Migration Policy Institute
The Ongoing Challenge of Ensuring Human Rights for Migrants in the European Union and United States
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Morten Kjaerum, Director of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)
Lucas Guttentag, Founder and former National Director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project; and Robina Foundation Distinguished Senior Fellow in Residence and Ford Foundation Distinguished Senior Scholar & Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School
Wade Henderson, President & CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Becky Monroe, Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice
Michael Fix, MPI Senior Vice President and Director of Studies
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) is a cutting-edge institution that provides expert advice, data, and analysis to help EU institutions and Member States. Its goal is to promote understanding and secure fundamental rights in the European Union—a policy area receiving increased public attention in the wake of the Lampedusa shipwreck that claimed the lives of several hundred migrants. This discussion explored the FRA’s work collecting and analyzing hard-to-find data, and its strategies for using this to combat discrimination against migrants and other minority populations.
Morten Kjaerum, Director of the FRA and former founding Director of the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR), discussed the state of rights protection in Europe as well as his agency’s role in this evolving arena. Other speakers discussed the evolution of the civil, human, and immigrant-rights movement in the United States and its strategic focus following the landmark Supreme Court decision in the Arizona SB 1070 case. The speakers discussed areas of shared challenges and opportunities on both sides of the Atlantic.
MPI’s Michael Fix, an editor of the volume Clear and Convincing Evidence Measurement of Discrimination in America (UI Press) and Welfare and Immigrants (Russell Sage), moderated the discussion and touched upon the research strategies that have been used in measuring discrimination, as well as how research can be used to inform policy and the struggle against discrimination.