Author: Michele

“Right to Move” conference Dec 12-13 in Tokyo

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I’ll be speaking at the “Right to Move: Debating the Ethics of Global Migration” conference at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, December 12-13th, 2009, organized by Carnegie Council Global Policy Innovations and Sophia University Institute of Comparative Culture.

Here’s a description of my presentation:

Linking Ethics and Self-Interest in Human Mobility
Facing demographic and economic challenges, countries around the world are reconsidering the policies that govern migrant rights: the basis on which people are allowed to enter a country, the access that non-citizens have to services and rights, and the ability of non-citizens to naturalize. What are the consequences for citizens, societies, and economies of the decisions they make about who gets the right to move? How do limitations on the rights of others to move to a country, to become citizens, and to participate in the workforce and in social and political structures affect established citizens of those countries? What are the most ethical regimes involving human mobility—and how do they compare to policies that might maximize the well-being of citizens and non-citizens?

Panel descriptions and biographies are HERE

You can find the full agenda HERE

“Breaking the Immigration Stalemate” report released

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As many of you know, I was back and forth to Washington, DC many times over the past year to take part in an unusual gathering of scholars and thinkers on immigration policy. The Brookings-Duke Immigration Policy Roundtable organizers, Noah Pickus, Peter Skerry and Bill Galston convened a group as diverse as possible without members being likely to strangle each other by being in the same room –but they weren’t far off! The idea was to see what this disparate bunch could agree on (or at least agree to disagree on), in hopes that it might provide some guidance to the Obama administration as it tackles long-overdue immigration reform. We made it through somehow with a report that would have been different had I (or any of us) written it ourselves. Nevertheless, it gives a pretty good sense of some of the tradeoffs that might be politically feasible and result in a policy that, while not perfect, would significantly improve upon the mess that we have now.

That report, available in PDF format here, was released October 6. Links to the executive summary, the Spanish version, and the Brookings launch event transcript are available here. I’ll be part of a panel discussing it further at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC on October 23.

Here’s more information about the report:

Breaking the Immigration Stalemate

Breaking the Immigration Stalemate

The Obama administration has committed itself to immigration reform. Yet despite all the shortcomings of current policy — threats to the rule of law, exploitation of vulnerable newcomers, real and perceived competition with Americans for jobs and public resources — reasonable compromise on immigration will be exceedingly difficult. The divide between elite and public opinion on this issue remains deep and wide. It is a critical factor in the lack of trust that pervades today’s political culture.

This distrust was readily apparent in November 2008 when the Immigration Policy Roundtable first convened its twenty participants. The Roundtable is a joint undertaking of the Brookings Institution and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. The group’s distinctive feature is that its members came to the table with divergent, often conflicting perspectives on immigration. In fact, the range of political and ideological views represented at the Roundtable is unprecedented in recent immigration policymaking. Continue reading ““Breaking the Immigration Stalemate” report released”

“Fox & Friends” Monday, September 14 6:15 am ET

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I’ll be on Fox & Friends (Channel 44 in NYC) around 6:15 a.m. ET tomorrow morning, Monday September 14th, debating the brouhaha over immigration and healthcare reform.

Here’s some background on the issue from the Los Angeles Times, the Immigration Policy Center, and Reuters.

It’s interesting to see that after Medicare tightened its proof-of-citizenship rules in 2005, about half of the states surveyed by the Government Accountability Office reported that people had fallen off of their Medicare rolls. The vast majority of those who lost health care were citizens, who paid a huge price for an effort that netted nine –count ’em, NINE– unauthorized immigrants. Here’s yet another case where efforts targeting illegal immigrants hurt many citizens, doing more harm than good.

Jezebel.com -citizenship and women’s rights

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Latoya Peterson interviewed me on Jezebel.com yesterday. Here’s the link:

Does The Struggle For Women’s Rights Extend To Citizenship?

Interview excerpt: “The largest issues facing women around the world are in many ways the same as the ones facing men: basic questions of human security and having a voice in solving problems that affect you. Literacy, education, jobs, and health are all part of this, of course, but they all come down to the question of whether women have the rights to pursue those things, and a way to influence the governments, organizations, companies, and people who affect whether and how women get what we need. In so many parts of the world —including in wealthy countries like the United States— women have a harder time meeting some of those needs than men do, but it’s important not to see this as a women-versus-men issue. The places where women have the least rights also tend to be the places where men have the least rights. If we’re all going to move forward together, we need to be sure that men also support the idea that improving women’s rights leaves men better off too. It’s “win-win” not “zero-sum.” I just saw this great new Turkish movie, “Bliss,” about a man charged with carrying out an honor killing of his cousin. During the course of the movie, he comes to the realization that the horrible infractions of her rights don’t leave either one of them better off.”

I met Latoya in the 2008 Progressive Women’s Voices program at the Women’s Media Center. She’s smart, young, and going places, and writes about the intersection between race and pop culture. Check out her website, www.racialicious.com.

Carnegie Council interview on global migration and ethics

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Carnegie Council Global Policy Innovations posted a Global Ethics Forum Interview with me August 11 as part of its “Ethics in Business” series
Click HERE for this radio interview with Michele Wucker by Julia Kennedy

“People should be able to pursue whatever helps them to fulfill their greatest potential, and that’s what migration is about,” says World Policy Institute’s Michele Wucker.

Who Gets A Voice?: Immigrants and Civic Engagement

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Title: Who Gets A Voice?: Immigrants and Civic Engagement
Location: New York City
Link out: Click here
Description: I’ll be moderating a public debate Tuesday evening, June 30, hosted by the World Policy Institute and Demos with panelists Maria Teresa Petersen of Voto Latino; Tamar Jacoby, Immigration Works USA; Gara Lamarche, Atlantic Philanthropies; and Hiroshi Motomura, UCLA and Author of Americans in Waiting. For more details and to register, follow the link.
Start Time: 6:00
Date: 2009-06-30
End Time: 8:30

Chapter in new book GETTING IMMIGRATION RIGHT

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I’ve written a chapter in the new book, GETTING IMMIGRATION RIGHT: WHAT EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO KNOW, edited by David Coates and Peter Siavalis and published by Potomac Press. My chapter deals with changing conceptions of citizenship, based on some of the work I did during my 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship. It’s about the ways in which nations around the globe are changing laws and customs governing who is allowed to become a citizen and how the naturalization process works, even as they debate the shifting norms about the rights and responsibilities that citizenship entails.

Please pick up a copy of the book at your favorite bookstore or online!

The book is based on a conference that David and Peter organized in Fall 2007 at Wake Forest University. Here’s the video of my session with Mark Miller (I start speaking at around 28:00)

Fox & Friends on border immigration 2/10 at 6:22 am ET

Posted on by Michele

Hi,

I’ll be on Fox & Friends tomorrow morning, Tuesday February 10, at (gulp) 6:22 am ET. Channel 44 in NYC.

We’ll be talking about the lawsuit against an Arizona rancher who held 16 illegal immigrants at gunpoint and claims to have rounded up 12,000 immigrants and handed them over to the Border Patrol during the last 10 years.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,490084,00.html