Andrew Selee
Experts & Staff
Andrew Selee
President
Andrew Selee has been President of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan institution that seeks to improve immigration and integration policies through fact-based research, opportunities for learning and dialogue, and the development of new ideas to address complex policy questions, since August 2017.
Prior to that, he spent 17 years at the Woodrow Wilson Center, where he founded the Center’s Mexico Institute and later served as Vice President for Programs and Executive Vice President. He has also worked as staff in the U.S. Congress and on development and migration programs in Tijuana, Mexico.
Dr. Selee’s research focuses on migration globally, with a special emphasis on immigration policies in Latin America and in the United States. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together (PublicAffairs, 2018) and What Should Think Tanks Do? A Strategic Guide to Policy Impact (Stanford University Press, 2013). He is also coauthor of the MPI policy reports Trump’s First Year on Immigration Policy: Rhetoric vs. Reality (January 2018), Creativity Amid Crisis: Legal Pathways for Venezuelans in Latin America (January 2019), and Changing Patterns of U.S.-Mexico Migration (forthcoming).
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He has published opinion articles in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, San Francisco Chronicle, San Diego Union Tribune, CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy, and he writes a regular column in Mexico’s largest newspaper, El Universal. He has been an Adjunct Professor at both Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University, and was a visiting scholar at El Colegio de México.
Dr. Selee was a Co-Director of the Regional Migration Study Group, convened by MPI with the Wilson Center to look at regional migration flows among the Central American countries, Mexico, and the United States, and was part of the steering committee for MPI’s Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future, which helped lay an important conceptual foundation for immigration reform efforts in recent years. He was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relation’s Task Force on Immigration. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he served on the Board of Directors of the YMCA of the USA, the nation’s largest membership organization, and on several committees of the Geneva-based World Alliance of YMCAs.
He holds a PhD in policy studies from the University of Maryland, an MA in Latin American studies from the University of California, San Diego, and a BA, Phi Beta Kappa, from Washington University in St. Louis. He was selected as an Andrew Carnegie Fellow for the 2017-18 period.
Bio Page Tabs
Over 3 million Venezuelans have fled in response to the deepening political and economic crisis in their country, becoming one of the largest and fastest outflows anywhere in the world. Senior officials from Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, which are home to more than half of these Venezuelan migrants and refugees, discussed their countries' responses to this migration and other experts talked on t
A book discussion with author and veteran journalist Alfredo Corchado, MPI President Andrew Selee, and other experts on the nature of U.S.-Mexico immigration and the role of Mexican immigrants in the United States.
Experts on this Spanish language webinar examine the operation of today’s interior immigration enforcement system and how state and local governments, civil society, and consulates are responding.
Marking the release of MPI President Andrew Selee's latest book, speakers explore emerging trends in migration, economic interdependence, technology innovation, and cultural exchange that are transforming the relationship between the United States and Mexi
With immigration increasingly visible in the news and the political space in the United States and internationally, getting access to accurate, high-quality data is essential to understand immigration’s demographic effects and impacts on the economy, education and labor systems, and communities. This event marks the release of the Immigration Data Matters guide.
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Recent Activity
Testimony of Andrew Selee, President of MPI, before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration on December 12, 2018 regarding the intersections of transnational crime, immigration, and border security.
President Trump has made reshaping the U.S. immigration system a top priority. Yet the fragmented nature of policy-making in the United States—with power split between branches and levels of government—has made it difficult to pursue some of his most ambitious proposals. This report explores the evolution of migration policy under Trump, and what these changes may mean in the long run.
Wall or no wall, deeply intertwined social, economic, business, cultural, and personal relationships mean the U.S.-Mexico border is more like a seam than a barrier, weaving together two economies and cultures, as MPI President Andrew Selee sketches in this book, which draws from his travels and discussions with people from all walks of life in Mexico and the United States.
Looking back after one year in office, it is striking how just closely the Trump administration’s actions on immigration have hewed to priorities Donald Trump outlined in an uncommonly detailed policy speech in August 2016. This report revisits those pledges to assess where the administration has made the most and least headway, and what its policy agenda ahead might look like.
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign, offering a more detailed policy agenda than on any other issue. In the year since the election that propelled the Republican into the White House, how has the Trump administration’s record matched up with the rhetoric? This policy brief examines the executive orders and other changes to existing policy and practice made during 2017.
The U.S. government has increased its attention to public security issues in Mexico and Central America since 2007. This report suggest the policy emphasis has begun to shift away from the earlier focus on combating drug trafficking and transnational crime toward addressing the citizen security crisis.
The genesis of this particular conference on Latino immigration is Samuel P. Huntington’s recently published “The Hispanic Challenge,” which suggests that Latino immigrants are likely to destroy the United States as we know it. The essays that follow indicate that Professor Huntington’s thesis is easily rebutted.