Key Insights

• More than 110 million individuals and families around the world are fleeing conflict, persecution, severe economic hardship, and a changing climate, and many of these seek refuge in the United States and the European Union.
• As a result, both sides of the Atlantic have faced significant challenges in managing migration at its external borders, particularly since 2010.
• In response, both the EU and the US have effectively framed migration as a threat and, through policy initiatives, have externalized their migration challenges to neighboring states (Mexico & Central America for the US and Turkey & North Africa for Europe) at a terrible human and economic cost.
• This is a mistake from a human, ethical, and legal perspective, but it’s also self-defeating, as both the US and EU need labor to sustain their economic growth.
• The United States and the European Union should:
  • Change the public narrative of migration from one of threat to one of opportunity
  • Build up systems and much greater capacity in communities to welcome and support newcomers
  • Establish transatlantic dialogue among resettlement organizations and practitioners to learn from experience of different pathways of welcome, from temporary protected status to private/co-sponsorship to formal resettlement
  • Better coordinate donor funding in third countries to address root causes of migration and to support refugees/asylum seekers who may be in camps or other informal settlements
  • Push to reform international migration frameworks, particularly as climate change will only drive further migration.

Summary

According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) there were more than 110 million displaced people across the world in the middle of 2023. As the impacts of climate change accelerate, this figure will only increase. The topic of migration has also become a source of particular polarization in the transatlantic political and media discourse. News outlets across America talk of an “invasion” at the southern border of the United States; British media and politicians hyperventilate about “small boats” crossing the English channel and a “hurricane of mass migration;” and European coverage focuses southward on craft crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa and eastward on those traversing the Aegean to the Peloponnese. 

Meanwhile, neither side of the Atlantic has identified a coherent and humane way to manage the entry of unauthorized migrants and the legal pathways available for them to seek refuge. In the United States, comprehensive immigration reform remains a pipedream in a paralyzed Congress that can barely keep the government up and running. Meanwhile, after the expiration of the COVID-era Title 42 policy that allowed asylees and other migrants to be expelled in the name of public health, the Biden Administration has introduced what is effectively an “asylum ban” that makes it much more difficult for anyone to successfully claim or apply for asylum. According to Human Rights First, “Unless they are lucky enough to get one of the limited CBP One appointments, people who enter at US ports of entry to seek asylum or cross the border irregularly will generally be subject to the asylum ban’s penalties.” 

The Weaponization of Migration in the US and the EU

The US Customs & Border Control must frequently redeploy officers from busy official ports of entry to monitor other parts of the border, leaving fewer officers to actually process refugees or asylum seekers at our borders. Republican governors of border states have weaponized migration, sending thousands of people to more Democratic-led jurisdictions like New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, and even Martha’s Vineyard. But Europe too has had to deal with actors both inside and outside its borders who wish to weaponize the issue and people involved in this tragedy.

In the European Union, its member states (including the UK both before/after Brexit) have struggled to practically and politically manage the issue. Europe has experienced several periods of high irregular migration from the Levant in the wake of the Syrian civil war, particularly in 2015. The European Commission itself admits, “The volume and concentration of arrivals exposed in particular the weaknesses of the Dublin System, which establishes the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application based primarily on the first point of irregular entry.” While some piecemeal changes have been made to the Dublin System in the past decade, it was not until October 2023 that enough Member States were able to agree on a new Asylum and Migration Management Regulation as well as a Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation - and only after making concessions to far right governments in Hungary, Poland, and Italy. 

While a recent political agreement on a new EU Pact on Migration & Asylum, still to be formally adopted by the European Council and European Parliament, does include significant policy improvements, including decreasing the amount of time for asylum determinations to be made,it still represents a significant missed opportunity to harmonize how the EU resettles refugees. The European Commission proposed a Union Resettlement Framework regulation in 2016. The absence of this Framework was one of several reasons that the International Rescue Committee included in a compilation of concerns with the new Pact, from concerns about the amount of time that migrants could spend in processing/detention centers to which third countries the EU considers to be “safe.”

Over that past decade of squabbling about the reforms included in the Pact, the European Union has also controversially sent billions of euros to its neighbors to the east (primarily Turkey) and the south (Tunisia, Libya, and other countries in North Africa), effectively paying them to prevent migrants from trying to make their way any further to the European continent. There are also well-documented examples of how several of these countries have effectively blackmailed the EU and its Member States by weaponizing human beings, threatening to “open the gates” to let them through. In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko welcomed regular flights from Iraq to Minsk and then forced newly-arrived Iraqi refugees across borders into Poland and Lithuania. Similar influxes of migrants have occurred between Morocco and Spanish enclaves on the African continent. As a result of this broader situation, migrants attempting to enter the European Union have experienced horrendous violence and likely endured hardships just as bad or worse than they left behind in their communities of origin. 

Across the Atlantic, Mexico has found itself at the center of the United States’ policy of externalization, based on a Trump Administration-era rule (which is still in effect through the aforementioned “asylum ban”) that requires migrants from Central America to first request asylum in Mexico. Under this rule, only migrants who previously petitioned for and were denied asylum in Mexico are eligible to petition for asylum in the United States. Mexico was also a principal recipient of expulsions under the COVID-era Title 42 policy. The Trump Administration’s “Migrant Protection Protocols,” colloquially called the “remain in Mexico” policy, required migrants to wait out their immigration proceedings in Mexico for months on end in often extremely vulnerable conditions.

While the Biden Administration formally ended these Protocols almost immediately after its inauguration, it remains effectively in place by requiring migrants to secure an appointment with US Customs & Border Patrol through the clunky and inaccessible “CBP One” app. While it may be available in multiple languages, it does not include several indigenous languages in Central/South America and requires that migrants have access to a charged smartphone with strong data service. During a recent visit this author made to migrant shelters in Tijuana, I met people who had been waiting up to eight months for an appointment. Meanwhile, these migrants are flooded with disinformation about the immigration process and regularly targeted by human traffickers, smugglers, and exploitative employers while they wait along the border. 

These U.S. policies put huge pressure on Mexican federal and state authorities all along the border, with the activities of traffickers and cartels making the region even more unstable and insecure. According to an official government database, in the last two fiscal years (FY 2022 & 2023), the US Government has allocated $57.3 million for emergency humanitarian response in Mexico, with the vast majority of the funding going to the International Organization for Migration and UNICEF. Humanitarian needs in Mexico for migrants at or making their way to the border remain significant. A May 2023 meeting between President Lopez Obrador and the US Homeland Security Advisor Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall to “Strengthen Joint Humanitarian Plan on Migration” did not result in the announcement of any additional funding to support the humanitarian needs of those migrants in or transiting through Mexico. 

For comparison, according to its EU Aid Explorer database, the European Commission spent €775 million in 2022 and 2023 on material relief and services in Turkey alone. Globally, the International Organization for Migration says that it needs $1.8 billion for its operations in 2024 (an increase of 38% over 2023) and UNHCR says it needs $10.6 billion in 2024. At the time of writing, the US has thus far pledged only $200 million to UNHCR for 2024. UNHCR has also called for dramatically more EU funding for humanitarian relief and migration as the EU considers amending its 2021-2027 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). However, EU Member States have signaled their interest in a slimmer increaseto the MFF than proposed by the Commission.

The establishment of regional processing centers (now known as Safe Mobility Offices or SMOs) is encouraging, as they allow migrants to access viable legal pathways to migration to the United States much closer to their communities of origin, potentially saving them a harrowing and extremely dangerous trek to the US-Mexico border. Based on bilateral agreements negotiated with each country, SMOs are now operational in Guatemala, Colombia, and Costa Rica. It is worth noting that these SMOs are very different from the European reception centers used to welcome and process asylum seekers and refugees across the Atlantic. While the Biden Administration has looked to these reception centers as a potential source of inspiration for establishing new facilities along the southern border (one of which opened in September 2021), European centers are, importantly, already located deep within European countries themselves. 

Migration is widely considered to be a global issue, and it has come up in transatlantic dialogues before. A joint statement from the June 2021 EU-US Justice & Home Affairs Ministerial meeting called for “expanding the transatlantic dialogue on migration and mobility, with a focus on sharing lessons learned, exploring complementary pathways to migration, addressing the root causes of migration, improving the return and readmission of irregular migrants and enhancing cooperation in combating migrant smuggling.” Around the same time, a joint statement issued at the conclusion of a summit between US and EU leadership referred to a “US-EU Platform on Migration and Asylum.” However, very little information on the work of this platform appears to be publicly available, even though meetings between EU and US leaders on these issues have taken place. More than two years after this initial announcement, there is either little in the way of meaningful outcomes achieved, or the results of any joint work have not been communicated. Given the scale and humanitarian urgency of the challenge, more can and should be done at transatlantic level.

An Analysis of EU and US Migration Policies

As outlined in the previous sections, over the last 15-plus years, both the EU and the US have effectively externalized their migration challenges to neighboring states. This is a mistake from a human, ethical, and legal perspective but it’s also self-defeating, as both the US and EU are aging populations in need of labor to sustain their economic growth. 

According to Eurostat, the average age in the European Union is anticipated to rise by 4.5 years to 48.2 years by 2050. While the US is younger, with an average age of 38.9 years, “a third (17) of the states in the country had a median age above 40.0 in 2022.”

The new Director General of the International Organization for Migration, Amy Pope (an American) has stated that the private sector is “desperate” for the labor that migrants may potentially offer. Job vacancies in the EU stood at 3% at the end of Q2 2023 with vacancies over 4% in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium. As The Economist put it succinctly, Europe is in a “need-hate relationship with migrants.” Europe needs their labor but the toxic, hateful political environment means more border fences and migration deals with unpalatable regimes in neighboring states.

In the United States, unemployment rates remain historically low. At the end of September 2023, the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate stood at 3.8% with 336,000 jobs created during the month. Many of these jobs are also in sectors, such as hospitality and healthcare, where immigrants have historically played a significant role. In addition, manufacturing jobs are booming in the United States and northern Mexico, driven in part by “friend shoring” or “reshoring” following supply chain disruptions, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

One solution to more rapid welcoming of refugees and other newcomers has been the establishment of new pathways for protection, welcome, and integration. Both the European Union and the United States are expanding pathways for sponsorship by individuals and other non-governmental actors. The State Department has established the Welcome Corps (including the Welcome Corps on Campus) to allow groups of private citizens to directly sponsor refugees. In the European Union, a number of Member States have also established community sponsorship pathways. However, the Welcome Corps is currently limited only to those refugees who are eligible for the US Refugee Admissions Program and does not currently address the surge in individuals seeking asylum at the southern border. Nor does it explicitly link (yet) migrants directly with potential sponsorship by employers in need of labor—though this could easily get exploitative and appropriate safeguarding measures would have to be put into place.

Make no mistake, managing migration is a huge challenge, particularly if it is to fully respect international law as well as the humanitarian needs and sheer dignity of the individuals seeking to come to the United States or Europe. Given the opportunity that migration represents for both sides of the Atlantic, it’s imperative that individuals, the media, the private sector, civil society, and yes, elected politicians, change the narrative of migration away from that of a threat. Speaking of those who make the brave journey across the Mediterranean, Pope Francis said, “Those who risk their lives at sea do not invade, they look for welcome, for life.”

Multiple developments can be true at once: safe, dignified pathways for migrants to be welcomed to the United States and Europe can provide critical humanitarian refuge for those fleeing violence and hardship while simultaneously offering employment opportunities that both afford a sustainable livelihood for migrants and meet the economic needs of our societies.

Policy Recommendations

I believe there is much more that Europe and the United States could do to in this field, including:

• Work within the UN/multilateral system to ensure that UNHCR, IOM, UNICEF, and other bodies supporting migrants need more financial support to ensure migrants’ basic humanitarian needs are met with dignity, particularly as climate change and new conflicts drive additional migration.
• Investing much more in domestic systems, capacities, and pathways to welcome and support newcomers who either arrive through formal resettlement mechanisms or by irregular means.
  • Ensure that existing social programs, e.g., for workforce development or adult education, are inclusive of the needs of newcomers to quickly integrate them into the economy; for example, providing more vocationally-focused language classes fully paid by the state.
  • Create forums for the US and EU each to engage directly with local leaders in their own communities to coordinate these investments for community development (particularly in rural areas) and drive home the opportunity that migration represents. (In the EU, this could be facilitated, for instance, through the Committee of the Regions.)
• Better coordinating EU, Member State, and US investment (both humanitarian assistance and development aid), localization strategies, and oversight mechanisms in third countries focused on support for migrants/refugees and their third country host communities.
• Building upon the Resettlement Diplomacy Network to improve coordination among donors and NGO implementing partners involved in resettlement across the US, Europe, and other countries - including private sponsorship pathways for resettlement.
  • Create a connection between the Welcome Corps (and other resettlement technical assistance/capacity building projects) in the US with CAPS-EU project (Building Capacity for Private Sponsorship in the European Union)
  • Similarly, exploring how the UNI-CO-RE (University Corridors for Refugees) project may offer lessons learned for Welcome Corps on Campus. 

Future Questions and Additional Research

• While the costs of trying to stop migration to Europe and the United States are fairly well-known, what is the opportunity cost of not welcoming these individuals into our communities? 
• Given the increasing urbanization of Europe and the United States, what opportunities could migration offer to smaller, more rural communities in need of economic and social revitalization?