Transatlantic Council on Migration: Research
Even as advanced economies with aging populations are increasingly reliant on immigrant workers, concerns have grown about how immigration could affect the cost of living and public infrastructure, causing support for even lawful immigration to wane. This issue brief explores why long-term planning is so challenging—yet essential—in the migration policy sphere, and identifies ways to create room for this strategic thinking.
International education has become a lucrative business, with more countries competing to attract tertiary-level students. But after years of growth, attitudes appear to be shifting in some major destinations, amid concerns about the sustainability of large admissions of international students. This report explores these evolving mobility trends and attitudes, as well as pressing questions about the future of the international education sector.
Cooperation with other countries has become a central part of Australian border enforcement. Partnerships with countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Nauru, and Papua New Guinea have helped Australia curb irregular maritime migration, but also come at significant costs. This report explores the current and future role of cooperation in Australian immigration enforcement policy.
To address cross-border challenges, the European Union and its Member States have increasingly partnered with neighboring countries, with those in the Maghreb region of northern Africa playing a particularly important role. This report examines the border security situation in the Maghreb and European efforts to work with Maghrebi partners to strengthen border management. It finds a mismatch in priorities stymies cooperation.
Faced with the pandemic and its economic fallout, many countries have looked inward. Yet the nature and scale of the crisis has vividly illustrated the necessity of working across borders to address transnational challenges. This Transatlantic Council on Migration statement examines how the context for international cooperation has shifted since the Global Compact for Migration was adopted, and reflects on a way forward for migration cooperation.
In the months leading up to the adoption of the Global Compact for Migration in 2018, what had been a quiet negotiation process suddenly became front-page news, drawing unprecedented public attention and sparking protests across Europe. This report explores how the compact negotiations triggered a multilayered institutional and political crisis in the European Union, and how this breakdown continues to affect EU external migration policy.
What strategic lessons can be learned from the migration- and border-management challenges North America and Europe have faced in recent years? This reflection by a former high-ranking homeland security official explores a range of timely issues, including the need to rethink multilateralism and improve international cooperation, address migrant smuggling, and engage in advanced planning to avoid future crises.
Climate change is likely to increase the intensity of extreme-weather events already shaping human mobility and displacement. The nature, scale, and direction of future climate-related migration will depend on many factors. This report takes stock of the influence that different combinations of migration, development, and climate policies could have on migration in regions around the world for the 2020-2050 and 2050-2100 periods, using a first-of-its-kind systematic exercise.
The link between climate change and migration is a complex one. Whether individuals move or stay in place can be voluntary or involuntary, a proactive strategy or last resort, and is part of a bigger story of global mobility and personal networks. This report examines this complicated relationship, highlights limitations of climate response measures to date, and presents an alternative, flexible approach based on the involvement of affected communities.
Around the world, governments are grappling with how to combat the COVID-19 pandemic while also managing the economic fallout of policies put in place to stop the virus’ spread. Global migration has dropped sharply amid border closures and travel restrictions. This reflection takes stock of policy responses to the pandemic thus far, and of the challenges (and some opportunities) on the horizon for migration systems, labor markets, and integration of newcomers.
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