20th Immigration Law & Policy Conference -Session- The United States & the World: Increasing Migration within the Western Hemisphere - Sept. 2023

Since 2010, no world region has experienced a greater relative increase in international migration than Latin America and the Caribbean. While much of that migration, driven in part by political and economic crises or natural disasters, has remained within the region, there has been significant movement northward. Governments, including the U.S. government, increasingly have come to realize that migration management and humanitarian protection require regional approaches, as articulated through the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, and have begun efforts to channel migration into lawful pathways and expand protection mechanisms. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have played a vital role in helping structure these efforts across the hemisphere, working with governments and civil-society organizations to build a new but still quite incipient architecture for migration and protection. This armchair conversation with key international organization leaders offers a big-picture view of the approaches to today’s migration flows and humanitarian imperatives.

Speakers:

• Diego Chaves-González, Senior Manager, Latin America and Caribbean Initiative, MPI
• Jon Hoisaeter, Deputy Representative to USA & Caribbean, UNHCR – the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
• Vincent Houver, Chief of Mission in Washington, DC, International Organization for Migration (IOM)

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