Restoring Trust in the Management of Migration and Borders

November 2010 Meeting

Nations on both sides of the Atlantic are under pressure to assure anxious publics that they are able to secure their borders, curb illegal flows, and protect jobs and working conditions for the native born. These concerns have become more acute amid record levels of unemployment and tightening public budgets prompted by the global economic crisis. Yet despite the issue’s urgency, there is no consensus in Europe or the United States on how to more effectively address these basic governance challenges. The fifth plenary meeting of the Transatlantic Council on Migration, "Restoring Trust in the Management of Migration and Borders," focused on assessing the most effective approaches to bringing greater order and legality to migration, border management, and labor systems. Read the Council Statement issued following the meeting.

Improving the Governance of International Migration
Currently, there is no formal, coherent, multilateral institutional framework governing the global flow of migrants. While most actors agree that greater international cooperation on migration is needed, there has been no persuasive analysis of what form this would take or of what greater global cooperation would aim to achieve.

The purpose of this book, the Transatlantic Council on Migration’s fifth volume, is to fill this analytical gap by focusing on a set of fundamental questions: What are the key steps to building a better, more cooperative system of governance? What are the goals that can be achieved through greater international cooperation? And, most fundamentally, who (or what) is to be governed?

Individual papers presented at the Council’s meeting are available below:

Regularizations in the European Union: The Contentious Policy Tool 
Though contentious, regularization (typically referred to in the U.S. context as legalization) remains a frequently utilized policy tool to address the European Union’s unauthorized immigrant population. Since 1996, over 5 million people have been regularized through a variety of methods, which this Insight details.

Irregular Migration in Europe 
While irregular migration frequently makes headlines and policymakers are under increasing pressure to reduce illegal immigration, the estimated population of unauthorized immigrants in EU-15 countries has declined on average for almost a decade since 2002. European governments are collaborating extensively on the management of their external borders, as this report details, discussing the detected and estimated scope of irregular migration in the European Union.

A New Architecture for Border Management
This report examines the emergence of a new border architecture resulting from the explosion in global travel and the dawning of the age of risk. This new border architecture must respond effectively to the seemingly competing demands of facilitating mobility while better managing the risks associated with cross-border travel (e.g. terrorism, the entry of unwanted migrants, and organized crime). The report examines the information-sharing agreements, technology innovations, and multilateral partnerships that have emerged as key components of the new architecture for border management, and discusses challenges and considerations for the future.

Transatlantic Council Statement: Restoring Trust in the Management of Migration and Borders
This Council Statement captures key elements of Council deliberations on the best ways to bring greater order and legality to migration, border management, and labor market systems through transatlantic cooperation.