Transatlantic Council on Migration Members

The Transatlantic Council on Migration is comprised of Council members and Council management and staff, with select guests from the policymaking, academic, business, and media worlds invited to participate in Council meetings. Council members and their guests combine exceptional political and public influence with profound interest and experience in issues related to migration.

Council members are among Europe and North America’s most experienced policymakers and thought leaders. Council management and staff are responsible for all of the Council’s work and activities.

Council Members  |  Council Convenor

Council Members Biographies

Peter Altmaier
Peter Altmaier was the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy through December 2021. Prior to that, he was Head of the Federal Chancellery and Federal Minister for Special Tasks of Germany. He previously served as the Federal Environment Minister of Germany until December 2013. From October 2009 until his appointment as minister in May 2012, he was First Parliamentary Secretary of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. He was a member of the Bundestag from 1994 through 2021, and has held a number of leadership positions in the Bundestag and within the CDU.

Mr. Altmaier studied law at the University of the Saarland in Saarbrücken. After serving in the armed forces and completing his studies, began his career as a research assistant for public and international law at Saarland University in 1995 and later at the European Institute of Saarland University. He came to German politics from Brussels, where he worked for the European Commission as a civil servant on migrant issues until 1994 when he joined the Bundestag. 

Giuliano Amato
Giuliano Amato was named to the Italian Constitutional Court in September 2013. He was previously Italy’s Minister of the Interior in Romano Prodi's government from 2006 through spring 2008, and served twice as Prime Minister, first from 1992 to 1993 and then from 2000 to 2001. Minister Amato was more recently Vice President of the Convention on the Future of Europe, with former Belgian Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene, that drafted the European Constitution and headed the Amato group.

Minister Amato was a Member of the Senate representing the constituency of Grosseto in Tuscany from 2001 to 2006, and served as a member of Parliament from 1983 to 1993. He was Undersecretary of State to the Prime Minister’s office from 1983 to 1987, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister from 1987 to 1988, and again Finance Minister from 1988 to 1989, a position he briefly returned to in 1999. He also was a university professor in Constitutional matters, and was Chairman of the Antitrust Authority from 1994 to 1997.

Tobias Billström
Tobias Billström was appointed First Deputy Speaker of the Swedish Riksdag in September 2014. He was elected as a Member of Parliament for the Moderate Party and for the Municipality of Malmö in 2002. In 2006, he was appointed Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy in the Reinfeldt government, based at the Ministry of Justice. For a period of time in 2010 he was also Head of the Ministry of Employment. When the government resigned following the 2014 elections, he had been the longest-serving Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy in Sweden’s history and the longest-serving Minister in the European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs Council.

In 2009 during the Swedish Presidency of the European Union, he participated in drafting the new EU multiannual justice and home affairs program, the Stockholm Programme. In 2013, Mr. Billström, together with the Minister for International Development Cooperation, was responsible for the Swedish Chairmanship of the Global Forum on Migration and Development. During 2013-14 he was Chair of the Migration Strategy Group on Global Competitiveness, which brings together policymakers and decision makers for discussions and study visits on the subject of migration issues. Mr. Billström was elected Vice President of the European People’s Party (EPP), which is Europe’s largest political organization.

Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is senior of counsel at Covington & Burling LLP in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. As Homeland Security Secretary, he led a 218,000-person department with a budget of $50 billion. Mr. Chertoff developed and implemented border security and immigration policy; promulgated homeland security regulations; and spearheaded a national cyber security strategy. He also served periodically on the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, and on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

Prior to his appointment to the Cabinet, Mr. Chertoff served from 2003-05 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Before becoming a federal judge, Mr. Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he oversaw the investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He also served more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, including service as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

The Rt Hon Charles Clarke
The Rt Hon Charles Clarke, a former member of the British Parliament (1997-2010), is a visiting Professor in Politics at the University of East Anglia and in Politics and Faith at the University of Lancaster. Mr. Clarke served as Home Secretary from 2004-2006 and prior to that appointment was Secretary of State for Education and Skills (2002-04). He is a member of the European Council for Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Ana Palacio
Ana Palacio is Founding Partner of Palacio y Asociados, a Madrid-based consulting and law firm, and also serves on the Spanish Council of State. A former Foreign Minister of Spain, Ms. Palacio is a former Member of the Spanish Parliament and also served as a Member of the European Parliament (1994-2002), where she chaired the Legal Affairs and Internal Market Committee and the Justice and Home Affairs Committee; she was elected by her peers to chair the Parliament’s Conference of Committee Chairmen, the senior body for coordinating legislative work. Previously, she also served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the World Bank and as Senior Vice President for International Affairs and Marketing for AREVA, an international nuclear and renewable energy company. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Trevor Phillips
Trevor Phillips served as Chairman of the United Kingdom’s Equality and Human Rights Commission from 2006-12. A journalist, broadcaster, and television industry executive, Mr. Phillips was elected as a member of the Greater London Authority in 2000, and quickly became Chair of the Assembly. He is also co-founder of the Equate Organization, a social change consultancy, and is Director of Pepper Productions. He is a Vice President of the Royal Television Society and is a published author.

Rita Süssmuth
Dr. Rita Süssmuth is former President of the German Federal Parliament and former German Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Women, Youth, and Health. In 2006, Dr. Süssmuth became Chair of the European Union’s High-Level Group on Social Integration of Ethnic Minorities and their Full Participation in the Labor Market and also joined the Advisory Board of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s project “Gaining from Migration.” She was member of the Global Commission on International Migration, and is President of the OTA-University in Berlin. Dr. Süssmuth was Chair of the Independent Council of Experts on Migration and Integration, appointed by the German government from May 2003 until December 2004. From 2000-01, Dr. Süssmuth presided over the Independent Commission on Migration to Germany which resulted in the July 2001 report, Steering Migration and Fostering Integration.

Anna Terrón Cusí
Anna Terrón Cusí is Director of the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP). Previously, she was President at InStrategies and Special Representative of the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean. She has been appointed Special Advisor on Migration Issues to European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström. Ms. Terrón served as Spain’s Secretary of State for Immigration and Emigration (2010-11), Secretary for the European Union of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Catalan Government Delegate to the European Union (2004-10); and Member of the European Parliament (1994-2004). She also has been a Member of the Committee of the Regions (spokesperson at the Commission on Citizenship, Governance, Institutional, and External Affairs).

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

Antonio Vitorino
Antonio Vitorino is Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). He is the former European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs (1999-2004), and was a partner of Gonçalves Pereira, Castelo Branco & Associados. He served as Portugal’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense from 1995-97 and prior to that, he was a Member of the European Parliament (1994-95). He has also been a judge on the Portuguese Constitutional Court (1989-94), Vice President of Portugal Telecom Internacional (1998-99), and Secretary of State of the Government of Macau (1986-87). Minister Vitorino has been an assistant professor at the University of Lisbon Law School since 1982, and has also taught as a professor at the Universidade Autónoma Luís de Camões and Universidade Internacional of Lisbon.

Christian Wulff
Christian Wulff was President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 2010 to 2012. Prior to becoming President, Mr. Wulff served as Minister-President in the Parliament of Lower Saxony (2003-10).

An attorney, Mr. Wulff studied law at the University of Osnabrück and completed his legal training at Oldenburg Higher Regional Court. He served as a Christian Democratic Union (CDU) representative in the Osnabrück Council from 1986 to 2001, and served as the leader of the Council’s CDU group from 1989 to 1994. In 1994, he was elected to Lower Saxony’s parliament, and in 1998 was elected CDU Deputy Federal Chairman.

Council Convenor

Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Demetrios G. Papademetriou was Co-Founder and President Emeritus of MPI, and served as its founding President through June 2014. He was also founding President of Migration Policy Institute Europe, a nonprofit, independent research institute in Brussels that aims to promote a better understanding of migration trends and effects within Europe; he served on MPI Europe’s Administrative Council. Until his death in January 2022, he was the convener of the Transatlantic Council on Migration, which is composed of senior public figures, business leaders, and public intellectuals from Europe, the United States, and Canada.

Dr. Papademetriou also convened and co-directed the Regional Migration Study Group, an MPI and Woodrow Wilson Center-led initiative that in 2013 proposed new regional and collaborative approaches to migration, competitiveness, and human-capital development for the United States, Central America, and Mexico. He was also Co-Founder and International Chair Emeritus of Metropolis: An International Forum for Research and Policy on Migration and Cities and had served as Chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Migration (2009-11); Chair of the Migration Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); Director for Immigration Policy and Research at the U.S. Department of Labor and Chair of the Secretary of Labor's Immigration Policy Task Force; and Executive Editor of the International Migration Review.