Recorded on Wednesday, November 12, 2025
TRANSCRIPT
Jason Zengerle ’96 Welcome, everyone. It is great to have you with us tonight. Thank you so much for joining us for the SwatTalk: “Toward a Balanced Immigration Policy” featuring Marcela Escobari from the class of 1996. My name is Jason Zengerle, I am also a member of the class of 1996 and I'll be the moderator tonight before we get to Marcela's talk. I just wanted to go over a few preliminary pieces of business. SwatTalks is a speaker series brought to you by the Swarthmore Alumni Council, which is the leadership body of the Swarthmore Alumni Association, and of which I'm a member. For those of you who are new to SwatTalks or for our regulars, or just need a refresher tonight, we'll go like this for the first half hour or so; Marcela will talk and I'll ask her a few questions. Then for the second half hour, Marcela will answer any questions that you might have. Please ask your questions by using the Q&A feature at the bottom of the Zoom and please be sure to include your name and class year when you do so. I will collect those questions and will pose as many of them as I can to Marcela during the Q&A session.
And now that that is out of the way, I'd like to introduce Marcela Escobari. Marcella grew up in Bolivia. She decided to go to Swarthmore for college because her older brother, who went to Harvard, told her that Swarthmore was the place to go for people who cared about social issues. She says she then had to ask him how to spell Swarthmore. Marcela majored in economics at Swarthmore and graduated in 1996. She later got her MBA at Harvard's Kennedy School. She's had a fascinating and varied career. She spent a few years on Wall Street doing mergers and acquisitions at JP Morgan. She's worked in academia, where she was the executive director of Harvard Center for International Development. And she's also worked in the think tank world at Brookings, where she's currently a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program. In 2016, she went into public service, becoming an assistant administrator for USAID, Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean during the Obama administration. After a four year hiatus, she went back into government during the Biden administration, serving in the same role at USAID as well as serving in the White House National Security Council, as a special assistant to the president and the coordinator for the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, which was a 2022 pledge among countries in the Western Hemisphere to work together on migration. And that's what she's here to talk to us about tonight, immigration and how the United States might one day achieve a balanced and sensible immigration policy. So, without further ado, I'd like to turn things over to Marcela, who I should note is just back from Bolivia, where she was attending the inauguration of that country's new president. Marcela, thank you so much for joining us tonight and taking the time to do this.
Marcela Escobari ’96 Thank you so much, Jason. It's really great to be here with you all. I have a lot to thank Swarthmore for. My journey in this country started at Swarthmore, even if I couldn't spell it. And I could not have asked for a more welcoming community. So I hope to share some of what we learned, in the last administration, from managing the largest displacement of people in the history of the Western Hemisphere. So there's a lot that we, that I included in the report, that I wrote and got launched a few months ago of what worked and did. But what I will focus on today is how, in the end, different parts of the U.S. strategy coalesced, and maybe we can put up the presentation.
So what few people know is that actually, if we go to the first slide, as of December 2024 numbers at our border had actually plummeted from 248,000 a month a year earlier to 47,000. So through 2024, it fell over 80%. The policies of the Trump administration have brought down these numbers for an additional 16%. So the reason for this decline were three strategies that started to work together - an increase in lawful pathways that dissuaded irregular migrants, or migration and allowed migrants to work in the US, increased border security and consequences for those that did not utilize these lawful pathways, and a regional response of stabilizing migrants where they were. So I think the learnings from what worked from a balanced, you know, a more balanced approach, I think they're important, because we need to be prepared and ideally avert, the next migration surge, which will come. And also we need tools and policies that better represent our many needs when it comes to migration. Because, yes, we need a secure border, but we also need an economy that has a worker, has the workers it needs, and we also want to welcome people who are fleeing persecution because it's aligned with our values. You know, our needs when it comes to migration are not monolithic and we need tools that represent that.
So let me explain a little bit of that roller coaster that you see in this, in this in this slide. Why did we see such a dramatic increase in migrant flows? And in the end what worked in bringing these numbers more under control? So it's true that migrant apprehensions at our border had reached an all time high. So we saw spikes in the past. We've had migration forever, and we saw spikes in 2014 and 2019, and it surpassed 2 million encounters for the first time in 2023. Although around 28% of that high mark, we're likely repeat encounters, people that were trying again because they faced limited consequences under title 42. So what drove this increase? We can go to the next slide. So yes, there's a narrative, that this was because Biden, the Biden administration was soft on migration and, you know, there were missteps. But what happens at our border tends to reflect what is happening in the rest of the hemisphere, if not the rest of the globe. And here, let me mention three forces at play that I think really affected that historically. One, Latin America faced the largest COVID induced contraction in the world at 7.5%. The global average was around 3.5. So it sent over 20 million people into poverty. Second, you had the economic and political upheaval in Venezuela that drove almost 8 million people to leave this country right in a very short time period. That was 25% of the population of Venezuela in 2017. And the vast majority of folks actually stayed in South America. And third, the US had one of the fastest recoveries in the world, right. Which actually generated an additional pull factor for migrants. Travel restrictions during COVID meant that there were as many as 2 million less migrants in the US by the end of 2021, and at some point, there were two job openings in the US for every unemployed person in the country. And this correlation of job availability in the US, and migrant arrivals to our southwest border has actually been on hold for the last 25 years through Democratic and Republican administrations. And policy actually did also factor in, but not always in ways that most people think and you could go to the next slide.
So title 42 which started under Trump was widely reported on as a harsh and restrictive policy because it prevented many migrants from seeking asylum, but because it allowed us to expel migrants without going through immigration processing it ultimately ended up also creating an incentive for people, for recidivism, for people trying again. This policy was actually kept in place for more than two years under Biden. And again, it caused, this increase in arrivals that ended up helping overwhelm the border and this was particularly the case with Mexico, which is, the graph that you're looking at where, you know, expulsions increased dramatically. So all of these factors, if you go to the next slide, led to the situation where arrivals greatly exceeded our border capacity, right. So and when that happens was in 2019 and 2022, what it resulted in was releases into the country and that's the orange that you see in that slide because we have an inability to process so many people under our current asylum process. It happened in 2019 and it happened in this period of 2021 to 2023. So the people that you see in orange would be released into the country with notices to appear, say, come back in 5 to 6 years when it's less busy. But what it does is it creates a perverse incentive where an overwhelmed border means that if you show up at the border, there's a 70% chance that you will be let in. So in the end, it decreases incentives for migrants to actually, you know, take on this horrific journey, use their life savings, often, risk their lives, to try to make it at the border. And inside our country it also meant that the consequences of these arrivals; we had overwhelmed cities, a lack of a coordinated approach, and making what could have been an operational issue become a political issue.
So what policies at the end work when you have this situation of an overwhelmed border? Again, if we can go to history for examples and we can go to the next slide, because this was not the first time we have experienced spikes and pressures in our land and, and sea borders. And the most effective responses in the last 100 years have paired an increase in enforcement with an increase in legal pathways. For instance, in 1954 there was similarly a spike in irregular migration, mostly Mexican workers that were coming to U.S. farms. And in response, the US also started first with enforcements: sent troops to the border from both sides, Mexico and the US. But at the same time, when that by itself did not work, President Eisenhower more than doubled the program from 150,000 to around 500,000 workers. And now, by creating a new program, it just changed some small rules which allowed farmers to be rehired, in subsequent years without additional paperwork. But it was this combination of increased enforcement with expanded lawful pathways that brought upper tensions at our border to close to zero for the first time since we started counting. The available pathways do not need to be as high as the need, but they need to provide migrants with a realistic chance of accessing them. So that it really changes the risk assessment, such as waiting and applying for the legal option becomes more appealing than pursuing their regular journey, which will ultimately, be unsuccessful. We saw it, you know, this same strategy worked in the 1990s with Cuba and we actually saw it in action in a quite dramatic way during the response to people fleeing Russia's war on Ukraine. And we can go to the next slide.
And I really got to see this in action, which is in April 2022 there were as many as a thousand Ukrainians arriving irregularly at the southwest border each day. A lot of women and children and, actually, I've, seldom seen the U.S government work so quickly, but DHS and State Department took kind of decisive action to establish what was known as the Uniting for Ukraine program, which allowed Ukrainians to apply for legal status to come to the US from European capitals. And, you know, when that program came live, the people that would then come to the border would turn back. And almost immediately, the number of irregular migrants or Ukrainians coming to the southwest border went to zero. So again, it's a combination, it's this combination that the administration used repeatedly. And, so it expanded lawful pathways and we can go to the next slide. And mostly stretching the only executive authority it had, which was humanitarian parole. So following the success of U for U, it launched what’s called a CHNV, a parole program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans in January 2023 because these countries in particular were very difficult to deport people to because of the authoritarian governments in place. So we accepted around 30,000 individuals per month, which almost immediately reduced encounters for all those nationalities. What was important and not widely reported was that when we launched CHNV Mexico agreed to receive deportations of up to a thousand CHNV nationals that did not avail themselves of these lawful pathways, you know, from their countries of origin. So for every 1000 people that we would accept a day, we could deport those that to Mexico, which obviously was a bit controversial for Mexico to accept, but I think they were, you know, incredible partners at this time. And later it, the administration launched CBP1 which allowed individuals in Mexico to request an appointment and be screened in advance, allowing for orderly process at the border. So this was essentially a system to manage flows on a daily basis. So I think it will at some point, it worked and I think it definitely allowed us to adjust the incoming flows to the capacity of, of the border at the time. And there were other innovations that I'm not going to go into, but the safe mobility offices that were placed in five countries in Latin America where refugees could apply from there instead of coming to our border to seek asylum. Welcome Corps, which allowed average Americans to sponsor refugees and parolees and an increase of H and B visas, these are temporary visas, particularly from Central America, that allowed people to come temporarily to the country in conditions of safety and then return to their country. So we tripled those visas, I mean, to 30,000, it wasn't a big number.
But these expansions and we could go to the next slide. This was the expansion of both the CHNV and and CBP1 visas that, you know, expand the lawful entry from Latin America over 200%, over 1.2 million people came into the US through these mechanisms. But also, if we go to the next slide, there was a series of enforcement actions, right? DHS surge personnel that increased holding capacity, sped up processing of asylum cases, and the administration put in place this rule that said, if you do not avail yourself in one of the legal pathways, you are not eligible for asylum. That rule became even more strict, which was quite controversial in June of 2024, which basically said when the border has reached a capacity of more than 1,500 people, we would further restrict asylum claims. And there was a set of enforcement actions throughout the region on the transit route. But in the end, I think this combination was effective in lowering and in lowering flows. And I want to end with, with a final leg of the stool in this strategy, which is often not discussed, which was the region's response and the reason that the US strategy required a hemispheric response was the magnitude, right. We have always had migration, but the staggering 8 million people coming out of Venezuela really stressed all of the countries in Latin America. And it actually, if you go to the next slide, the majority of that flow went to four countries in Latin America: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. But as you can see there, if those countries had not absorbed those migrants, what we saw on our border could have doubled or tripled. So given the size of that displacement, our enforcement and pathways strategy needed to be accompanied with a stabilization and regularization, set of policies within the region.
And I think what, what became clear and and again, that I don't know if it ever enters our discussion here is how linked are the policies of Latin America to what we see in our border. If we go to the next slide and let me give you a couple examples. So Colombia took a historic action when it decided to provide temporary protective status to over 2.4 million Venezuelans. So it gave them temporary protected status for ten years. And this policy, which was later emulated by others, was quite pragmatic and generous, but it definitely prevented larger numbers of migrants coming to our border. And you can see this relationship here where at some point Colombia set its cutoff date for TPS eligibility in 2021. So it meant those that arrived after January 2021 would not have access to legal status or the labor market in Colombia. So, not surprisingly, more migrants passed through Colombia and continued north in search of opportunity. And we actually had data that showed that people that were coming through were ones who did not have legal status in these countries. We saw in other places; when Chile in 2018 changed its policy toward Haitians, we saw those Haitians and did not renew the legal status of Haitians who had been there for ten years, we saw those Haitians come through Panama and, and led to the Del Rio incident in the US.
And the last example you can see here, when Mexico placed visa restrictions on Venezuelans that would fly to Mexico and then move to our border, it dramatically reduced flows to our border temporarily. And then you see this orange line, which was people coming through the Darién Gap, this dense jungle, in Panama. And again, the numbers reached an all time high. So this notable increase in encounters again, in December 2023 was probably caused by the fact that Mexico had run out of money and could not do enforcement themselves, right? So when we started repatriating from Panama again, it went down. So in other words, the integration and stabilization efforts and policies and the enforcement policies of many of our partner countries in South America had a direct impact in, in reducing onward migration into the United States. So it's clear that no single country can face the global challenge of migration alone.
And if we go to the next slide. This is the response of many of these countries that again, took on 85% of the displacement in, in the hemisphere. And it, it's actually, an incredible untold story of how countries in the hemisphere came together to implement this pretty pragmatic and generous policies to legalize and integrate migrants. It started with Colombia, with this ten year TPS to over 2 million Venezuelans. But also Brazil pioneered this model of matching migrants who would show up at the border with job opportunities across the country. Ecuador had three waves of regularization, Peru validated a bunch of degrees during COVID that allowed many Venezuelans to actually serve in the health system. Many of these countries have stopped more so since, since the beginning of the Trump administration. But in total through this, or supported through this mechanism of the LA declaration, which was just a diplomatic effort to support through foreign aid and diplomatic help, many of these countries, 4.5 million migrants and were regularized, received legal status throughout the region. 11 countries ended up having these policies by the end of 2024.
So, you know, there is a lot that we have learned works, when it comes to migration and we could go to the next slide, where when you're able to bring irregular flows below the carrying capacity of your border, you have order in the border. And then by the end of the Biden administration, actually the flows were similar to the first Trump administration, but legal migration was greater than irregular migration for the first time in history. So, I'll be the first to admit that it took too long to get the balance right in many of these policies, it was not communicated, but by the end of 2024, you can see how this mix of policies really start to come together.
So, let's end a little bit of where we are now and what happens next, right. Well, we have seen, in the new administration it that the turns only approach and, you know, immigration seen solely as a security action, all the lawful pathways that were created and narrow toward the end of the of the Biden administration have ended over 1.3 million who had legal status through TPS, have had seen their legal status revoked. Even a focus that has been indiscriminate mass deportation, over 500,000 deported. ICE arrests have increased, from 13,000 to 46,000. And as you've all seen in the press, those without criminal charges used to make up one out of 20 of ICE detensions and now are 1 in 3. And, USAID has been dissolved, which is the vehicle by which a lot of this foreign aid aside from PRM, came to countries in the region, and the administration has slashed refugee admissions by 95%. And much of the data that I use in this report that I launched, that was shared, is no longer published. And, as we can see and the final slide, the human and economic costs continue to mount. So despite the whiplash in terms of policy that we've seen throughout different administrations, what is clear is that we don't have the appropriate tools to manage migration, in our country during normal times, much less during crises. So the need for reform is real. And you have seen, way too timidly, that some members of Congress have started to, to wake up to this reality and put some options on the table. I think that in many cases, they are rejecting the idea that we should hold out, for a grand bargain that is unlikely to happen in this administration. And they're proposing smaller measures that could get sufficient support. And I think, the bottom line is it’s a start and I think we should try to push some of those policies that are going to kind of release pressure. But, but I think the bottom line for me and the work that I recently published is that it is important to reject this narrative that we can't have a secure border and still be a land of opportunity, because even in times of crisis with suboptimal tools, we know the sort of combinations that can work and that are aligned both with our economic interests and our values. Thanks.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Thank you. That was fantastic. We actually already have a bunch of audience questions, so I'm going to just move into those. And if there's any time for me to ask questions, I'll ask them, but let's just start with the audience questions. Rick Rogo, I hope I'm pronouncing that right. He asks for your thoughts on the bipartisan immigration bill in early 2024, which was defeated, resulting from Trump's demand on the GOP leadership. What are your thoughts on that? Was that a sensible approach?
Marcela Escobari ’96 I mean, look, it was far from a perfect bill, but it would have definitely given us the tools to get where we wanted to go and it had bipartisan support. It had new lawful pathways, it had increased funding for the border, it had many of the things that many Republicans had demanded forever. So it really, it really was a political calculation that hurt us all. We were very close.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Mike Wing asks, thinking of migration not as a Western Hemisphere phenomenon, but as a global one, what do you think the size of global migration will be in the decades ahead, given climate change?
Marcela Escobari ’96 So the numbers that IOM and other entities talk about in terms of global displacement is 120 million. A lot of that is within countries, so it's displaced people from southern Colombia to northern Colombia, which is super disruptive and a series of element issues for countries, the cross country migration tends to be smaller. I mean, I remember I used to ask folks in conversations like this, like, how many people do you think actually moved from country to country? You know and people say, I don't know, 20, 40, 50% of people are born in one place and move. And for the longest time, that number was around 2.5%. Now it's around 3.5%, I think as your question implies, we are going to see those numbers increase, which is why in a way, I spent this time talking about this kind of untold story of what the regional phenomenon which is not perfect, many of these countries are closing these policies, but the regional approach to migration, right. When you think about those 10 million people that cross borders in this large, in this, you know, largest displacement in the history of the hemisphere, that's 1% of the population of the hemisphere. So if there is that burden sharing and as we know, you know, when you legalize migrants and give them a chance, they become an economic benefit. So taking what we are going to see, increased migration as a regional phenomena and implementing these kinds of pragmatic policies that allow people to migrate legally, it's definitely the kind of model that we should start to think of as we're going to see increased climate migration.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Can you, can you talk a little bit more and just tell us a little bit more about what was in it for the countries around the region to decide to provide legal status for migrants? I mean, how much does foreign aid factor into that? And just what are the incentives for them?
Marcela Escobari ’96 Look, you know, one of the things I've studied development for a long time and migration is one of its one of those topics where the evidence and the politics are the furthest apart, right. The literature on migration is super clear. There are costs and mostly political costs of integrating migrants. But in many of these countries, there was an IMF report that showed that if they integrated those Venezuelans and legalized them, they would contribute within a decade 4.5% of GDP, right? When you legalize migrants, they start contributing to your economy, they reduce crime, they bring their 10x more entrepreneurial, I mean, we've seen it in our country, here in the US and that's the case. So the benefits of legalization are clear, but it has political costs, which is why the Colombia example was great because they decided to be pretty bold at the start, right? Knowing that these folks were not just going to come. We mostly give TPS for two years. They decided to provide TPS for ten years, knowing that folks who are likely to stay and they wanted them to stay and to give you one example of this in action, Bogota, is a city, 8 million people received 600,000 migrants, right? That is 8% of the population. And the first it was, you know, very complicated. They complained to the federal government and at some point they went 180 degrees and said, no, we are going to incorporate these new Bogota rules. And they did a whole campaign to unlock barriers to integration. And what they saw is that within a period of three years, migrants started to pay for themselves. They created 9000 new companies. They created 200,000 new jobs for Colombians and, you know, and what was because the pot was usually what happens is, you pay for it now and the benefits come in another political cycle. But what Bogota showed is that if you actually are pretty forward leaning on these policies, you can actually see the benefits within a political cycle. So the benefits are there. And what was the last point I wanted to make that was eye opening in terms of the LA declaration, which is this, you know, this diplomatic effort that could have been a piece of paper is that as countries started to do this and we gather them at the, you know, foreign minister level, and often, you know, this was in the talking points with President Biden and Blinken and whatnot. It reduced the political cost of the additional country taking these policies. And that is something important, because just like migration is toxic here it is in every other country. But when you all do it together, it actually, I think, yeah, it allowed for many of them to take the plunge.
Jason Zengerle ’96 This question is from Becky Voorhees. She asks, perpetually confused about what the organizing principle of U.S. immigration policy is to keep U.S. population growth within a certain range, to prevent wage deflation, to serve specific, high demand labor markets, medicine, or farm labor. What problem exactly is U.S. immigration policy trying to solve?
Marcela Escobari ’96 I think it's an interesting question because, I think that we have a lot of interests, you know, our interests are not monolithic when we think about migration. I mean, historically, it was Republicans who pushed for more migration and legal migration because of the economic benefits. I mean, the the groups that we now work together on a migration policy OIA, CATO, you know, it this new phenomenon of closing the border to migration and and the Stephen Miller approach to closing all avenues of legal and irregular migration, I don't think we we, I mean, we've had we have seen other, other ways. But I don't know if with this intensity in the end, we have a secure border, we do have economic needs. We are losing 1 million workers and without migration, because of our fertility rates. Yes, we could automate, and, but we're definitely going to shrink economically with our migrants. But we also have other needs. We want to welcome people. We want the diversity, it strengthens our culture. We want to give refuge to people being persecuted. I think we can have a policy that I think serves a variety of needs. You want families to reunite, but you should have tools that allow you to decide as a community if you want a lot or a little. And we don't have the tools to do that, right? We might want more H-1b visa or whatever type of visas when our economy is expanding, we might want less and, and I think we need to have control of the flows, but I think there are many needs of why we would want migration. And labor is one of them.
Jason Zengerle ’96 This is a question from Katrina Burgess, class of 84. She says I agree wholeheartedly with the premise that legal pathways are the best way to manage the border. But I would question the extent to which they accounted for the dramatic fall in border apprehensions in 2024. Mexico's crackdown, and closing the door to requesting asylum between ports of entry arguably accounted for much of it, with very negative consequences for migrants and the security situation in Mexico, especially along the southern border. Do you have any reflections on this and how to avoid a similar situation in the future?
Marcela Escobari ’96 Yeah, no, it was absolutely messy. And Mexico's enforcement tactics were difficult as are ours in our border. But I do think we often want to look at the one thing that worked because we see a change after. And I think what I try to show through this data, and looking at the expanse o the policies is how they built on each other. If we had, and let me just give me one example, the rules that we did in June 2024 saying, if you come to our border, we are not, you know, we're closed for business, for asylum. Quite controversial, right? But the truth is that the asylum system was being abused. If you had and people were like, well, why is that worked? And really the numbers went down, which, by the way, nobody really was paying attention. And the administration didn't even talk about it as much. Why didn't you do that earlier, right? It would not have worked at an overwhelmed border. You could have had whatever rules you wanted, right? You didn't have the capacity to return, the number of people coming. So you needed that alignment throughout the region on enforcement, a legal option for people, for the migrant who is in Colombia or Venezuela to say, all right, do I risk my life and and and, you know, my life savings because I have a pretty good chance to really make it into the US and my life here, you know, is untenable. And putting again, fueling the criminal networks that ended, doing much of this trafficking or there's this alternative that. Yeah, I know, I think me 2 or 3 years, I have a smaller chance, but I can see that my cousin got into this program. I'd rather wait. And I have the chance of getting legal status in Colombia or Ecuador. So I'll wait here. I'll start my life, see if I apply for these lawful pathways. So it was the mix of creating the lawful pathways and the enforcement throughout the region, which, as you said, involve some of this, there's increased enforcement that then created the change in the risky calculus of the migrant to not engage in that trip. And then once you have the border, the flow is below carrying capacity then if people show up at the border and they don't have a lawful claim, they can be returned. And you and anyway, so it's the combination of all of those policies that ended up, that ended up working. And yeah, Mexico was a big, a big part of this. And what I would do and in the future that we need to be ready for and the next administration, because there's going to be an incredible pent up demand from these policies, is that we need to be ready with that set of, that combination of policies, of helping our neighbors, of having a set of lawful pathways that meet our interest, and to have a a border that can, you know, impose the consequences of those that don't have, lawful, reason to stay.
Jason Zengerle ’96 So along those lines, you know, if the Democrats manage to win back the white House in 2028, it's likely that the new president will come in and try to undo, you know, all of Trump's immigration policies, which, you know, is what Biden did when he came in in 2024, is there anything in the current Trump administration's immigration policies that you think is salvageable or worth preserving? Or should it just be a complete, you know, like it erasing of what he's done?
Marcela Escobari ’96 Look, yeah, every administration should learn from the administration that came before it. There's a reflex to reject everything. I think the next administration should enter office with a focus on both securing the border and providing lawful pathways for migrants and creating a lawful path for those that have been here for many years. And I think it's bringing that balanced approach from day one, and maintaining a commitment to, to both elements. I think what President Trump channeled was a genuine frustration for many Americans that the border had become overrun and that cities were being overwhelmed. And, you know, it would be foolish not to learn from that message, but Trump has gone too far in claiming that, you know, he has a mandate for cruelty, or empowering elements that are acting like a secret police or criminalizing, and deporting international students, for expressing views they don't like. I think that Trump has told America - this is the cost of a secure border and I don't think it's the case. And I don't think most Americans believe that that's the case.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Cristina Perez asks about this discrepancy. If integration of immigration is good for the economy, why is it politically so unpopular?
Marcela Escobari ’96 It's a deep question. I think it's just so easy to weaponize. I think we are wired to be triggered by the other. Fear is very powerful. I did a conference once trying to understand this. Sociologist, then an evolutionary biologist that I mean, it's an instinct that we have, I guess, I don't know, we have an instinct of cooperation, we also have, you know, quickly need to determine who is my tribe and who's not. And I think that politicians through history have triggered that to their benefit and this was obvious at this and in this election. But we've seen it in Europe, we've seen it as part of Brexit. And, and I think that it's really important to inoculate ourselves of that narrative. The US has always seen itself as a country of immigrants. The latest Gallup poll shows that 79% of Americans think that migration is good for the country. That's the highest it's ever been. I think, you know, the pendulum is starting to shift again. And I think it's really important to recover that narrative, that diversity makes us stronger. But, anyway, it's politically expedient to provoke fear.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Taylor Wilson has a question kind of along those lines. He asks, what effect does mass migration have on the social fabric of the societies, not just in the US, but in Europe as well? Is mass migration a sustainable trend, particularly in post-industrial societies in the US and Europe, versus solving the problem at the source, such as promoting global self-development and changing U.S. foreign policy in regards to economic sanctions.
Marcela Escobari ’96 No, that's absolutely correct. I think there is a carrying capacity of every society, more so when, when cultures are very different. That's what you saw in Europe. So I think there was no question that you need, the capacity to have an orderly border that you as a country determines who comes in, how many people come in, what is your your capacity and your ability to to absorb people and like you said, part of the equation is what happened in Latin America is for us and others to be able to support the capacity of migrants, to stay closer to home, and to burden share. And of course, when possible, what we should be doing is averting some of the crises that lead to, to mass migration. And just to make a point on that around, I remember, doing the numbers around 2022 or 2023, around 90% of the change in migration. We've always had migration. And this 90% of it has come from Mexico and Central America throughout decades and this changed, dramatically in the last decade. Where now more than 50% come from other countries. 90% of the change in migration came from three countries Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba and their authoritarian regimes. So our work in defending democracy is still important for its sake and for our own borders.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Susan Sykes from the class of 77 asks if you expect a surge at the border in the next few years, given that there's no real lawful processes now.
Marcela Escobari ’96 History and every evidence that I have seen would, because like I said, the biggest pull factor is our economy, of course, where there are shocks too but, I mean, we can enter our recession, we likely will. And that will create less demand for folks. But the tactics have been so dramatic that I do think it's creating a pent up demand. Then again, right, if you are dividing, you know, families at the border, if you're sending people to a terrorist prison in El Salvador. Ye, you know, when we're willing to do things, then, Have not historically been part of, what we consider part of our, our values. And yes, I do think that that is going to have a deterrent effect, but I don't know how long it's going to last.
Jason Zengerle ’96 So you think that deterred effect is going to be short lived, that it can only sort of be the only so much of a deterrent if there's just enough pent up demand?
Marcela Escobari ’96 I believe so, but, but, you know, I think you can get to levels of cruelty where, yes, it creates a deterrent effect is just whether that's going to be what we want to do.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Yeah. This is a question from Nick Morris-Clement. Sorry if I pronounce that wrong. Who's a parent of a student from the class of 2027. What are the sources of your numerical data and what kind of reliability do you foresee from U.S government sources for this data?
Marcela Escobari ’96 So much of the data that I used in the report that I recently published was data from DHS, which was pretty verifiable. And, you know, we used it and it was also combined with data from other countries. I don't know right now, I think there's so much of this data, the nuance of what kind of visas, deportations by countries, whatnot, that are no longer being published. And, I know, and would the people who used to run those statistics at DHS, which were fantastic. I don't know if the pressure to show increased numbers is going to create pressure to change the veracity of these numbers. I mean, the numbers around deportations are probably real. The numbers around self-deportation that the administration, I can't find verifiable information around that.
Jason Zengerle ’96 So you think they're inflated the self-deportation numbers?
Marcela Escobari ’96 Yeah. 1.6 million people self-reporting. That would be my. I think that's, I think people are leaving, but.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Susie, no last name of no class. But she asks, how much does the dismantling of USAID damage our ability to reduce push factors?
Marcela Escobari ’96 Yeah, I think that the dismantling of USAID is going to hurt us. I think already we're going to see hundreds of thousands of deaths attributable to that decision, how it was done. Development is a long game. What I think the root causes of the approach of providing development to countries, of helping them strengthen their democratic institutions, I think that's a long game, but there's no doubt that countries that are stable are also going to, you know, have less displacement. I think that we should be in the long game of development and using our soft power for many reasons. Our stability, our markets, our values, etc. I think the funding that was most instrumental in this crisis was the one that helped countries implement these policies to stabilize the minors that were coming out of Venezuela and other places and support countries that were willing to legalize and that we know how to effect the immediate effects. I think the longer game of development is important for other reasons.
Jason Zengerle ’96 You mentioned, you know, the Trump administration sort of reaching a level of cruelty, which is, you know, unprecedented for us. Given that, how do you think the U.S should handle interior enforcement? Because, you know, Obama was criticized for deporting undocumented immigrants who hadn't been convicted of serious crimes as well. Obviously not doing it nearly to the extent that Trump's doing it, not doing it in such a, you know, visibly cruel way. But there still was some backlash to that. Like, what's the right approach to what you think is the right approach to interior enforcement?
Marcela Escobari ’96 Well, I mean, we have to enforce our laws, but we need to focus our limited resources on removing undocumented migrants with criminal records. I think it's been quite an undiscriminating approach where these work force raids and sweeps and I think it's a matter of prioritizing how we want to use our public security dollars. I think this undiscriminating approach is wrong, it's dividing families, it's hurting our economies. And I think it's also a product of our inability to provide a legal status and a legal pathway for people who have been here for decades contributing to their communities, working, paying taxes. And I think that, you know, once and for all doing that which most Americans believe in, is really an important part of that interior enforcement question. And look, these amnesty programs have happened throughout history in our, in the US, in Spain, in Europe, like and every time it has a positive effect, on those folks on the economy. And they do not create a pull factor for more migration. So it's long overdue in the US.
Jason Zengerle ’96 I mean, along those lines, Susan Sykes had another question about if you got any comments on DACA and the chances of them gaining permanent status. Is that like just a debt issue at this point, or what do you think happens with that?
Marcela Escobari ’96 I don't see this administration moving on that. I mean, who knows what the midterm elections do and whether people in Congress are willing to push back, in, in a real way. But, I do think that, you know, we should still be working on that comprehensive package that involves DACA and regularizing, and, you know, undocumented migrants who have been here for a really long time. So we should put it on the table. I don't think it's likely to happen in this administration, which is why I think the piecemeal approach is still really important for the previous question of reducing that pent up demand.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Elizabeth Seth, asks if the H-1B fee has already been reflected in the new hiring data. And what pushback have we seen from corporations and is this bipartisan?
Marcela Escobari ’96 It’s interesting, I wrote an op ed in the Washington Post on the H-1B visa, the effects it's going to have because I think, one of, the thing that's important to push back is this association of like, well, you know, the an international student that comes here is going to take your kids spot or a, you know, H-1B visa is going to take your job. And, you know, the truth is the opposite, right. For every H-1B visa it creates X number of US jobs, for every international student in state schools, there's two native students that can go to school, right. Like this is going to hurt us and have a right of way. And already with, even the fear of the changes in OPT and the number of years that a student can stay has meant a reduction. So the H1, I don't think we're going to see the numbers immediately. I don't think we are going to see the pushback that we hoped, because this is really the big firms can probably pay for it and the smaller firms, you know, are not usually invited to Mar-a-Lago. So I have not seen the pushback. I mean H-1B needs reforms for a variety of reasons, but we haven't yet seen the effects of. That's probably going to happen in the next lottery of H-1B’s. The right decisions are being made now, right at people like, we are going to see an exodus of talent in, in our country. And we're seeing other countries already opening their doors - China has a new visa, Europe has a new visa. Like I'm trying to attract the talent that is now, you know, sees the US as, you know, not as welcoming and unpredictable.
Jason Zengerle ’96 This is from Margaret Henderson. She writes, so you talk about migrants making positive contributions to GDP within a few years. Is it possible that the front end costs of migrants resettling are seriously underestimated, since they aren't borne much by government programs are they covered by individual families, volunteers, churches, etc., so that they're untracked and invisible?
Marcela Escobari ’96 That is true. So look, it is true that the problem with any of these policies is that when we talk about it in aggregate, it always sounds pretty compelling, right? Like this new, the CBO came up with these numbers of, like, this new set of migrants that came in last year, are going to need $900 billion in reducing our deficit. The immediate costs in those cities that were overwhelmed by migrants, the fact that in some places they do undercut wages. They, you know, like those examples are real. And I think we need to acknowledge them, that they exist. And, I do think that many of these calculations take some of that into account. But I think the real problem is that we do talk about it as economists and aggregate and it is true that, and it's one of the things I talk about in the report that the lack of acknowledgment of the local costs and, you know, these benefits happen at the federal level. The costs in certain communities meant that many places were overwhelmed, that the costs were great. So I think that in any migration policy, hopefully we could have the tools so that we don't see these kinds of surges in our country. But we, we definitely need to be more surgical about, you know, and there's been policies that been suggested of like, if the community is taking on migrants that they receive per migrant support, the early support to be able to, you know, get those kids to school, you know, have, more availability in hospitals and the kind of immediate shock that it means for communities.
Jason Zengerle ’96 And I thought the report, like one of the things really interesting was you writing about these, you know, these NGOs or nonprofit groups that stepped in for refugee resettlement and things like that. I mean that, is that a viable model going forward? Can that be expanded?
Marcela Escobari ’96 That was one incredible example. Like there's a lot of things that are going to be lost that happened here and then like I said, I and I talked in the report there, you know, fair share of missteps. But the level of innovation by need that happened in the administration because of this chaos, like it meant that we created things like the Welcome Corps and the ability for average Americans to be willing to come together as communities. Like, you know, every CHNV applicant requires a sponsor in the US. Almost, you know, a couple million people signed up to welcome strangers. I mean, the power of the generosity of the American people is incredible. And I think that that is a yeah, this private sponsorship that was used with the Afghans, both the fall of Kabul and Ukraine and CHNV, the world was incredibly curious about this private sponsorship program that started and of course, is now, collapsed, but it was, you know, average American signing up to help bring these parolees. So I think there's a lot to learn about that for refugee resettlement of how communities can compliment these resettlement agencies to help people assimilate faster.
Jason Zengerle ’96 I think we're up against our time, so that's actually a good note to end on. I do see one question about how can we access the report. I'm not finding it online. It should be, there's a link to it in the email announcing, inviting you to the talk. I think if you don't find it in there, I would just search Brookings and Marcela Escobari and it'll be on your page, right? I'll link to it. But it's a really thorough and fascinating document and definitely learned a lot from it that I had not learned just reading, just reading the newspaper. So, do read it if you get a chance. Marcella, thank you so much for doing this tonight. This was incredibly helpful and has given us a lot to talk about and think about. So thank you for taking the time to do it.
Marcela Escobari ’96 Thank you so much. And, I really appreciate the thought provoking questions. I'm going to go do more homework, but it's really great to be with Swatties. So thank you for the space.
Jason Zengerle ’96 Thank you, everyone, for joining us. This was brought to you again by the Swarthmore Alumni Council, and we will see you next month. Thanks a lot. Good night.
