 The Transatlantic
Council on Migration is comprised of Council members and Council management
and staff, with select guests from the policymaking, academic, business,
and media worlds invited to participate in Council meetings. Council
members and their guests combine exceptional political and public influence
with profound interest and experience in issues related to migration.
Council
members are among Europe and North America’s most experienced
policymakers and thought leaders. Council management and staff are responsible
for all of the Council’s work and activities.
Council members |
Council management | Council/Policy Partner Staff
Giuliano Amato
 Giuliano Amato was Italy’s Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodi's
government from 2006 through spring 2008, and served twice as Prime Minister,
first from 1992 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2001. Minister Amato was
more recently Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe,
with former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, that drafted the European
Constitution and headed the Amato group.
Minister Amato was a Member of
the Senate representing the constituency of Grosseto in Tuscany from
2001 to 2006, and served as a member of Parliament from 1983 to 1993.
He was Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister’s
office from 1983 to 1987, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister from
1987 to 1988, and again Finance Minister from 1988 to 1989, a position
he briefly returned to in 1999. He also was a university professor in Constitutional
matters, and was Chairman of the Antitrust Authority from 1994 to 1997.
Xavier Becerra
 Xavier Becerra represents California’s 31st District in the US House
of Representatives and is Vice Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
He also is Assistant to the Speaker of the House, a position that allows
him to help set leadership priorities and drive the legislative decision-making
process. First elected to Congress in 1992, Rep. Becerra is a member of
the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where he served as Chairman during the
105th Congress (1997-98). The Congressman is also a member of the Executive
Committee of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. At the international
level, he serves as Vice Chairman of the U.S.-Korea Interparliamentary
Exchange and is Co-Chair of the Congressional Friends of Spain Caucus.
Mel Cappe
 Mel Cappe has been President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy
since 2006. Before that, he spent more than 30 years in Canadian public
service, most recently as the High Commissioner for Canada to the United
Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Prior to that, Mr. Cappe was Canada’s
top public servant as Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary to the Cabinet,
and head of the Public Service. He also served as special advisor to
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and held senior economic and policy
positions in federal government departments in Ottawa, including the
Treasury Board, Department of Finance and Consumer and Corporate Affairs.
Armin Laschet
 Armin Laschet has been Minister for Intergenerational and Family Affairs,
Women and Integration of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany since 2005.
He is also Chairman of the Federal Committee for International Cooperation
and Human Rights of the CDU Germany, an Executive Member of the European
People's Party (EPP), Treasurer of the Christian Democrat International
(CDI), and President of the CDU District Association, Aachen. From 1999-2005,
Minister Laschet was a Member of the European Parliament; from 1994 to
1998, he was a Member of the German Bundestag; and from 1989-2004, he
was a Member of the Aachen City Council. He has also worked as the Editor-in-Chief
and President and CEO of the publishing house Einhard Verlag; as scientific
advisor to Rita Süssmuth, former president of the German Bundestag;
and as a freelance reporter for Bavarian radio stations and Bavarian
television. He is an associate lecturer of European Studies at RWTH Aachen
(Aachen University of Technology).
Libe Rieber-Mohn
 Libe Rieber-Mohn is the State Secretary for Integration, Immigration, and
Diversity in the Norwegian Ministry of Labor and Inclusion. From 2004-2005,
State Secretary Rieber-Mohn served as a political advisor for the Labor
Party Parliamentary Group. Before that she held various positions in
the Gamle Oslo District in the municipality of Oslo, including Project
Director, Head of Section, and City Government Secretary. She previously
worked as a senior consultant at Cap Germini Ernst & Young and as
a research fellow at the Institute for Social Research. She also chaired
the Labor Party’s Immigration and Integration Committee (2004)
and served as a member of the Oslo City Council (1988-1992).
Ana Palacio
 Ana Palacio is Senior Vice President for International Affairs and Marketing
for AREVA, the world’s largest nuclear energy company. She is the
former Foreign Minister of Spain, and a former Member of the Spanish
Parliament. Minister Palacio also served as a Member of the European
Parliament (1994-2002), where she chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal
Market Committee and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, and was
elected by her peers to chair the Parliament’s Conference of Committee
Chairmen, the senior body for coordinating legislative work. Most recently,
she was Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the World Bank.
She is a member of the Carnegie Corporation’s Board of Trustees.
Trevor Phillips
 Since 2006, Trevor Phillips has been Chairman of the United Kingdom’s
Equality and Human Rights Commission. A journalist, broadcaster, and television
industry executive, Mr. Phillips was elected as a member of the Greater
London Authority in 2000, and quickly became Chair of the Assembly. He
is also co-founder of the Equate Organization, a social change consultancy,
and is Director of Pepper Productions. He is a Vice President of the Royal
Television Society and is a published author.
Rita Süssmuth
 Dr. Rita Süssmuth is former President of the German Federal Parliament
and former German Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Women, Youth, and
Health. In 2006, Dr. Süssmuth became Chair of the European Union’s
High-Level Group on Social Integration of Ethnic Minorities and their Full
Participation in the Labor Market and also joined the Advisory Board of
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s project “Gaining
from Migration.” She was member of the Global Commission on International
Migration, and is President of the OTA-University in Berlin. Dr. Süssmuth
was Chair of the Independent Council of Experts on Migration and Integration,
appointed by the German government from May 2003 until December 2004. From
2000-2001, Dr. Süssmuth presided over the Independent Commission on
Migration to Germany which resulted in the July 2001 report on Steering
Migration and Fostering Integration.
Antonio Vitorino
 Antonio Vitorino is the former European Commissioner for Justice and Home
Affairs (1999-2004), and a partner of Gonçalves Pereira, Castelo
Branco & Associados. He served as Portugal’s Deputy Prime Minister
and Minister of Defense from 1995-1997 and prior to that, he was a Member
of the European Parliament (1994-1995). He has also been a judge on the
Portuguese Constitutional Court (1989-1994), Vice President of Portugal
Telecom Internacional (1998-1999), and Secretary of State of the Government
of Macau (1986-1987). Minister Vitorino has been an assistant professor
at the University of Lisbon Law School since 1982, and has also taught
as a professor at the Universidade Autónoma Luís de Camões
and Universidade Internacional of Lisbon.
Thor Arne Aass
Thor Arne Aass has been Director General of the Department of Migration in the
Norwegian Ministry of Labor and Inclusion since 1996. Mr. Aass advises Norwegian
State Secretaries and Parliamentarians on all migration matters, immigration
and refugee issues, as well as integration issues. From 1988 through 1990,
Mr. Aass was Senior Executive Officer in the Department of Migration. Before
entering the Ministry, Mr. Aass worked as Executive and Senior Executive Officer
for the Directorate of Telecommunication. From 2005 through 2006, he served
as Chair for the Working Group on Resettlement, consisting of UNHCR and the
governments offering resettlement on a regular basis. From 2004 through 2005,
Mr. Aass was Chairman of the Inter-Governmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee
and Migration Policies (IGC) Working Group on Return. From 2003 through 2004,
Mr. Aass served as IGC Chair.
Barbro Birgitta Appelqvist Bakken
Barbro A. Bakken is Director General, Department of Integration and
Diversity of Norway’s Ministry of Labor and Inclusion. Prior
to that, she served as Assistant Director General, Deputy Director
General, and Director General in the Department of Immigration,
Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. From 1985
to 1992, she worked in the central administration in the Municipality
of Oslo. Before that she worked as General Manager and Departmental
Manager at the Immigrant Office for Oslo. She also worked in the
social security and rehabilitation departments in the Trosterud
practice center in Oslo.
Brian C. Grant
Brian Grant has held the position of Director General of International
and Intergovernmental Relations at Citizenship and Immigration Canada
(CIC) since July 2005. He has lead responsibility for Canada's
engagement on international migration issues at bilateral, regional,
and multilateral forums. Also, he has lead responsibility for CIC's
relations with provincial and territorial governments in Canada,
which share jurisdiction over immigration under the Canadian Constitution.
Prior to that, Mr. Grant was Director General of Strategic Policy
and Partnerships, CIC. Previously, he worked for the United
Kingdom Immigration Service (the Home Office) in London as part
of an exchange of senior immigration officials between Canada and
the United Kingdom. From 1990 to 1999, Mr. Grant held a number
of positions within the enforcement area of CIC. He was Canada’s
lead negotiator on the migration chapter of the North American Free
Trade Agreement, and has had extensive experience in revising immigration
legislation and regulations.
Marilyn Haimé
Marilyn Haimé is Director of Citizenship and Integration at
the Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning, and the Environment in
the Netherlands. Previously, she was Director of the Minorities Integration
Policy Directorate at the Ministry of Justice. Ms. Haimé came
from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kingdom Relations, where
she started her career in the civil service as a legal policy officer
in the Policy Directorate. She later transferred to the Constitutional
Affairs and Legislation Directorate. Prior to her current position,
Ms. Haimé was Adjunct Director of the Constitutional Affairs
and Legislation Directorate and Project Manager on Referendum Legislation.
She began her career as the coordinator of the Victims Support Project
in Rotterdam. Ms. Haimé has also held a number of administrative
positions, including the Dutch Lawyers Association for Human Rights;
the Association for Administrative Law; Meander, an organization for
intercultural development.
Annette Heuser
Annette Heuser is Executive Director of the Bertelsmann Foundation,
USA in Washington, DC, Bertelsmann’s newly opened first office
in the United States. Prior to this she was Executive Director of
the Bertelsmann Foundation in Brussels, which she built up in 2000.
Ms. Heuser was Director Europe/USA at the Bertelsmann Foundation
in Guetersloh from 1995-2000. In this function she was responsible
for the management of the European and transatlantic projects and
the development of the European networking activities. Before she
joined the Bertelsmann Foundation, she was the editor of the Jahrbuch
der Europaischen Integration, an annual publication which deals
with institutional and political developments within the process
of European integration. From 1992 to 1995, she was staff member
at the Research Group on European Affairs at the University of Mainz,
which is now located at the University of Munich.
Gregory A. Maniatis
Gregory A. Maniatis oversees the European programs for the Migration
Policy Institute. He is also advisor to Peter Sutherland, the
United Nations Special Representative for Migration. Mr. Maniatis
consults to the European Commission, Member State governments, the
European Parliament, and international organizations on all aspects
of immigration and integration policy. In 2007, he led MPI’s
advisory work for the EU Presidencies of Germany and Portugal; in
previous years, he had overseen MPI’s work with the EU Presidencies
of Greece and the Netherlands. Prior to his positions at MPI and
the UN, Mr. Maniatis was founder and publisher of Odyssey magazine,
an English-language bimonthly that is the leading international
magazine about Greece and Greeks around the world.
Geri Mannion
Geri Mannion is Director of Carnegie Corporation's US Democracy Program
and Special Opportunities Fund. She has chaired the US Democracy
Program since 1998, after staffing the Corporation's program of
Special Projects for almost 10 years. In addition to supporting
projects that focus on improving broad civic engagement, the program
focuses on immigrant civic integration, youth civic education, and
election administration. As Director of the Corporation's
Special Opportunities Fund, Ms. Mannion oversees the Corporation’s
response to proposals that are important but not related to the
foundation's primary foci. Ms. Mannion has spent more than 30 years
in the field of philanthropy, working at both the Rockefeller and
Ford Foundations before joining Carnegie. At the Rockefeller Foundation,
where she spent 13 years in a variety of positions, she became a
program associate in the international relations program. At the
Ford Foundation, Ms. Mannion consulted with its international affairs
program, assisting with both grant evaluation and grantmaking in
its focus on arms control and security issues.
Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Demetrios G. Papademetriou is President of the Migration Policy Institute,
a Washington-based think tank dedicated exclusively to the study of
international migration. He is also the convener of the Transatlantic
Council on Migration and its predecessor, the Transatlantic Task Force
on Immigration and Integration (co-convened with the Bertelsmann Stiftung).
Dr. Papademetriou also convenes the Athens Migration Policy Initiative
(AMPI), a task force of mostly European senior immigration experts
that advises EU Member States on immigration and asylum issues, and
the Co-Founder and International Chair Emeritus of Metropolis:
An International Forum for Research and Policy on Migration and Cities. Dr.
Papademetriou has taught at the universities of Maryland, Duke, American,
and New School for Social Research. He has held a wide range of senior
positions that include Chair of the Migration Committee of the Paris-based
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development; Director for
Immigration Policy and Research at the US Department of Labor and
Chair of the Secretary of Labor’s Immigration Policy Task Force;
and Executive Editor of the International Migration Review.
Monica A. SanMiguel
Monica A. SanMiguel is a Research Associate at the Rockefeller Foundation. Prior
to her position at Rockefeller, Ms. SanMiguel worked as a Research
Assistant at the Council of State Governments and a Research Assistant
at the University of California at Los Angeles’s International
Institute – Latin America Center.
Alexandros Zavos
Alexandros Zavos is President of
the Hellenic Migration Policy Institute (IMEPO), a position he has
held since 2004. IMEPO's mission is to research and understand the
phenomenon of migration and conduct studies which contribute to the
design and implementation of a viable and realistic immigration policy
within the EU’s framework. In addition, IMEPO
acts as the advisor to the Greek government on migration policy issues. As
IMEPO President, Mr. Zavos is involved in the planning and organization
of the Global Forum on Migration and Development to be held in Greece
toward the end of 2009. He is also a mathematician with 27 years
of experience in the field of education. He also served as Special
Advisor to the Greek Minister of Education and has been very active
in trade unions in Greece.
Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan
Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan is an Associate Policy Analyst at MPI, where she works
on the International Program and the Transatlantic Council on Migration. Prior
to joining MPI, she was a Program Administrator at the Brookings Institution's
Center for Executive Education, where she developed public policy seminars
for senior government officials and coordinated the center's website and communications
strategy.
Elizabeth Collett
Elizabeth Collett is a policy analyst at the European Policy Centre,
an independent Brussels-based think tank that is policy partner
with the Transatlantic Council on Migration. Ms. Collett coordinates
the Migration and Integration Forum at the EPC, which is run in
collaboration with the King Baudouin Foundation. Previously, she
worked for the International Organization for Migration in Geneva,
and for the Institute for the Study of International Migration in
Washington, DC.
Lisa Dixon
Lisa Dixon is Events Manager and Development Coordinator for the Migration
Policy Institute. Prior to this, Ms. Dixon was Director of Programs
at Texas A&M's Jordan Institute for International Awareness,
where she coordinated events promoting international awareness on
the Texas A&M campus. Before that, she taught high school in
a border community of southern Texas through Teach for America.
Michelle Mittelstadt
Michelle Mittelstadt is Director of Communications for the Migration
Policy Institute, and is responsible for developing and implementing
MPI’s strategic communications, managing the Web site and
publications, and coordinating the Institute’s media outreach
and events. A veteran journalist, she joined MPI in 2008 after covering
immigration policy, Congress, and border-related issues since the
early 1990s in the Washington bureaus of The Associated Press, The Dallas
Morning News, and the Houston Chronicle. She has written
hundreds of articles examining US immigration policy, border and
interior enforcement, and the post-9/11 legislative and executive
branch changes that have altered the immigration landscape. She
also covered the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Prior
to coming to Washington, Ms. Mittelstadt was an editor with The
Associated Press in Dallas and Managing Editor of The Courier
Herald in Dublin, Ga.
Christal Morehouse
Christal Morehouse is Program Manager for the Bertelsmann Foundation
in the field of migration and integration. She is responsible for
managing the Foundation’s integration programs at the European
and Transatlantic level. From January to December 2006 she was the
Head of Office for Prof. Dr. Rita Süssmuth, the former President
of the German Bundestag. Between January and December 2005 she conducted
research for the Global Commission on International Migration as
a member of the staff of the German member of the Commission. From
June 2003 until December 2004, she was part of the research team
of the German Independent Council of Experts on Migration and Integration
in Berlin. Ms. Morehouse has advised various European and American
multinational institutions on policy matters. She was among the
experts whose advice on integration issues was sought by the German
EU Presidency in 2007. In 2004 she was a consultant to the Organization
of American States for anti-trafficking research in Europe.
Will Somerville
Will Somerville is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy
Institute. Prior to joining MPI, Will Somerville worked as a Senior
Policy Officer at the Commission for Racial Equality, where he led
on asylum and immigration policy; as a Policy and Research Manager
at the Center for Economic and Social Inclusion; as a Policy Analyst
at the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office; and
as a researcher for the Institute for Public Policy Research. |
