Meghan Benton
Meghan Benton is Director of the Global Program at MPI, with responsibility for the strategic direction of the Global Program and its flagship Transatlantic Council on Migration, the Latin America and Caribbean Initiative, the Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative, and other international work. She is also on the board of MPI Europe.
Dr. Benton regularly advises governments across key immigration destinations, and is working to expand MPI’s global reach and depth of knowledge of regional mobility systems. Her expertise spans a range of areas including labor mobility, immigrant integration, border management, and humanitarian protection. She has a particular interest in how digital technology is reshaping immigration and asylum systems, and in how innovations can lay the groundwork for a more managed, predictable migration system. In 2016, she co-founded MPI Europe’s Integration Futures Working Group, which seeks to develop a forward-looking agenda for integration policy in Europe. She also co-convenes the Transatlantic Council on Migration.
She previously was a Senior Researcher at Nesta, the United Kingdom’s innovation body, where she led projects on digital government and the future of local public services. Prior to joining Nesta, she was a Policy Analyst at MPI from 2012 to 2015, where she co-led an MPI-International Labor Organization six-country project on pathways to skilled work for newly arrived immigrants in Europe. She also worked on Project UPSTREAM, a four-country project on mainstreaming immigrant integration in the European Union. Previously, she worked for the Constitution Unit at University College London and the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Dr. Benton received her PhD in political science from University College London in 2010, where her PhD research focused on citizenship and the rights of noncitizens. She also holds a master’s degree in legal and political theory (with distinction) from University College London, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and literature from Warwick University.
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In the News
Can Democracies Balance Control and Compassion?
Meghan Benton discusses on The View from Here podcast
Why Is Immigration Policy So Hard to Get Right?
Meghan Benton speaks with Madeleine Sumption, Director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford
Explore Content by Meghan Benton
Showing 41-50 of 81 total results
The Rocky Road to a Mobile World after COVID-19
COVID-19 has chilled many forms of human movement, from travel to temporary and permanent migration, refugee resettlement, and returns, among them. While a safe restart of travel is a precondition for a return to economic and societal normalcy, restarting mobility will not be like flicking a switch, particularly amid disagreements over the costs societies can and should absorb in the name of protecting public health, as this commentary explains.
Coronavirus Is Spreading across Borders, But It Is Not a Migration Problem
Travel bans, border closures, and other migration management tools did not prove effective at blocking COVID-19 from spreading across international borders. Yet as governments have shifted from containment to mitigation with the coronavirus now in community transmission in many countries, these restrictions are a logical part of the policy toolkit in the context of social distancing and restricting all forms of human movement, as this commentary explores.
Brexit Day—Is This the Dawning of the Age of Immobility?
Brexit Day, on January 31, 2020, marks a dramatic turn for the United Kingdom as it leaves the European Union, in significant measure because it wants to control its immigration destiny. But it remains unclear whether Brexit will allow the United Kingdom to cast a net wider for the global workers it seeks or will deepen the moat around the island. Either way, Brexit is likely to spark new forms of mobility—and immobility.
Rebuilding Community after Crisis: Striking a New Social Contract for Diverse Societies (Transatlantic Council Statement)
This Transatlantic Council Statement urges a new social contract on economic inclusion, housing, cohesion, and values to rebuild following migration crises.
On the Brink: Prospects for UK nationals in the EU-27 after a no-deal Brexit
A no-deal Brexit would strip nearly 1 million UK nationals in the EU-27 of EU citizenship rights overnight, exposing gaps in Member States' skeletal contingency plans.
Equipping Immigrant Selection Systems for a Changing World of Work (Transatlantic Council Statement)
Automation and aging workforces demand smarter immigrant selection systems that go beyond filling today's jobs to build tomorrow's competitive economies.
Digital Litter: The Downside of Using Technology to Help Refugees
Outdated apps, broken links, and ghost websites—digital litter from the 2015-16 European refugee crisis—are misleading vulnerable migrants and undermining decision-making.
Social Innovation for Refugee Inclusion: From bright spots to system change
Social innovation for refugee inclusion surged in Europe after 2015 but must move beyond niche pilots through smarter partnerships, evaluation, and sustainable funding.
Foreign Fighters: Will Revoking Citizenship Mitigate the Threat?
Citizenship revocation against foreign fighters has unclear security benefits and risks two-tier citizenship, Muslim community stigma, and statelessness.
No-Deal Brexit: British Migrants with the Most to Lose
Brexit will have dramatically different effects on the Britons living in the European Union’s remaining 27 countries—from the roughly 285,000 in Spain to the mere 280 or so in Latvia.
