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MPI Senior Associate T. Alexander Aleinikoff Named Dean of Georgetown Law School

March 26, 2004
Contact: Colleen Coffey
202-266-1910

WASHINGTON – Georgetown University selected T. Alexander Aleinikoff yesterday to become the Executive Vice President for Law Center Affairs and the Dean of its prestigious Law Center starting July 1.

Aleinikoff, who has taught at the University since 1997 with a focus on immigration and constitutional law, has been a Senior Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute since its inception in July 2001. Prior to that, he was a Senior Associate with MPI’s precursor, the International Migration Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Aleinikoff’s research at the Institute has focused on refugee protection, international migration, citizenship, and U.S. immigration policy.

“Alex’s work with MPI advanced several international efforts to establish a policy framework for cooperation on international migration – on refugee protection, citizenship and legal norms,” said MPI Director Kathleen Newland.

From 1994-1997, Aleinikoff served as the General Counsel and then Executive Associate Commissioner for Programs of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

"Alex and I first met and worked together at the Department of Justice more than twenty-five years ago. We have been friends and collaborators on many projects in and out of government ever since,” said Doris Meissner, MPI Senior Fellow and former INS Commissioner.

“His exuberance for ideas, intellectual creativity, love of the law, and devotion to students make him wonderfully suited for this position. Georgetown has made an exciting, outstanding choice,” Meissner said.

Aleinikoff recently published a review of the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration policies in The Century Foundation’s report The Department of Homeland Security’s First Year: A Report Card, available online at www.migrationpolicy.org. He compiled a groundbreaking volume on “Migration and Legal Norms,” which showed that international law has more to say about migration than is usually thought. He also co-edited a three-part book series with Douglas Klusmeyer, which includes: Citizenship Policies for an Age of Migration, as well as Citizenship Today: Global Perspectives and Practices, and From Migrants to Citizens: Membership in a Changing World.

“Alex is one of the brightest people I know – disciplined, extremely focused, well-regarded by everyone, and a person who gets things done,” said MPI President Demetrios Papademetriou. “His refined perspective about international issues is likely unique among deans of major law schools.”

Papademetriou continued, ““We may be losing a direct colleague but we are gaining a partner in our pursuits of better and more rational immigration policies and smarter migration management practices throughout the world.”