Migration Policy Institute Podcasts

Strategic Opportunities for Including English Learners in ESSA State Accountability Plans

Since the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law in December 2015, community-based groups have been working with states to ensure that English Learners (ELs) are appropriately included in the state accountability system. These systems are complex, leading to questions about the best practices states should adopt and processes to hold schools and states accountable for ELs’ achievement in the fairest and most accurate manner. This webinar, with MPI's Delia Pompa and Margie McHugh, and Susan Lyons from the National Center for Assessment, provides an overview of the decisions states are making. 
 
MPI has released a related set of 13 state fact sheets that provide a sketch of EL demographics, student outcomes, and accountability mechanisms under ESSA and its predecessor, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). These fact sheets (covering California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington) are on MPI's web page, English Learners and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). The web page offers one-stop access to a number of resources that could help policymakers, community groups, parents, and others understand ongoing issues surrounding implementation of ESSA regulations at the state level.

Reducing Integration Barriers Facing Foreign-Trained Immigrants: Policy and Practice Lessons from Across the United States

Nearly 2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States are unemployed or working in low-skilled jobs, resulting in both a waste of the education and training they obtained as well as billions in forgone earnings and lost tax revenue. Foreign-trained doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, and other professionals face diverse barriers to accessing skilled employment, including difficulty gaining recognition for education and training completed abroad, filling gaps in academic or work experience, building professional-level English proficiency, and navigating the U.S. job search and application process. Unnecessary licensing requirements also frequently prevent individuals with years of experience in their home countries from practicing in the United States.
 
This webinar marks the release of a Migration Policy Institute report examining programs and initiatives that ease the barriers to credential recognition, employment, and relicensure facing foreign-trained immigrants, as well as recent policy developments and ongoing challenges in the field. Speakers talk about lessons from policies and practices being pioneered across the United States to overcome obstacles to career re-entry, and discuss recommendations for community-based organizations, employers, and state and local governments to expand successful efforts aimed at preventing brain waste. They also examine recent initiatives launched by Michigan’s Office for New Americans that are designed to improve immigrants’ access to professional English-language instruction, employment services, and licensing guidance. 

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. 

Hanging in the Balance: The Future of DACA and the Dreamers

Since 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has provided a two-year renewable reprieve from deportation and eligibility for work authorization to more than 750,000 unauthorized immigrants brought to the United States as children. Known as Dreamers, many are studying at U.S. colleges and universities or working legally in jobs throughout the U.S. labor market, and what will happen to these individuals is unclear as Donald Trump takes office. 
 
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump pledged to terminate DACA on day one of his presidency. Since then, he has said he would “work something out” because Dreamers have worked and attended school in the United States but face an uncertain future. Meanwhile, leaders in a number of sectors have mobilized strong opposition to a possible rollback. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers from both parties have reintroduced the Bar Removal of Individuals who Dream and Grow our Economy (BRIDGE) Act to maintain protection from deportation and work authorization to DACA recipients. In communities across the United States, officials are declaring or reaffirming their intent to limit their cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. In higher education, administrators are declaring their campuses will be sanctuaries for students who may fear immigration enforcement. 
 
As the Trump administration assumes office and the impacts of rescinding DACA are under review, MPI hosts a discussion with University of California President Janet Napolitano; Donald Graham, former Chairman of The Washington Post Co. and cofounder of TheDream.Us, which is funding scholarships for thousands of unauthorized immigrant students; and Ike Brannon, Visiting Senior Fellow at the CATO Institute, and author of the just released study “The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Repealing DACA.”

Doctors as Taxi Drivers: The Costs of Brain Waste among Highly Skilled Immigrants in the United States

The United States has long attracted some of the world’s best and brightest, drawn by the strong U.S. economy, renowned universities, and reputation for entrepreneurship and innovation. But because of language, credential-recognition, and other barriers many of these highly skilled, college-educated immigrants cannot fully contribute their academic and professional training and skills once in the United States. As a result they work in low-skilled jobs or cannot find a job—a phenomenon known as brain waste.
 
On this podcast, MPI experts give a presentation of the first-ever U.S. estimates on the economic costs of this skill underutilization for immigrants, their families, and the U.S. economy, along with estimates on forgone earnings and tax payments for: California, Florida, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. The panel discusses the factors linked to immigrant skill underutilization; highlight the potential for current city, state, and U.S. labor policy (including implementation of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) to reduce this brain waste; and offer an employer-based view of skill underutilization and how it can be addressed.
 
The report and related state research can be found here: https://bit.ly/mpiuntappedtalent

Including Immigrant and Refugee Families in Two-Generation Programs: Elements of Successful Programs and Challenges Posed by WIOA Implementation

Immigrants and refugees comprise almost one-quarter of all parents with young children ages 0-8 in the United States and represent an increasingly large share of U.S. families with young children that live below the poverty line. By addressing the needs of poor or low-income parents and their children simultaneously, two-generation programs hold the potential to uplift whole families and break cycles of intergenerational poverty. These programs seek to weave together high-quality early learning opportunities for children with parenting skills, adult education, workforce training, and other supports that improve family stability and thereby improve a child’s chances for lifelong success.
 
On this webinar, experts with the Migration Policy Institute’s National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy discuss findings of a new report that analyzes U.S. parent population data and draws from a field study of select two-generation programs that serve immigrant and refugee families. Speakers present data comparing the income, poverty, employment status, health insurance coverage, English proficiency, and education levels of U.S. foreign- and native-born parents with young children and their implications for the types of two-generation services many immigrant parents require. They also explore challenges and opportunities facing the two-generation field as it seeks to include the large and growing number of immigrant families with young children in its work, including implications of WIOA and recommendations for successful program and policy design.

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.

Farm to Table: The Role of Immigrants in U.S. Farm Labor in 2016

The slowdown in migration from Mexico since the 2008-09 recession has had a little-noted effect on farm labor in the United States: Increased use of the H-2A guestworker program. The H-2A program, long criticized by employers for cumbersome regulations, has doubled in size since 2007 and now provides workers to fill more than 150,000 farm jobs. Since agriculture relies on newcomers from abroad to replace farm workers who exit for nonfarm jobs, farm labor markets are ideal for observing employer adjustments to the reduction in the arrival of immigrant labor. Often identified as the source for unauthorized migration from Mexico because of the Bracero program, agriculture may also provide the template for future immigration reforms that involve legalizing currently unauthorized workers and making it easier to hire guestworkers in the future. 
This discussion features data that could help inform future reform debates. It also focuses on some of the adjustments that farm employers are making, including increased mechanization, improved wages and benefits, and the increased use of the H-2A program.  

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. 

2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference – Panel: Supreme Lack of Clarity: Legal & Political Implications of the U.S. vs. Texas Case and Next Steps

A deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court in June left in place the nationwide injunction barring implementation of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program and expansion of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which would have provided deportation relief for up to 4 million unauthorized immigrants. While the decision set no legal precedent, it has left the future of deferred action in the balance: Returning the case to the lower courts where a number of scenarios could play out based on how the Justice Department, the states that brought the challenge, and the presiding appellate and district judges respond. In this discussion, experts discuss what led to the outcome in the case and the choices that the next administration will face. Panelists discuss the legal challenge's effect on the DACA program and examine the implications for states and the advocacy community. Speakers include Cristina Jiménez, Co-Founder and Managing Director of United We Dream; Stephen H. Legomsky, John S. Lehmann University Professor Emeritus at Washington University School of Law and Former Chief Counsel at U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services; David Shahoulian, Deputy General Counsel at U.S. Department of Homeland Security; Rebecca Tallent, Head of U.S. Government Relations at Dropbox and former Policy Assistant to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner; and moderator Muzaffar Chishti, Director of MPI's office in New York, based at NYU School of Law. The conference is organized annually by the Migration Policy Institute, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Georgetown University Law Center.

2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference – Panel: Refugee Resettlement in the United States: The Dawn of a New Era?

More than 65 million people have been forced to flee their homes, including 21 million refugees who have crossed international borders in search of a safe haven. The United States long has accepted more refugees annually for resettlement than any other country, though the numbers represent a tiny portion of those awaiting resettlement around the globe. Yet that historical welcome is under challenge in ways not seen since the immediate aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks. In the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris, more than half of the nation’s governors announced opposition to the further resettlement of refugees in their states. And there are calls in Congress for major changes to the resettlement program, which will admit 85,000 refugees this fiscal year, even as defenders note that those under consideration for resettlement undergo more stringent security screening than all other would-be immigrants and travelers to the United States. This panel at the 13th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference discusses the policy and legal concerns raised by state and federal lawmakers about the resettlement of refugees, examines how the federal government and its humanitarian partners have responded to these concerns, and addresses the implications of these challenges for the future of a program that has resettled more than 3 million refugees since 1975. Speakers include T. Alexander Aleinikoff, former United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees and Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; Kevin Fandl, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies at Fox School of Business, Temple University; Anna Greene, Policy and Advocacy Director for U.S. Programs at International Rescue Committee; and moderator Andrew I. Schoenholtz, Director of the Center for Applied Legal Studies and Human Rights Institute and Professor from Practice at Georgetown Law. The conference is organized annually by the Migration Policy Institute, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Georgetown University Law Center.

2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference – Immigration and the Republican Party: A Dividing Issue for a Divided Party?

Immigration proved a central issue in the 2016 Republican primaries, helping eventual GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump emerge from a crowded field of 17 candidates and solidify his standing with a conservative base that is deeply skeptical about immigration. With the focus now turning to the general election, Republican Party leaders, strategists, and intellectuals from different vantage points—the #NeverTrump, #NeverHillary, pro-business, and libertarian wings of the party—are coming at the immigration debate differently, with differing interpretations of how pivotal immigration will prove to be in attracting or repelling voters and constituencies. This panel at the 13th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference delves into the range of views and approaches to immigration that are in play among Republicans and discuss their implications for the next Congress and the future of the party. Panelists discuss the on-the-ground strategy and lessons, their views on where immigration fits in today’s Republican Party, and how the election discourse on immigration is likely to affect the party going forward. Speakers include Alfonso Aguilar, President of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles; Linda Chavez, President of the Becoming American Institute; Daniel Garza, Executive Director of the LIBRE Initiative; Tamar Jacoby, President of ImmigrationWorks USA; and moderator Josh Gerstein, Senior Reporter, covering the courts, justice, and national security issues, at POLITICO‎. The conference is organized annually by the Migration Policy Institute, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Georgetown University Law Center.

2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference – Keynote Address: Senator Dick Durbin

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois discusses deferred action for unauthorized immigrants, the DREAM Act, refugee resettlement, and other issues facing U.S. policymakers on immigration in this keynote address opening the 2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference, organized by the Migration Policy Institute, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Georgetown University Law Center.

2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference – Panel: Family Detention, PEP, and Prosecutorial Discretion: Developments in Immigration Enforcement

Immigration enforcement, always a central component of immigration policy, has received particular focus throughout President Obama’s administration. Regardless of who wins the presidential election in November, enforcement will likely continue to play a large—and contested—role for the next four years. In this panel discussion at the 13th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference, speakers Elizabeth Cedillo-Pereira, Senior Advisor to the Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security; Dree K. Collopy, Partner at Benach Collopy LLP and Co-Director, Immigration Litigation Clinic, Catholic University School of Law; Thomas D. Homan, Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security; Stephen Manning, Partner at Immigrant Law Group PC and Director, Innovation Law Lab; and moderator Charles Wheeler, Director of Training and Legal Support, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, INC. examine three key aspects of current U.S. immigration enforcement: family detention and policies affecting unaccompanied children; the replacement of the Secure Communities federal-local immigration enforcement cooperation program with the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) amid rising local resistance to cooperation with the federal government; and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) guidance on its use of prosecutorial discretion with regards to deportation decisions. Panelists evaluate the successes and failures of these policies, and consider what legislative and other change could happen in the upcoming year. The conference is organized annually by the Migration Policy Institute, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Georgetown University Law Center.

2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference – Panel: Immigration Politics & Policy in 2016: How Will Immigration Electioneering Affect Post-Election Policymaking?

Immigration proved an especially contested battleground during the 2016 Republican primary season and appears likely to be a top-tier issue in the general election, amid striking contrasts in policy and tone between the two major political campaigns. Moderated by MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner, this panel at the 13th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference explores the role immigration is playing in the campaigns and politics of the election. Panelists include David Frum, Senior Editor at The Atlantic; Rosalind Gold, Senior Director of Policy, Research and Advocacy at the NALEO Educational Fund; Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America's Voice; and Karen Tumulty, National Political Correspondent at The Washington Post. The discussion focuses in particular on the stances of the presidential nominees and other leading voices. How will a new Congress and administration move forward, given the complicated political dynamics within each party? What is each presidential candidate likely to do in his or her first 100 days? And what will the legislative landscape for immigration action look like in 2017? Panelists explore these and other pressing questions.

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. 

2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference – Keynote Address: Alejandro Mayorkas

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas discusses refugee resettlement and other pressing immigration issues in this keynote address opening the 2016 Immigration Law and Policy Conference, organized by the Migration Policy Institute, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc., and Georgetown University Law Center.