The last decade has seen an unprecedented rise in the number of global migrants, creating one of the most profound challenges for international cooperation of our time. The United States alone hosts 51 million international migrants, the largest number in a single nation. While many migrants have relocated voluntarily, forced displacements are at the highest levels globally recorded since World War II, with refugees and asylum seekers accounting for a quarter of global migration increases. Those numbers will only continue to increase as political, security, resource, and climate pressures intensify. Borders and refugee camps display human tragedy and despair, illuminating the struggle and failure on the part of states to find an adequate and timely response to what is now broadly described as a migration crisis, which border enforcement cannot solve.

Migration challenges, by their nature, require cross-border cooperation and coordinated international responses. Robust, skilled, problem-solving negotiation is thus critical to addressing the growing crisis in an effective and enduring way. The global appetite for a broad international agreement to respond to and manage the crisis finally reached an action point in 2016 when the UN member states began negotiating a global migration compact, which was finalized in 2018.

However, it is not just nations seeking safe, orderly solutions that are turning to negotiation as a primary tool for responding to the crisis. We also are seeing migrants used as a bargaining chip or leverage in negotiations concerning other political or policy interests. The United States, for example, refused to participate in the negotiations or sign onto the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration. Instead, we saw the U.S. threaten Mexico with trade sanctions if it did not agree to the “Stay-in-Mexico” policy for migrants. Internally, in the U.S. and elsewhere, the migrant crisis has been utilized as a tool to fuel nationalist policies and leaders, and has become the centerpiece of domestic negotiations over national priorities and legislation. Negotiation in these contexts often has been zero-sum, and has resulted in very little movement to a lasting solution.

And—as distinct from the national or international arena—negotiation also has been a survival tool for the individuals and families who must negotiate with each other, with their smugglers, and with border guards to thwart state controls, and for the lawyers and advocates who fight to gain access to migrants and keep them safe.

CNI was honored to host the following panelists, who shared their perspectives, experiences, and insights on the role negotiation has played and should be playing in the migration crisis.

Elizabeth Ferris is Research Professor with the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. In 2016, she also served as Senior Advisor to the UN General Assembly’s Summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York. Prior to joining Georgetown, she was a Senior Fellow and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement and spent 20 years working in the field of humanitarian assistance, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland at the World Council of Churches. She has written extensively on humanitarian issues, including Consequences of Chaos: Syria’s Humanitarian Crisis and the Failure to Protect, with Kemal Kirsici (Brookings Institution Press, 2016). Her latest book – Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global Compacts (with Katharine Donato) was published by Routledge in July 2019. She received her BA degree from Duke University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Florida.

Dulce Garcia grew up in Logan Heights, California a community that is predominantly Mexican and Mexican-American. Dulce is undocumented and found it impossible to find financial aid after high school. So, she attended community college at night, and worked as a paralegal in a law office during the day. Oftentimes, she held other jobs including waitressing, parking cars, tutoring, selling flowers and retail. She paid her way through school, and subsequently transferred to the University of California San Diego where she received her bachelor's degree in Political Science. She attended law school at Cleveland Marshall College of Law where she received her Jurisprudence Doctorate with a concentration in Civil Litigation. Dulce opened her private practice in 2016 and has provided hundreds of free consultations and dozens of Know Your Rights workshops to inform community members of their rights. She also volunteers to represent low income clients in court in collaboration with the Mexican Consulate and various nonprofit organizations. In 2017 Dulce and other DACA recipients formed San Diego Border Dreamers to advocate for more humane immigration laws and policies. In September 2017, Dulce also sued Trump and the administration after the termination of DACA. As a result of those efforts in court, hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients are able to renew their DACA status while the case is in litigation. Dulce was in the Supreme Court on November 12, 2019 defending DACA. Dulce is the Executive Director of Border Angels, a nonprofit organization that conducts humanitarian work along the US-Mexico border. Border Angels promotes a culture of love through advocacy and education, by creating social consciousness, and engaging in direct action to defend human rights.

Stéphane Jaquemet is the International Catholic Migration Commission’s Director of Policy since February 2018. He is a lawyer and an experienced humanitarian professional with substantial expertise in the policy field.

Before joining ICMC, Stéphane spent 25 years working with the UN Refugee Agency, with assignments in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Most recently, he was UNHCR’s Regional Representative for Southern Europe, based in Rome. Prior to that, he served in UNHCR headquarters as Senior Legal Advisor, then Chief of Section, Protection Capacity and Promotion of Refugee Law. He has also worked at the International Committee of the Red Cross as a delegate in Africa and the Middle East and as a Legal Officer in Geneva. Stéphane has also worked for the Swiss faith-based aid organization Entraide Protestante Suisse, and as a lawyer in private practice.

Stéphane is a Swiss national. He completed his Law Degree at the University of Lausanne. He holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Criminology from the University of Paris II Pantheon. Stéphane is fluent in French, English, Spanish and Italian and has notions of Arabic.