Episode 20: US presidential special briefing on the Biden migration agenda

Hello and welcome to a US presidential special edition episode of the Migration & Diaspora Podcast, a show with me your host, Loksan Harley, about all things migration. Today, I have Jessica Bolter from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) with us to talk about the newly-elected President Joe Biden's migration agenda. Jessica Bolter is an Associate Policy Analyst with the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at MPI, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, DC. Jessica's research focuses on migration patterns at the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration enforcement, and asylum and refugee issues. For the past four years, she has also been involved in tracking and analysing the hundreds of administrative changes the Trump administration made to the US immigration system. Jessica completed her degree in American studies and Spanish area studies from Kenyon College, where she focused on relations between the US and Latin America. Sit back and enjoy your very own briefing on the Biden migration agenda, which has some similarities with Episode 7, where Jessica's Brussels colleague Timo Schmidt from MPI Europe briefed us on the EU's new Migration Pact. In today's episode, we start by looking back at what happened to US migration policy under President Donald Trump, before looking at what the Biden administration has already enacted since ascending to the White House proverbial throne a few weeks back, as well as what's in store for the rest of the new presidential term as regards migration. As always, we really appreciate your time and we hope you enjoy the show. Useful links: Follow @jessicabolter on Twitter Migration Policy Institute MPI's analysis: Biden Sets the Stage for a Remarkably Active First 100 Days on Immigration John Oliver's comedic but informative take on US immigration policy (YouTube)