Migration Policy Institute Podcasts
MPI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank dedicated to the study of the movement of people worldwide.
Episodes
Do countries that are major polluters have a moral responsibility to aid people displaced by hurricanes, sea-level rise, and other events driven or exacerbated by climate change? What form might that responsibility take? For this episode, we are joined by Jamie Draper, who focuses on political philosophy and ethics at Utrecht University. While he argues that certain countries do have a responsibility to aid displaced people, labele...
The world is grappling with the idea of restitution for people who have been negatively affected by the impacts of climate change—potentially including displacement within a country or across international borders. World leaders are at the early stages of creating a global loss and damage fund to financially compensate these climate victims. Much remains unresolved, including complicated and controversial questions about which coun...
Many people are leaving rural mountain areas around the globe because their livelihoods are becoming less profitable and the threat of landslides and other disasters is increasing. As the impacts of climate change grow, these mountain residents may face additional challenges dealing with environmental disruption. And by moving to urban areas, they may face a new set of issues and lose connection with their homelands. In this episod...
A landmark climate migration deal inked in late 2023 would allow hundreds of climate-vulnerable residents of the small island nation of Tuvalu to move to Australia. The pact is the latest step for a region that is at the leading edge globally in policy experimentation to address climate displacement. This Australia-Tuvalu deal, which is not uncontroversial, follows a brief and ultimately shelved attempt by New Zealand to create a ...
Secondary cities are increasingly gaining attention as homes to refugees and other migrants and, as result, they are targets of development programming and international support. In Africa, these secondary cities are seeing their overall populations swell even as migrant numbers also increase, placing pressure on services such as education, health care, and sanitation. At the same time, refugees and other migrants often find it dif...
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Migration is complex, and rarely is there only one single factor that prompts people to leave their homes. That is especially true when climate change is involved, since its impacts on internal and international migration are often indirect and hard to trace. So when we talk about climate migration, what exactly do we mean? And why is the distinction important? Kerilyn Schewel, co-director of Duke University’s Program on Climate-Re...
With the Global Refugee Forum (GRF) approaching, most of the planning focus has been on resettlement and complementary pathways pledges that will be announced at the December gathering and the number of refugees that states are committing to admit. Far less attention is being given to the crucial issues of how countries will reach their goals, whether the necessary capacity and infrastructure exist, and if there is effective coordi...
Travel documents play an important role in international mobility, and for refugees serve as an essential gateway to a world of opportunities, from pursuing education and employment to reuniting with family. In this episode, MPI’s Susan Fratzke unpacks the complexities around travel documents and their pivotal role in refugees' livelihoods with Adhieu Achuil Kueth, founder of MonyQadow, and Jackie Keegan, deputy director of the Div...
Can climate-driven international migration pose a security threat? Former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff thinks so, but not necessarily because of the migrants themselves. Irregular migration prompted by climate events can empower smugglers and criminal groups. And it can spur an extremist backlash in receiving countries if people feel their government is not adequately protecting them. Chertoff talks about the s...
Building on its humanitarian parole programs for the admission of Afghan and Ukrainian nationals, the Biden administration established such a program for Venezuelans in October 2022 and expanded it to include Cuban, Haitian, and Nicaraguan nationals in January 2023. The “CHNV” humanitarian parole program requires a sponsor in the United States, such as a citizen or lawful permanent resident, and enables the United States to admit ...
Full and fair access to immigration legal services is vital to ensure justice for asylum seekers and other migrants seeking protection in the immigration courts or immigration status before U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Legal representation is also essential to the effective functioning of the immigration court system, improving outcomes and appearances at all levels—an essential element for a body that is faci...
Since 2010, no world region has experienced a greater relative increase in international migration than Latin America and the Caribbean. While much of that migration, driven in part by political and economic crises or natural disasters, has remained within the region, there has been significant movement northward. Governments, including the U.S. government, increasingly have come to realize that migration management and humanitaria...
A new era of state policymaking and operational action on immigration has begun, led by Texas and Florida, which set off tensions with state and local officials elsewhere by busing and flying asylum seekers and other migrants from the Texas-Mexico border into the U.S. interior. While state-level involvement in immigration policymaking is not new, the Florida and Texas decisions to drop off migrants in other jurisdictions, often wit...
20th Immigration Law & Policy Conference -Session- State of Play: Dynamism and Disorder - Sept. 2023
The U.S. immigration policy space has seen a high degree of dynamism—and disorder—over the past year. A raft of new humanitarian and legal immigration policies has been advanced amid record unauthorized arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border, a growing recognition that migration is increasingly hemispheric in nature, the end of a pandemic-era expulsions policy that the government had come to rely upon, and continued congressional inact...
African migrants harness the strength of kinship in pursuit of security and stability as they settle in a European landscape that is sometimes made precarious by their legal status and shifting policies. In this episode, MPI Europe Associate Director Camille Le Coz discusses this fascinating phenomenon with Apostolos Andrikopoulos, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at Harvard University and the University of Amsterdam. Together,...
Providing meaningful access to public services for individuals with limited proficiency in English is both a longstanding civil-rights requirement for federal programs and an important policy consideration given growing linguistic diversity in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has also brought language access to the forefront by demonstrating the necessity of providing critical government services and information to individu...
Facing converging challenges related to climate change, natural disasters, and migration, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) region in Eastern Africa is in a particularly vulnerable position. With countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda regularly impacted by drought, flooding, or other natural disasters, the decision to migrate is frequently driven by environmental factors, alongside economic and s...
What does the future of refugee resettlement look like? In this World of Migration episode, MPI Senior Policy Analyst Susan Fratzke leads an insightful conversation about sponsorship of refugees by private individuals and community groups. With humanitarian protection systems struggling to address record needs, more countries—including the United States—are turning to private or community sponsorship. Tune in to hear from Erin Schu...
While efforts to incorporate refugee voices into humanitarian protection practices continue to gain momentum, meaningful consultation of refugees in sponsorship program operations remains limited. And there is little reflection on opportunities for improvement.
Consultation with sponsored refugees on their experiences can help identify areas for improvement and inform how to do so. Involving refugees in the creation of key program ...
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