ability to manage flows and foster successful immigrant integration.
On this webinar, MPI Europe President Demetrios Papademetriou, who is also President emeritus of MPI, and experts associated with MPI’s Transatlantic Council on Migration discuss the political and policy lessons that can be learned from Brexit and applied to debates in both Europe and North America, including how to address concerns over immigration, identity, and immigrant integration while managing migration in a globalized economy. The discussion will also touched on a Transatlantic Council report, Understanding and Addressing Public Anxiety About Immigration.

How to Fix the Global Migration Management System

More people than ever before are on the move, crossing international borders in search of safety, livelihoods, opportunity, or the chance to reunite their families. States are ill-prepared to deal with these mixed flows of refugees and other migrants, especially those who move without prior authorization from the countries they seek to enter.  
Much of the focus is on how best to address the immediate and urgent needs of refugees—and for good reason. But much less attention has been paid to protecting the human rights of other migrants, or to creating orderly processes and expanding opportunities for legal migration. Increased mobility is a fact of life in the 21st century, and cannot be continually dealt with as a crisis. 
There are signs that national governments and international institutions are working toward building collective humanitarian responses and designing more flexible systems that can respond not just to emergencies but also to protracted displacement and large-scale movements of people who are not refugees. A series of high-profile international meetings will culminate in September at a special session of the UN General Assembly and at the Leaders' Summit on Refugees convened by President Obama. These meetings provide an opportunity for states to bring greater safety, order, and benefits to international migration.
At this co-sponsored event, Lars Westbratt, State Secretary to the Swedish Minister for Justice and Migration; Simon Henshaw, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration; and Kathleen Newland, Senior Fellow, Migration Policy Institute, discuss global and national responses to rising displacement, innovations in managing migration processes, and attempt to address the dysfunctional aspects of international migration. An introduction and welcome is given by H.E. Björn Lyrvall, Ambassador of Sweden to the United States.

Will Britain Leave the EU? The Role of Immigration in Brexit

On June 23, 2016, in what polling suggests will be a very close decision, UK citizens will decide whether the United Kingdom will remain part of the European Union (EU) or exit. The decision on the “Brexit” referendum will have enormous ramifications, in terms of trade, policy, and for the free movement of people and labor. 
 
While there have been referenda on key issues in EU countries before, this is the first time that a major Member State has put full membership to the test. Yet for many European governments, Brexit is a second-tier issue, behind the refugee crisis, the rise of the populist far right, the aftermath of the 2008-09 recession, and security on the Eastern border. Nonetheless, if the United Kingdom decides to exit, it is highly likely that the broader European project will suffer, boosting Euroskepticism and spurring debates over EU membership in other countries.
 
MPI hosts a discussion exploring how the migration politics and policies of the UK government influenced the decision to hold the referendum, how it might influence the result, and how the referendum’s outcome could impact migration policy in the United Kingdom and the European Union more broadly.

Asylum Reception in the European Union: A Flexible Model for the Future?

The pressure brought by the recent mass influx of migrants and refugees to Europe has drawn attention to the need for systems to receive and house new arrivals that can adapt to unpredictable numbers, remain cost-efficient, and meet national and EU standards. But what does it take to set up and manage a reception system that can simultaneously meet the demands of flexibility, quality, and efficiency?
Michael Kegels, Fedasil Belgium’s Director of Operational Services and author of the recent MPI Europe report, Getting the Balance Right: Strengthening Asylum Reception Capacity at National and EU Levels, discusses how to devise a more responsive asylum reception system at national and EU levels that upholds common standards. He is joined by representatives from the Austrian Ministry of Interior and EASO to reflect on the practical challenges of meeting asylum-seeker reception demand, the prospects of greater cooperation, and the place of asylum reception policy at the heart of the Common European Asylum System.  

Resettlement Plus: Clearing the Path to Safety and Opportunity for Refugees

Following the March 30, 2016 meeting of global leaders hosted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), MPI Europe convened a discussion to examine the outcomes of the conference, and provide an analysis of how states and civil society can work together to realize the intensifying calls for new pathways to support the safe and legal migration—and successful integration—of refugees in practice. Speakers consider what initiatives already exist to facilitate the legal mobility of refugee groups, and critically assess the potential and pitfalls that come with each. The discussion also examines new and creative ideas that have emerged in the wake of the Syria crisis.

Europe’s Migration Crisis: A Status Report and the Way Forward

As the migration crisis in Europe continues unabated and a deepening crisis in Syria unfolds, European policymakers are struggling to come to terms with two of the most urgent elements: making certain that 2016 is not just a repetition of 2015 (or worse) and finding the key to incorporating those among the 1.5 million migrants who will be allowed to stay (whether under some form of protection or simply because EU Member States find deportations “difficult”).Freshly returned from several months working on the crisis from MPI Europe’s offices in Brussels, Demetrios G. Papademetriou provides a briefing on how the policy response to the crisis has unfolded at EU and national levels, and sketches an affirmative vision for what the short-, mid-, and long-term responses must be if Europe is to respond more effectively to the crisis and tackle the longer-term integration challenges. 

Scaling Up Resettlement: The Role of Private Sponsorship Programs in Addressing the Refugee Crisis

As the European Union considers scaling up plans to resettle refugees from Turkey and other countries of first asylum to improve protection, as well as reduce pressures to travel illicitly, limit the power of criminal networks and develop more equitable responsibility sharing among EU Member States, speakers, including the author of a recent MPI report, will discuss their analysis on how private sponsorship programs for refugees could possibly enhance outcomes and spread costs. Used by Canada, Australia, and a handful of other countries, as well as 15 of the 16 German länder, these programs permit private individuals, groups, corporations, and other entities to sponsor individual refugees for resettlement and accept financial responsibility for them for a period of time. Panelists explore how these programs, if implemented or expanded in EU countries, might provide an additional safe and orderly channel for refugees to gain protection and become one part of the broader solution that policymakers are seeking in response to the current crisis. 

Focusing on Protection: Previewing Upcoming High-Level Fora on Migration

With global displacement at record levels, it is clear that humanitarian protection will continue to be a key focus for policymakers and the international community throughout 2016. This year's calendar is dotted with a series of high-profile international events related to migration and refugee protection—including conferences in London (February 4) and Geneva (March 30) addressing the fallout of the Syrian civil war, and a pair of summits on refugees and migrants hosted by the United Nations and the United States in September. These high-level meetings could prove crucial in paving the way for meaningful solutions for the world’s forcibly displaced populations.Migration Policy Institute (MPI) experts join the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on International Migration, Peter Sutherlan, for a webinar focusing on what can be expected to be discussed at this year’s high-level migration summits, and what tangible results might occur. In addition to Mr. Sutherland, the webinar features MPI Senior Fellow T. Alexander Aleinikoff, former UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees, and MPI Senior Fellow and Co-Founder Kathleen Newland.