Advisory Board

Chair:

• Jeh Johnson – Partner, Paul, Weiss LLP; former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security

 Members: 

• Stuart Anderson – Executive Director, National Foundation for American Policy
• Julissa Arce – Author & Co-Founder, Ascend Education Fund
• Ron Barber – former Member, U.S. House of Representatives; District Director for Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick 
• Jon Baselice – Executive Director for Immigration Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Alan D. Bersin – former Assistant Secretary for Policy and Chief Diplomatic Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• Bo Cooper – Partner, Fragomen; former General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service
• Michael M. Crow – President, Arizona State University
• Russell C. Deyo – former Acting Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Homeland Security; former Vice President of Administration & General Counsel, Johnson & Johnson
• Paul S. Dwyer, Jr. - Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Viamericas
• Lynda Gonzales-Chavez – Senior Vice President & Chief Diversity, Inclusion, and Global Officer, YMCA of the USA
• Ximena Hartsock – Founder, Tech Apprenticeships.co
• Antonia Hernández – President & CEO, California Community Foundation
• James M. Loy – U.S. Coast Guard Admiral (Ret.); Senior Counselor, Cohen Group; former Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; former Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard
• Trevor Phillips OBE – Co-Founder, Webber Phillips Ltd; former Chair, Equality and Human Rights Commission of the United Kingdom 
• Gaspar Rivera-Salgado – Project Director, University of California-Los Angeles Labor and Education Center; Director, Institute for Transnational Social Change
• Reihan Salam – President, Manhattan Institute; former Executive Editor, National Review
• Arturo Sarukhan – President, Sarukhan+Associates, LLC; former Mexican Ambassador to the United States
• Madeleine Sumption MBE – Director, Migration Observatory, University of Oxford
• Anna Terrón Cusí – Executive Director, International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP); former Secretary of State for Immigration and Emigration of Spain
• José H. Villarreal - Retired Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP; former Board Chair, UnidosUS; former Lead Director, Walmart Board 
• Monette Zard – Director of the Forced Migration & Health Program; Associate Professor, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Jeh Johnson served as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security from December 2013 to January 2017, and now practices law again in New York City at Paul, Weiss LLP.  Secretary Johnson has been affiliated with Paul, Weiss off and on since 1984, and was elected the firm’s first African American partner in 1993.

Prior to becoming Homeland Security Secretary, he was appointed by President Obama to be General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2009-12) and appointed by President Clinton to be General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force (1998-2001).  Earlier in his career, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. 

Secretary Johnson has been a regular commentator on NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, FOX Business, NPR and Bloomberg News. He is on the board of directors of Lockheed Martin, U.S. Steel, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for a New American Security, and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City. He is the recipient of ten honorary degrees and has debated at both the Oxford and Cambridge Unions in England and is an honorary life member of the Cambridge Union.   

In 2018, Secretary Johnson was presented with the Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Award at the Reagan Presidential Library in California, for “contribut[ing] greatly to the defense of our nation.”

Stuart Anderson is Executive Director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan public policy research organization focusing on trade, immigration, and related issues. From August 2001 to January 2003, Mr. Anderson served as Executive Associate Commissioner for Policy and Planning and Counselor to the Commissioner at the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Before that, he spent four and a half years on Capitol Hill, where he worked on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee, first for Senator Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and then as Subcommittee Staff Director for Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS).

Prior to that, Mr. Anderson was Director of Trade and Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, where he produced reports on the military contributions of immigrants and the role of immigrants in high technology. He is the author of the book Immigration (Greenwood, 2010).

Julissa Arce is the best-selling author of My (Underground) American Dream (Entre Las Sombras del Sueño Americano) and Someone Like Me (Alguien Como Yo). A former Wall Street executive, she is a leading voice in the fight for social justice, immigrant rights, and education equality.

Her writing has been featured in the New York Times, TIME magazine, and CNN, among other outlets.

Her commitment to education for all young people led her to co-create the Ascend Educational Fund (AEF), where she serves as Chairwoman of the board. AEF is a college scholarship and mentorship program for immigrant students in New York City, regardless of their ethnicity, national original, or immigration status.  Prior to becoming an advocate, Ms. Arce working for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. She immigrated from Mexico at age 11 and was an unauthorized immigrant for almost 15 years, some of them spent rising to prominence on Wall Street. She became a U.S. citizen in 2014.  

Ms. Arce serves on the board of directors of the National Immigration Law Center. 

Ron Barber is a former Member of the U.S. Congress, representing Arizona's 8th and 2nd Congressional Districts from 2012 to 2015. The Arizona Democrat was first elected to the House on June 12, 2012, to fill the vacancy created with the resignation of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. He previously had served as the congresswoman’s District Director, beginning in 2007. He and the congresswoman were both shot by a gunman during a constituent event in 2011. His committee assignments included serving on the House Armed Services Committee and on its Subcommittees on Tactical Air and Land Forces and Readiness; on the House Homeland Security Committee, where he was Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency; and on the House Committee on Small Business. He now serves as District Director for Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ).

From 1974 to 2006, Mr. Barber served as Regional Administrator and ultimately as Director for the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s Division of Developmental Disabilities.

Jon Baselice is Executive Director of Immigration Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which he joined in 2014. He works with Chamber member companies to form Chamber policy positions on various issues and he advocates for sensible immigration policies before Congress and the executive-branch agencies.

Prior to joining the Chamber, Mr. Baselice served as an advisor to Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) for more than three years. In that capacity, he was one of the Senator’s lead immigration advisors during the Senator’s Gang of Eight involvement and push for comprehensive immigration reform legislation in the 113th Congress.

He is an attorney and is licensed to practice in New York and Florida.

Alan D. Bersin has held numerous high-level positions at the federal, state, and local levels of government. Most recently, after serving as the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, he served as the Assistant Secretary for Policy and Chief Diplomatic Officer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Bo Cooper is a Partner in Fragomen's Washington, DC office, and leads the law firm's Government Strategies and Compliance Group. Before entering private practice, Mr. Cooper served as General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from 1999 to 2003. He directed a legal program of 700 attorneys in 56 offices across the nation. He served in this capacity during two administrations, advising the Commissioner of the INS, the Attorney General of the United States, the White House, other executive-branch agencies, and Congress on all aspects of U.S. immigration law. He also served several years as a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Division.

Mr. Cooper was involved in negotiating immigration-related agreements between the United States and other governments and has acted as a U.S. delegate to international organizations. He has taught immigration and related courses at the University of Michigan Law School, the Washington College of Law at American University, and the Georgetown Law Center. At Fragomen, he maintains a significant pro bono practice, with a strong asylum focus.

Michael M. Crow is an educator, knowledge enterprise architect, science and technology policy scholar, and higher education leader. He became the 16th president of Arizona State University (ASU) in 2002 and has spearheaded the university’s rapid and groundbreaking transformation into one of America’s best public metropolitan research universities. As a model “new American university,” ASU demonstrates comprehensive excellence, inclusivity representative of the ethnic and socioeconomic diversity of the United States, and consequential societal impact.

Dr. Crow’s model has achieved record-breaking levels of traditional, online, and international student enrollment; freshman quality and retention; and nearly fivefold growth in research expenditures. ASU has been ranked one of the top 100 most prestigious universities in the world by Times Higher Education, and a top 100 position in Shanghai Jiao Tong’s 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities.

The inaugural recipient of the American Council on Education Award for Institutional Transformation, and one of TIME magazine’s “10 Best College Presidents,” Dr. Crow previously served as Executive Vice Provost and Professor of Science and Technology Policy at Columbia University. He has advised the U.S. Departments of State, Commerce, and Energy, as well as defense and intelligence agencies, and serves as Chairman of In-Q-Tel. He is also an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and National Academy of Public Administration, University Vice Chairman of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Russell C. Deyo is former Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS), a position he assumed on November 1, 2016, making him second-in-command of a department with a $60 billion budget and a workforce of 240,000 people. He served as Under Secretary for Management at DHS in 2015-16, and has more than 30 years of management experience in both the government and private sectors.

Prior to joining DHS, Mr. Deyo retired from Johnson & Johnson in 2012 after 27 years of service, where he held positions including Vice President of Administration and General Counsel. For 16 years, he also served as a member of the Johnson & Johnson Executive Committee, the company’s principal management group for global operations. His experience includes overseeing human resources, procurement, contributions, philanthropy, legal affairs, government affairs, and compliance. 

Mr. Deyo was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1978 to 1985, serving the last three years as Chief of Special Prosecutions. From 1977 to 1978, he was an attorney at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler in New York City.  

He serves on the boards of the nonprofit organizations One Mind and the National Center for State Courts, and on the Advisory Board of the Miller Center at the Eagleton Institute, Rutgers University. 

Paul S. Dwyer has been Chief Executive Officer of Viamericas since its founding in 2000. Prior to founding Viamericas, Mr. Dwyer was a partner with the Latin American Practice Group of the Washington DC-based law firm Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering (now WilmerHale). While a partner in that practice, he had first-chair responsibility for a wide range of financing and acquisition transactions in Latin America. Prior to joining Wilmer, Mr. Dwyer practiced law with Rogers and Wells (now part of Clifford Chance), and as an internal counsel at the Inter-American Investment Corporation.

Mr. Dwyer received his undergraduate degree in Latin American studies from Tufts University, his masters in international business and Western Hemisphere diplomatic history from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and his juris doctor from Harvard Law School.

Lynda Gonzales-Chavez is Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity, Inclusion, and Global Officer at the YMCA of the USA, where she leads national efforts to ensure that all segments of society can access the Y, feel welcome, and fully engage as participants, members, volunteers, and staff. She has worked at Y-USA since 1999 and has more than 25 years of experience with the Y as a staff member and volunteer. Most recently she spent five years as Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion, providing strategic support to YMCAs working to ensure access, inclusion, and engagement for all.

Ms. Gonzales-Chavez previously was Senior Associate Director in Y-USA’s International Group, helping to train more than 500 volunteers and staff annually on cultural competence, inclusion practices, and integration of immigrant and underserved communities.

She started her career as Youth Director at the YMCA of Central New Mexico and later focused on gang intervention for Youth Development, Inc., in Albuquerque. As Associate Director in the International Group from 2002 to 2007, she partnered with Ys in Latin America and the Caribbean on HIV/AIDS and substance-abuse prevention and outreach to high-risk and incarcerated populations.

Ximena Hartsock is the Founder of Tech Apprenticeships.co. She also co-founded Phone2Action, a comprehensive digital engagement and communications platform for grassroots advocacy, public affairs, and government relations. Prior to this, she managed grassroots advocacy for a national advocacy organization, where she ran hundreds of campaigns across the United States.

Dr. Hartsock also has held numerous leadership positions in Washington, DC, including as a school Principal, Assistant Superintendent of Schools, and Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation. A native of Chile, she was appointed in 2009 to the Executive Cabinet of Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Antonia Hernández is President and Chief Executive Officer of the California Community Foundation, a position she has held since 2004. Nationally regarded for her expertise in immigration, philanthropy, and civil rights, she has spent more than four decades advocating for social justice and improving the lives of underserved communities in Los Angeles County and beyond. The California Community Foundation is one of Southern California’s largest and most active philanthropic organizations, serving Angelenos for over a century. The Foundation partners with more than 1,600 individual, family, and corporate donors and holds assets of more than $1.7 billion. During her tenure, the foundation has granted nearly $2 billion, with a focus on health, housing, education, and immigration programs.

Previously, Ms. Hernández was President and General Counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a national nonprofit litigation and advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of the nation’s Latinos through the legal system, community education, and research and policy initiatives. She is a member of the boards of the Automobile Club of Southern California, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association, Grameen America, and the Urban Institute. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Law Institute.

James M. Loy is Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group, and completed a 45-year career in public service in 2005, retiring as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. In this capacity, he was involved in all aspects of consolidating 22 separate agencies into one unified Cabinet department as well as managing its day-to-day activities. Prior to the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002, Admiral Loy served in the Department of Transportation as Deputy Under Secretary for Security and Chief Operating Officer of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and later as Under Secretary for Security.

Admiral Loy retired from the U.S. Coast Guard in 2002, having served as its Commandant since May 1998. As head of the 90,000-person organization, he restored readiness through workforce development and modernized the Coast Guard’s fleet of ships and aircraft. Prior to his service as Commandant, Admiral Loy served as Coast Guard Chief of Staff from 1996 to 1998, during which time he redesigned the headquarters management structure and overhauled the Coast Guard planning and budgeting process to focus more sharply on performance and results. From 1994 to 1996, he was Commander of the Coast Guard's Atlantic Area, supervising U.S. forces during the mass Haitian and Cuban migrations of 1994, and leading Coast Guard forces participating in Operation Restore Democracy. A career seagoing officer, he served tours aboard six Coast Guard cutters, including command of a patrol boat in combat during the Vietnam War and command of major cutters in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Admiral Loy is a member of the Board of Directors of RIVADA Networks, Inc.

Trevor Phillips OBE is a writer, broadcaster, and businessman. He is Chairman of the Green Park Group, a leading executive recruitment consultancy, and Co-Founder of the data analytics firm Webber Phillips, which he created with Professor Richard Webber in 2014. He was, until June 2018, the President of the John Lewis Partnership, Europe’s largest employee-owned company.  

Mr. Phillips is an award-winning TV producer and presenter, with three Royal Television Society journalism awards to his name. He is a columnist for the Times of London, a leading daily newspaper in the United Kingdom.  

Mr. Phillips is also Chairman of Index on Censorship, the international campaign group for freedom of expression, and was Founding Chair of both the Greater London Authority and of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. He has been the recipient of several honorary doctorates and an Order of British Empire (OBE), and was awarded the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur by the French government.

Gaspar Rivera-Salgado is Project Director for the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) Labor and Education Center, and Director for the Institute for Transnational Social Change. At UCLA, he teaches classes on work, labor, and social justice in the United States and on immigration issues.  

Dr. Rivera-Salgado has extensive experience as an independent consultant on transnational migration, race and ethnic relations, and diversity trainings for large organizations.  

His most recent publications include the volume (with J. Fox)  Indigenous Mexican Migration in the United States  (University of California, San Diego, 2005), and the volume (with E. Telles and M. Sawyer)  Just Neighbors?: Research on African American and Latino Relations in the United States  (Russell Sage Foundation, 2011).

Reihan Salam is the Manhattan Institute’s fifth President. Previously, he served as Executive Editor of National Review and a National Review Institute Policy Fellow. In 2017, he was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

Mr. Salam is a contributing editor at The Atlantic, National Affairs, and National Review. He is the author of Melting Pot or Civil War? (Sentinel, 2018) and the co-author, with Ross Douthat, of Grand New Party (Doubleday, 2008).

Arturo Sarukhan is President of Sarukhan + Associates, LLC, and is the former Mexican Ambassador to the United States (2007-13). He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institution, an Adjunct Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Annenberg School of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, an Associate Fellow at The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) in the United Kingdom, and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute. 

Ambassador Sarukhan served as a career diplomat in the Mexican Foreign Service for 22 years, receiving the rank of Career Ambassador in 2006. He served as Consul General in New York City, Chief of the Policy Planning Staff in the Mexican Foreign Ministry, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, among other positions. A digital diplomacy pioneer, he was the first ambassador posted to the United States to start using a Twitter account as a public diplomacy and communications tool. He has been decorated by the governments of Sweden and Spain, and sits on several boards, including the Americas Society, the Inter-American Dialogue, the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center, the National Immigration Forum, and the International Migration Initiative at the Open Society Foundations.

Madeleine Sumption MBE is Director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University. She is a policy specialist focusing on the impacts of migration policies and the role of migrants in the labor market. Her research interests include labor migration, the economic and social impacts of migration policies, and immigrant integration. Ms. Sumption has also done comparative research on government policies towards immigrant investors, immigration in trade agreements, and the recognition of foreign qualifications. Before joining Oxford, she was Director of Research for the International Program at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). She remains a Nonresident Fellow with MPI Europe.

Ms. Sumption is a member of the Migration Advisory Committee, an independent panel that advises the UK government on migration issues. She is also Chair of the Migration Statistics User Forum, which brings together producers and users of migration data. In 2017, she received a Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to social science.

Anna Terrón Cusí, Spain’s former Secretary of State for Immigration and Emigration, is a Senior Fellow at MPI and co-founder of InStrategies.

Ms. Terrón was CEO at the Fundación Internacional y para Iberoamérica de Administración y Políticas Públicas (FIIAPP, or the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies) from 2019 to 2024. She served as Secretary of State for Immigration and Emigration from 2010 to 2012. In 2012, she was appointed Special Advisor on Migration and Mediterranean Issues to European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström. She also served in other positions, including Secretary for the European Union of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Catalan Government Delegate to the European Union, and Member of the European Parliament (1994–2004).

Her career in the public sector has primarily focused on the European Union and international affairs. Internationally, much of her activity has focused on the Middle East and Maghreb, as well as the Atlantic, African, and Latin American regions. She has worked extensively in the field of international migration and human mobility. Ms. Terrón holds a BA in political science and public administration.

Jose H. Villarreal, an attorney, was a consultant to Akin Gump and previously a longtime partner with the firm.  In 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appointed him U.S. Commissioner General for Expo 2010 Shanghai and in 2010 President Barack Obama accorded him the Personal Rank of Ambassador. Ambassador Villarreal has a broad political background and has served in senior roles in several presidential campaigns.

Ambassador Villareal serves on the board of Union Pacific and held seats on the governing boards of numerous organizations, including The KIPP Foundation, U.S.-Mexico Foundation, and Teach for America. He previously served as chairman of the board of the National Council of La Raza (since renamed UnidosUS), where he led a successful capital campaign that raised funds to establish a headquarters building in Washington, D.C.  From 1998 to 2006, he served on the board of directors of Walmart Stores, Inc., where he was chair of the Compensation, Nominating, and Governance committees and lead independent director.

In 2015, he received the Order of the Aztec Eagle—the most important decoration awarded by the Mexican government—for his endeavors benefiting Mexico and Mexicans. He is a distinguished alumni of Purdue University and was inducted into the prestigious Academy of Law Alumni Fellows by the Indiana University School of Law.

Monette Zard is Director of the Forced Migration and Health Program and an Associate Professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She is an expert on forced migration and human rights, and her career has spanned the fields of policy, advocacy, and philanthropy. She has served as the Global Human Rights Program Officer at the Ford Foundation in New York and as Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy in Geneva, a think tank focused on applied human-rights research.

From 2000-03, she was a Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute and held a visiting research fellowship in law at the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University. Prior to that, she directed the international refugee work of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, during which time her work focused on the use of legal strategies to strengthen refugee protection in Africa as well as the particular issue of how international law should deal with refugees and asylum seekers accused of committing serious international crimes. She has consulted on international human-rights and forced migration issues for a number of organizations, including Amnesty International, the Brookings Institution, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.