October 7, 2024 Dear John, With the U.S.-Mexico border under record pressure, the U.S. government over the past few years has developed a multi-pronged regional approach to managing migration. This new architecture, while still fragile, has shown promising results and should be built upon regardless of who wins the White House, Migration Policy Institute (MPI) President Andrew Selee and Senior Fellow Doris Meissner suggest in a new commentary. This timely analysis examines the Biden administration's evolving regional strategy to managing migration, highlighting three key elements: - The creation of earlier and more orderly asylum processes that make decisions on humanitarian protection before migrants reach the border as well as establish a (more) orderly process for asylum at the border itself.
- Expansion of legal pathways to provide alternatives to irregular migration, including through creation of parole programs such as the one for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans.
- Increased active collaboration with other countries in the hemisphere, with the U.S. government working with them to strengthen their asylum systems and national migration institutions, provide assistance to those hosting large numbers of displaced individuals, and collaborate on enforcement measures.
The sustained drop in border encounters seen since January is due in part to this regional strategy, not just measures taken at the border. “Multiple polls show that this is what the American public wants,” Selee and Meissner write. “People recognize that immigration is both an important asset for the country and a major challenge. They want legal migration but also orderly and consistent processes for how people come to the United States. This emerging architecture, while far from perfect in design or execution, points in the right direction on how to achieve this.” To read the commentary, visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/news/nascent-architecture-us-region. |
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| The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank in Washington, D.C. dedicated to analysis of the movement of people worldwide. MPI provides analysis, development and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national and international levels. For more on MPI, please visit www.migrationpolicy.org. |
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