Senior Fellow and Director, US Immigration Policy Program
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Doris Meissner, former Commissioner of the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), is a Senior Fellow at MPI, where she directs the Institute’s US immigration policy work.
Her responsibilities focus in particular on the role of immigration in America’s future and on administering the nation’s immigration laws, systems, and government agencies. Her work and expertise also include immigration and politics, immigration enforcement, border control, cooperation with other countries, and immigration and national security. She has authored and coauthored numerous reports, articles, and op-eds and is frequently quoted in the media. She served as Director of MPI's Independent Task Force on Immigration and America's Future, a bipartisan group of distinguished leaders. The group's report and recommendations address how to harness the advantages of immigration for a 21st century economy and society.
From 1993-2000, she served in the Clinton administration as Commissioner of the INS, then a bureau in the US Department of Justice. Her accomplishments included reforming the nation's asylum system; creating new strategies for managing US borders; improving naturalization and other services for immigrants; shaping new responses to migration and humanitarian emergencies; strengthening cooperation and joint initiatives with Mexico, Canada, and other countries; and managing growth that doubled the agency’s personnel and tripled its budget.
She first joined the Justice Department in 1973 as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant to the Attorney General. She served in various senior policy posts until 1981, when she became Acting Commissioner of INS and then Executive Associate Commissioner, the third-ranking post in the agency. In 1986, she joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a Senior Associate. Ms. Meissner created the Endowment's Immigration Policy Project, which evolved into the Migration Policy Institute in 2001.
Ms. Meissner’s board memberships include CARE-USA and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Inter-American Dialogue, the Pacific Council on International Diplomacy, the National Academy of Public Administration, the Administrative Conference of the United States, and the Constitution Society.
A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned bachelor of the arts and master of the arts degrees, she began her professional career there as Assistant Director of student financial aid. She was also the first Executive Director of the National Women’s Political Caucus.
MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner discusses US immigration policy during the Fireside Forum on Foreign Policy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The other participants are Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera and Douglas Savage, Assistant Director of the Institute of World Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Doris Meissner, who heads the US Immigration Policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, appears on BBC World News to talk about the Arizona immigration law and its legal and political ramifications.
Katie Couric talks to experts on both sides of an immigration law that has sparked discussion, protests, and a federal lawsuit.
Senator Ron Johnson questions former INS commissioner Doris Meissner (now a Senior Fellow at MPI), former Undersecretary for Border Security Asa Hutchinson, and GAO Director for Homeland Security and Justice Issues Richard Stana.
Host and former US Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow and Doris Meissner, the former commissioner for the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, discuss controlling immigration in this program sponsored by the Institute of the Americas.
The US-Mexico border is safer than it's ever been, but Arizona will continue to be the most-active stretch for border crossing as the "water balloon effect" squeezes desperate border crossers west from San Diego and east from El Paso toward Yuma and Tucson, This, according to a report by the Center for American Progress. Doris Meissner, Senior Fellow, Migration Policy Institute, joins the discussion.
MPI releases "Executive Action on Immigration: Six Ways to Make the System Work Better," a report which outlines recommendations for executive actions that the administration can implement to improve the immigration system. http://events.powerstream.net/002/00592/20110314MPI/#powershow to watch the whole event.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary John Morton details his agenda for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in MPI's Leadership Visions series. In a discussion moderated by Doris Meissner, MPI Senior Fellow and Director, US Immigration Policy Program, Morton discusses ICE's detention reform proposals, 287(g), Secure Communities, and other agency priorities.
In this MPI Leadership Vision speaker series event, Director Mayorkas discusses the USCIS transformation initiative, E-Verify, improving the customer experience, processing of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians, and other top issues facing USCIS. The discussion was moderated by MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner, who is Director of the US Immigration Policy Program.
US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Alan Bersin discussed illegal immigration, border enforcement, comprehensive immigration reform, drug trafficking, the future of the Secure Border Initiative, and other challenges confronting his agency during MPI’s Leadership Visions speakers series. Moderated by MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner, who directs MPI’s US Immigration Policy Program.
The Migration Policy Institute holds a conference call to discuss the most significant changes that have occurred in the immigration arena in the decade since the September 11, 2001 attacks.
At this event, MPI releases the report “Executive Action on Immigration: Six Ways to Make the System Work Better,” which outlines recommendations for executive actions that the administration can implement to improve the immigration system.
The Migration Policy Institute is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank in Washington, DC 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.
