The Migration Policy Institute (MPI) is a self-described “independent, non-partisan, non-profit think-tank” that “provides analysis, development, and evaluation of migration and refugee policies at the local, national, and international levels.” MPI was established in 2001 by Kathleen Newland and Demetrios G. Papademetriou, when the International Migration Policy Program (IMPP) of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace became an independent entity. IMPP conducted migration policy briefings, policy roundtables, luncheon seminars, and study advisory groups aimed at influencing policy-makers and program officials in Washington, DC. MPI has continued its predecessor’s tradition by supporting: (a) “self-governance at the border,” whereby communities that straddle a national border manage their own affairs rather than being forced to abide by policies set in Washington; (b) a more permissive U.S. refugee admissions and resettlement policy; and (c) increased social welfare benefits for illegal immigrants residing in the United States.
MPI has also continued IMPP’s effort to erase the border between the U.S. and Mexico; to move beyond "absolute notions of sovereignty"; to recognize "a clear convergence in the labor markets of both countries [and] the re-conceptualization of the common border and the border region as a line of convergence rather than separation"; and to create "a North America with gradually disappearing border controls ... with permanent migration remaining at moderate levels."
In April 2002 MPI issued a paper by then-Co-Director (and current President) Demetrios Papademetriou, who formerly served as Director for Immigration Policy and Research at the U.S. Labor Department during the Clinton administration. This paper advocated that the United States should strike a “grand bargain” with Mexico that would include: (a) a registration program for illegal immigrants living in the U.S., to be followed by an “earned regularization” (or legalization) program for all registrants; this program would include a "Mexicans-first" clause but would also make the option available to other nationalities in phases; (b) a broad U.S. temporary worker program for new Mexican workers; and (c) an expedited family reunification provision to bring immediate family members of "unauthorized" immigrants from Mexico to the United States with all the legal protections and worker rights enjoyed by legal U.S. residents. This "grand bargain" would not impose on Mexico any new obligation to discourage its citizens from illegally emigrating to the United States.
On October 2, 2003, MPI sponsored a talk by political science professor Wayne Cornelius, who also serves as Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at UC-San Diego, on "U.S. Border Enforcement Strategy." Cornelius holds that the best way to reduce illegal immigration is "to transform as many as possible of today's -- and tomorrow's -- illegal aliens into legal immigrants, whether they are here as permanent settlers or just temporary workers who cannot or do not want to spend the rest of their lives in the United States."
MPI has steadfastly opposed the Patriot Act and other post-9/11 security efforts as “measures more commonly associated with totalitarian regimes.” According to its report America's Challenge: Domestic Security, Civil Liberties and National Unity After September 11: "The U.S. government's harsh measures against immigrants since September 11 have failed to make us safer, have violated our fundamental civil liberties, and have undermined national unity. … Rather than relying on individualized suspicion or intelligence-driven criteria, the government has used national origin as a proxy for evidence of dangerousness. By targeting specific ethnic groups with its new measures, the government has violated another core principle of American justice, the Fifth Amendment right to equal treatment." The panel writing this report included Ishmael Ahmed, Executive Director of the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services; Charles Kamasaki, Senior Vice President of the National Council of La Raza; Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union; Frank Sharry, Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum; and James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute. Heading the study were (a) MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner, who was the Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Clinton Administration; and (b) MPI Senior Analyst Muzaffer A. Chishti, a former Board Chair of the National Immigration Forum and a current Board Member of the National Immigration Law Center.
MPI receives financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Center for Global Development, the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Ford Foundation, the European Commission, the European Union Delegation to the United States, the Fannie Mae Foundation, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the government of Italy, the government of Mexico, the JEHT Foundation, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, the J.M. Kaplan Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Council of State Legislatures, the Open Society Institute, the South East Asian Resource Action Center, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement.
As of 2004, MPI’s net assets were $1,096,461. That same year, it received $3,160,461 in grants.
