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 inaction on immigration. The courts have been active players, in some cases blocking prominent executive-branch policies. And some states, led by Texas and Florida, have noisily entered the arena. Where is this turbulent period headed? How is the Biden administration executing on its vision for a new post-pandemic strategy at the border and beyond? Is long-standing executive branch pre-eminence on immigration eroding as the courts and states assume greater roles? And where is immigration likely to stand as an issue in upcoming national elections? MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner leads a panel of experts in tackling these and other issues. Speakers: Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director of U.S. Immigration Policy Program, MPI Ronald Brownstein, Senior Editor, The Atlantic, and Senior Political Analyst, CNN Linda Chavez, Senior Fellow, Open Society, Niskanen Center, and President, Becoming American Initiative Angela Maria Kelley, Chief Advisor, Policy and Partnerships, American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Blas Nuñez-Neto, Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy and Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of International Affairs, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) www.migrationpolicy.org