center for strategic and international studies. we really appreciate everyone coming out on this gorgeous thursday before labor day. i think this is a really important topic and really important report that we are putting out right now. i appreciate all of you taking the time out to do this. before i give a brief summary of the report, which i hope all or most of you were able to get, it will be posted online by the way right after this event. i wanted to say a couple of thank you's. first is to the ford foundation that we are just completing our second year of funding with the ford foundation. they have been a great partner with us. thank you to the ford foundation for believing in us, slightly nontraditional partner for them on this. i want to thank my co-author, carmen garcia gallego who is currently in laos, working for unicef. if you are watching online, hello, carmen. and then i want to thank our panelists, who i will introduce in a minute. this is an issue that has come onto mine and our team radar more and more over the last couple of years that we have been looking at this. it really is an issue, this issue of irregular migration that is frustrating in a lot of ways. when you talk about people who are moving without some sort of regular status, so often you are talking, at least in the united states, about illegal immigrants. in the report, we shouldn't say that illegal immigrants don't exist, they do, but they are a small subset of the overall stock of migrants globally that doesn't have status and is in -- is not able to move through regular, orderly, and safe means. there's a really important conversation to be had about what to do for those people and what to do with those people. i see this report is the beginning of a conversation. we need to be having more conversations like this in policy circles. we need to have more panels like this, and more discussions and roundtables that are talking about this real phenomenon of people on the move, and desperate people moving out of desperate circumstances, most of the time, and what do we do about that? the shadows contract is one that construct is one that we have thought about here at csis because the regular -- irregular migrants not only live in and travel through the shadows, but the idea of the migration has been one that has been caught in the shadows are broader forced migration forced displacement and forced migration conversations globally. those conversations typically revolve around people with internationally recognized status. these are legal immigrants, refugee or asylum-seekers, and i think those are really important architectures that we have for those people and we need to maintain those and we need to strengthen those. but irregular migration is a critical, global and underappreciated phenomenon, hence the existence of this report and hence why you are here today. we estimate there are over 100 million irregular migrants, slightly more than our friends at iom. we have taken our own slightly broader definition of irregular migration. the reality is we don't know. that could be an overblown estimate. that could be conservative estimate. a lot more work needs to be done on this and we hope that we can do it. here's where i say something controversial. people in d.c. and the united states and europe and elsewhere don't really like to talk about migration right now. csis is a bipartisan institution. we are not in the gotcha game. we want to present good, credible, bipartisan solutions to the challenging global issues of our time. i think the u.s. needs to take a leadership role. that is my controversial opinion. i think that even in today's political environment, ignoring the root causes of why people are moving irregularly and only focusing on people who are arriving on the border and the size of the wall is a mistake. i think that mistake has long term ramifications. we, carmen and i and our program [no audio] that u.s. [indiscernible chattering] [laughter] erol: hello? that was for all of you folks on c-span [applause] c-span2 that broke from the pete buttigieg rally to join us here on csis. i think the u.s. leadership is both critical and feasible. realistically not on everything. this is where my controversy and low opinion maybe gets tempered with a little bit of reality. but i actually think ignoring this issue is not an option and so, thank you again to all of you for being here. and i would like to invite y to the stagend k for what i know will be a very interesting conversation. are we going on these microphones? good. [applause] everybody can hear us? great. we have soiled their plans. you probably came in small part to get a free copy of the report, and thanks for doing that. hopefully you got one. but i hope you also came to hear from three people who i think are really important in this space. this andaddressing other issues from a whole host of different perspectives, so i aboutthat it is not just the report, and it is not just about listening to people like me here at csis. one of the benefits and privileges of working at csis is i get to email people like brian, cindy, ky and say we are doing this thing, would you be a part of it, and thankfully, they say yes. brian, i will start with you. you are the head of the community stabilization unit at the u.n. migration agency, also known as iom. you have been with iom since the year 2000. and you have worked in the balkans, afghanistan, indonesia, nepal, iraq, afghanistan -- pakistan and countless other places. you are a published author yourself on climate change and displacement. you have written a handbook on communicating with disaster affected communities, and relevant for a later part of this conversation i think, you have also written about bolivia and labor migrants suffering in libya, caught in the crisis. you a if i could just ask broad question first about, you know, we talk about shadows in this report, where irregular migrants find themselves. you work with stabilization and in some of these places where these shadows exist. can you talk a little bit about how you think about these issues? brian: sure. but i must begin by thanking you for the opportunity to be with such an esteemed panel. it is great, and the report is very helpful in the commitment sis has had looking at these issues that are really important, so thank you. i look at the issue probably mostly through the eyes of the people that i have met, the faces of the people in the conversations that i have been fortunate enough to have over time. just a couple of anecdotes. as --mber being in august in an extorre gold mines it point for migration heading north, and i met this , and he had just come back after a veiled trip to europe. he told me about the consistent, horrific events that had occurred. until then he had been imprisoned in libya, and he told me with a smile on his face and eyes -- itnocent actually brought me back to a philosophy class on kierkegaard, where he talked about the best day of his imprisonment in libya was when he was sold from a north african prison owner to a sub-saharan african prison owner because he thought he would be deemed valuable enough to live. just last week there is an article in reuters about 15 migrants that were trying to cross the mediterranean. 14 of the 15 died, the one gentleman from ethiopia who survived was talking about the boats and the ships that were passing him, and that he saw their faces and they moved on. so what does it mean to me? when you get too attached to the stories that we face, it can affect you personally. so we have to take a step back a little bit and take a look at some statistics and numbers and you have got to wrap yourself and that her the missing migrants project. 1750 that have died so far this year. that is down from three years ago, where it was over 5000. and at least now there's a little bit more of an understanding of data. if you go back to libya, i when qaddafi was killed and iom, my organization was being asked very reasonable question, how many migrants are in libya? check out the press releases. you go back and look at it, but 75,000? 150? 250? no. we did not know what the answer was. now approximately 670,000, show male, there are minors. it also made me rethink the vulnerability, and when you apply that to migrants because when you think traditionally -- i have done a lot of humanitarian response -- you think traditionally with vulnerability, and unaccompanied female is fairly high up on the list in the midst of a crisis. but it was actually a twentysomething groups of guys who were migrants who were the most vulnerable in libya because they were perceived to be party to the conflict. they possibly could have been recruited because with qaddafi's greater pan african plan, there was a lot of migration from sub-saharan africa, so these are sub-saharan men in their 20's all targeted. whereas the unaccompanied females, who primarily were working at residences, where fairly safe. what does that mean in real terms? it means what kind of commodities we needed to have on the other side of the border when people were coming across and anticipated a lot of women and they did not come and they thought it was happening. these real implications. that was 2011. 2011 was kind of a fairly big year when you look at dealing with migrants and the issues they were facing because you remember in thailand, there was a big flux that came into bangkok and further up in the north, and there were all these myanmar nationals that were there in the irregular status. i think there are approximately about one million. and all of them did not speak the language. they do not have access to services. they were isolated and they had to get assistance. i remember there was a time in talking with the head of the thai red cross who was in a really difficult political spot and i really appreciated his commitment to helping migrants, but if you only have so many resources, you are also not helping someone else, and you helping these tight nationals who may be donated to the red cross, so it really tested the concept of impartiality and need-based assistance. luckily, just trying to put a little bit of a positive spin on and then move forward 2014 came, the migrants in countries of crisis, which are less and more developed countries, and then you also had 2015, the federation of the red cross came forward with a campaign on migrants, right? collectively, i think the space we are heading now, we are starting to institutionalize some of the needs of migrants and how to best address them. erol: i hope so, and one of the things that i think we should globalout here is the compact and how that is moving forward. brian, if you would allow me, we will go to the other panelists, but i would love to touch on the compact and what you are seen coming forward and how that is going to be operationalized. before that, cindy, thanks for being here. i was looking back on your bio and reminded that you are actually dr. cindy huang. forr. huang, thank you being here. for the time being, you are a senior policy fellow at the center for global development, and i really cannot wait to hear you talk about what you are going to be doing at refugees international because i think it is interesting and relevant. he were director of policy at the state department, cso, bureau of conflict and stabilization operations, senior advisor to the counselor and chief of staff of the state department and you have done some really incredible things throughout your career. thank you again for being here. you have tackled these issues both in the migration for displacement and irregular migration stuff, and from research angles, policy, and from within and outside of government. can you just talk a little bit about your reactions to what brian settled this issue in general? cindy: thank you. it's a real honor to be here . it has been really fun to have this collaboration. sometimes different agencies can play nicely together. erol: absolutely. cindy: it has been great because there has been the need more attention, and i agree with your controversial statement of a need for u.s. leadership on these topics. so, you caught me in a little bit of a philosophical mood. not as philosophical as kierkegaard. [laughter] and i read your report and congratulations on it. but it did make me think about some of the questions and ideas you pose there around what is the state of those post-world war ii order, the 1951 convention on refugees, the protocol and the caveat here is 1967 that most of my research and work has been focused on refugees, so i come at it from that angle. but i completely agree it is time to take a step back and that we should not be -- yes, there are real refugee protection concerns in the world , and that is why i am so proud to have joined refugees international because i think we need those independent voices out there, but we also have to grapple with the fact that the world order is changing and we can either approach it from a position of fear and say we have to clamp down and protect what is there and protect the institutions providing invaluable services for some of the most vulnerable people in the world. so, we can clamp down or we can a fresh lookake and say this is going to be a challenging time, but i will say a little bit more about the research we have done has really challenged us to take an approach that we know will be longer-term to rebuild the system, and i'm very interested in your thoughts on the gcm and gcr because they are not perfect and will not be perfectly implemented, but i think they are the next step in trying to outline the future of the architecture that we need. i was really moved by what you said about the experience in libya around who are the most vulnerable? course, it has evolved, and it was really around who are the masses of people the most vulnerable at the time. but we have to question that. so from the research that i have not doing, just a few, but just myself but also my colleagues and this is mentioned in your report, around thinking about the central americans who are fleeing and that is at the top of the political discourse. but some of the regulars empirical work that cg has done finding that, there is no way to disentangle people who are fleeing violence from people who are also looking for economic opportunity. it's a mix. in using statistical methods you yo can say there is this relationship between people. it increases in particular municipalities and the presence of long-term unemployment and underemployment. so, it really challenges us to think about how we can't separate if someone answers on a survey i came for economic opportunities. well, it could be that, and the school they sent their child to was closed because of gang violence and their neighborhood has been targeted, and maybe that does not respond to a definition of refugee status that exists, but they are really fleeing difficult circumstances. so i think there's an opportunity to bring together different methods to create a better understanding of vulnerability and displacement today. one other thing i really appreciated about your report is that it does talk about a spectrum. it challenged me to think about looking at refugees where some governments, like turkey, has provided permission for people to be in turkey, but only in specific places. so in the news recently, there was the fact that there were reports of the deportation of syrians who are not in the government that they were registered in. again, there's a spectrum of situations and so even for refugees and those who have refugee status or in refugee-like situations, even their status can be irregular in some ways. that is just another example in the news recently that came to mind. just to give us a teaser on the work that i'll be doing at refugees international, it is really around how to better take that fresh look and better understand also about how the public, i know that is too general of a term, but how does the public think about migration , and my focus will be displacement and refugees in particular. in that example of someone whose neighbor has been killed, mother has been threatened, i do believe, and some hope so that the "average person" or many people we can say look at that and say, that person deserves protection. we need to help that person, and so what that looks like. we have to do a lot of work to build consensus around these realities and vulnerabilities. we have not even yet touched on climate vulnerability. so we have to build a consensus. around the understanding that they do need public support. and to me, u.s. leadership means uterus about ship at the highest level but also engaging in public dialogue and public education about vulnerability and protection and what that means from a very basic human level, and also what that means at the level of systems and institutions. i almost always say this in panels, even though there have been challenging times on refugee and asylum issues recently, i an optimist and i do setave to believe that this of challenges, which will affect not only the united states but has already affected other countries, that there was a way for it. end with one last country i have been looking at that is providing a lot of leadership, which is colombia. they are hosting so many venezuelans and have taken a very positive approach, and some of the research i have done talks about that given the right to work, not only permission around residency or status that refugees are actually given the right to work and allowed to contribute. i think there are governments that are keeping the doors relatively open and seeing that optimism and potential opportunity in hosting refugees or even those without status. erol: you brought up about a zillion really important points there. just two i wanted to highlight. i had the opportunity last week to help lead a course were a -- course here with a bunch of journalism students, and they chose venezuela and displaced venezuelans and their status issue as their topic. and so together with my ndon, wee, moises re were the topical experts on this, and we learned a lot about why we do this verbal dance every time we talk about venezuelans. we talk about venezuelan migrants and refugees. we talk about venezuelans living in refugee like situations. there is this dance that happens. there was a really important point we figured out for the course of that week, which was part of the reason is because countries like colombia are affording a version of temporary protection and status, and so if we go for lawn into the refugee asylum push, it may actually have overall negative consequences in the grand scheme of things. it was the unintended potential consequences of good intentions, all of that to say these are really complicated issues and there is no easy answers. if i could follow up on one point on that, i do think it norms arewhen shifting relatively quickly because of what is on the ground and the political narrative approach is potentially even more important so that if you think about these examples, where there could be unintended consequences, both practically and politically speaking, of invoking status, and looking on the ground and saying, are there places where it could grow and where colombia could be an example for other countries in the region, and also think about how we build the system from the bottom. that is really important line of inquiry, which it sounds iq had last week with the students. erol: they were phenomenal undergrads that were not topical experts, but they were asking the right questions. it may be hopeful about the future of journalism. the other point i wanted to make was the point about central americans. we have this case study on mexico in this report, and the idea is not to talk about mexicans coming to the united states because as we point out in the case study, 1995 called and they want their problem back. that's not what's going on right now. there are some mexicans coming north, but more mexico even its policies, and psyche, and our psyche towards mexico and our policies towards mexico, is focused on mexicans coming north. the reality is that mexico is in that receiver of people right now. they are having to deal with the influx of the central americans, the haitians, and even the venezuelans and beyond, and by the way, mexicans that are leaving the u.s. and going back to mexico. their systems are not really set up for that. so we were talking about this. as part of the research, we went down to the guatemalan border and the cover of this is from a migrant shelter in southern mexico. when we are talking to people down there, this idea of what you and michael have done excellent research on about how if you ask someone, they will say, yeah, i came for a better life. but if you peel back the onion just one layer, it's because of the reasons you said. it's because if i'm a woman walking at night and i live in a poor neighborhood, and there is not a light in my neighborhood, i am at risk of sexual violence. or maybe i don't have enough money to have a lock on my door and so we are at risk of just vandalism, and robbery at any moment. maybe that is not top-of-the-line for that person when they're answering the question on the survey. but if you peel back that onion a little bit, i'm willing to bet that most of those people are. so i'm glad there are more credible researchers than i who are acting up that theory. thank you for that. ky, you are the chief operating officer at the medical corps, and you maintain an affiliation with george washington university. you are at tulane before, you are a man of many hats. and we are very happy to have you here. you were relevant to this conversation, and you were also the head of the office of foreign investors system in the bush administration at usc aig. so you come at these issues from a whole host of different perspectives, academic practitioner, government official. so, how do you think about these issues? ky: first, i will congratulate andand csis on the report lead to keep the migration issue, regular and irregular, at the forefront. true that weis have to come up with the urgency in which we need a better way to deal with migration. i think your report noted that perhaps the rising sea levels in bangladesh may end up with an entire country under and what do we do with that population? in new orleans where i live in losing land byre the day, where if you are outside the levee system, already there are towns that are underwater. what do you do with this population? it is relevant overseas, is relevant here. think how we approach it and how i approach it is we need to have more of an evidence-based approach to dealing with the migration issue. at the projects, while tulane and george washington we worked on, we developed and stood up what we called the resilient african network, which is a collaboration of 18 universities in sub-saharan africa that also included stanford, tulane, and george washington. the network looked at how do we measure resilience? resilience to conflict, resilience to food insecurity, resilience to gender-based violence, and how do we measure that and use that knowledge and evidence to actually inform innovation solutions to address resilience? in somalia, an interesting study was to look at how do populations become more resilient to conflict and developing using a mixed message -- mixed method study in six communities in somalia, we had identified dimensions of resilience that we found to be protective factors. they had high predictive value in terms of mitigating the impact of chronic displacement. those three are very similar to what has been identified in your report, governance, wealth, and access to basic services. hadost communities that policies, that promoted protectionism more basic human rights, that afforded the displaced population opportunity for livelihood, that had afforded them access to basic services, we found higher scores of resilience. and, i will take that further in terms of applying it to my current role with the international medical corps, and if you can put the picture on the slide here, which is in june, i had the opportunity to travel out to libya and tripoli, to look at our program firsthand. brian has already mentioned in terms of when you think through irregular migration, olivia comes to mind, where you have seen the pictures, the stories. libya is now a country of transits. ofse pictures here in terms the rescues that take place, international medical corps is operating in nine detention centers, providing health care. we are also providing rescues , and this is what irregular migrants or migrants are faced with. this is a detention center that is along the airport road. you will see in the middle picture the size of that room is probably i would say the size of this room. and at that time during my visit , there were over 1000 young men that were housed in this facility. this facility in this picture to the right had one bathroom. as we spoke to the young men within this detention center, their daily ritual is to wait in line to use the facilities. that is their reality day in and day out. they are sleeping next to each other, and they are waiting for something to happen. these are individuals who have paid smugglers to be able to bring them into libya, hoping to be able to transit out. when they arrive at the border, they are picked up by local militias who then put them into a detention center, where they will go back to the families and try to exploit and try to get additional monies. detained here for upwards of six months to nine months. arehis population, there irregular migrants, but there are also what we consider to be forgees, who are waiting interviews. they are looking to be resettled to find a solution, and we also look to see groups of young children, youth, who are housed in these detention facilities , some among the men. as you can think through here in terms of the protection related issues, this is the reality here. again, i just wanted to put this picture out there, but bring it back in terms of what is it that we can do perhaps to mitigate the negative impacts of when things happen that these protection issues come up? and going back to relevance and access to basic services because libya was not always a transit country. it was a point of destination, so in the 1950's and 1960's with the oil and economic boom there, this was a large pool factor for many in sub-saharan africa. and at the height of kind of the pro-immigration policy, open borders, where sub-saharan africans did not need a visa in order to come to libya. i believe there were point 5g like two million migrants in libya compared to a total of a population of 6 million. so the migrants played a huge role in regard to the economic backbone in the society within libya, so when you see a breakdown in terms of the government structure, when it is not affording basic human rights, when you are not allowed access to basic services and you in termsve the means of generating livelihood, you move quickly from being able to factors that pull benefit the host community and countries and migrants themselves to a situation where we see today libya, where many of these individuals, there's not a lot of hope. erol: it strikes me that as were talking, i was thinking, if we had just replace the word libya with venezuela and what you were talking about -- i mean, an israeli used to be a destination for workers again because of an oil boom and they were very welcoming to colombians who were wars in the narco 1990's, and now look where they are. i'm glad you brought up governance in that same conversation. rereading why nations fail right now, so i am really hot on institutions and governance. so, thank you for that. you also mention bangladesh. cindy, i know you have been in bangladesh recently, thinking about sort of about a compact and a slightly different way. i do want to come back to you on that. before we do that, brian tell us a little bit about where you are with the global compact on migration. i will mainly ask you about the gcm, the degree to which you would like to comment is fine. but where are we? where are we going and doesn't -- does it matter? brian: i think it does. erol: i totally agree with you. there is nothing like a multilateral, nonbinding process to really assess the crowd. [laughter] so thank you. thank you for that. so this december the gcm will have his first birthday. and, one thing that came out of the gcm, which was not born in a vacuum, but it was born out of a regional prophecy that had occurred in some earlier affirmations is that a network and a migration network was created, and whenever you have a network, of course you have an executive committee. and then you have a secretariat, iom has,is a role that and there are some comments from you and women, and i think unicef is bringing someone on to help with the secretariat, but the executive committee and the membership of the network is all available online for those who are interested. and, very recently the network just came out with a work plan and the work plan looking at some of its core activities, there is a startup fund for safe, orderly and regular migration. there is a goal to capitalize that up to 25 million dollars. i think $1 million is in it right now. of course with any fund, there is a committee and in the exciting world of multilateral human affairs. erol: a lot of people hate multilateral. i'm kidding. om is engaged in that, and u.n. women, and if i am skipping an organization, i'm sorry. erol: you will get a lot of anger emails about that. brian: i will. it also has donor countries and germany is participating in that, and then also countries representing, sending, receiving, and transit countries. although now since so many countries, it is all so how that three. is going to be sorted out, they are going to have to work through. it just got constituted in may. erol: this is the fund? brian: this is the fund. it got constituted in may, and then they are pulling everyone together in october to figure out exactly what the modalities will be. so, there is one more important structure and then i will just give some key dates, but the international migration reform, the global compact said that this form will be created. it was state led and this was the head of state level. they would be meeting every four years. the first time is going to be 2022, and bangladesh and spain are leading that process. so for some key dates, this december 11, the one year anniversary, you will have the annual meeting of the network as per the gcm, there is an obligation to provide an evaluation of how it is performing. so, one year that is done by the secretariat, by s, by partners in the second year, the general. so we are pleased it had that level of visibility. erol: the un secretary-general? brian: the un secretary-general. erol: i think that is significant that he himself is playing a role in the operationalization of the gcm. brian: yeah, so we will be looking at that. he will be engaged every other and the review, and there is an annual review process, which is already baked into that, and then the goal is, how do you operationalize it and make it relevant on the country and regional level? when will you do that is with a fund. so as of today, there is approximately 50 u.n. country teams that have been looking at what ofand figuring out the various 23 parts of the gcm theirbe relevant for country team and trying to align don't knowwith i what percentage of the audience i just put to sleep. erol: let me tell you why i think this is really important. the gcm -- i don't think you put this audience to sleep, by the way. this audience likes to get down and dirty in the wonkasphere. the reason i get excited about the gcm, despite the fact that the u.s. decided to pull out in december 2017, i hope one day the u.s. comes back, but even without that, the reason i'm excited about the gcm's because it was a member state driven process. you just said the member states are continuing to be involved. you are not serving as we are going to come up with all the solutions and get people to sign off. member states actually have to do the really hard work of negotiating with one another on language, on things that are not really easy to talk about, so it is going to be harder. the process will be harder, but our view is that the process being harder will lead to the outcome being more durable and more long-lasting. that is my version of optimism. i also happen to be a glass half-full type. i think what you describe as the next steps is really continuing on this sort of member state .riven there needs to be a secretariat. you guys need to be playing a role here, but the fact that the secretary-general himself in the member states are still involved i think is really significant. agree.i would i think one of the challenges that everyone is looking at is how to benefit from the years of work and regional processes in doing. there is the bali process focused on trafficking, gobble gobble dialogue, where they try to find limited standards between labor receiving countries. the list could go on, but how to connect those bodies and make make sure we are tapping into all of that knowledge, but what is positive about it is that each of those entities, whether or not the gcm or different regional bodies, you have member states, and you have countries that have positions, you can like them, not like them, but they have their positions and they engage based on their interests. and those that really have seen value keep moving along. cindy: maybe to jump in on the value and connect it to the theme of your report on regular migration. i think there is a lot of interest, and i think there is evidence to show that increasing the regular pathways can help diminish the need for people to use the regular pathways, and some mentioned, i know, the evidence needs to be further developed. inwill depend on context some cases, but just to highlight the work of my colleague, michael clemens who you mentioned the mexico case, and he did a study, and historical study, that showed how providing temporary permits to come from mexico to the united states and in that program led to an increased in irregular migration many of those exists, whether or not there is a legal channel. whether it is the u.s., with agricultural workers, those will be there. so if we provide more regular channels, and that is not only migration, labor temporary or permanent, but also in the cases where protection should or do have refugee status, and making sure that happens in a timely manner. i think that really shows how member states are and should be interested because of the potential economic and other benefits of establishing pathways but also because there is a relationship to irregular migration. ago, youeral months wrote, and maybe even a year ago, you wrote what i would consider a productively provocative saying about a bangladesh compact. vaguely --,ht up and it is a previous reiteration of our work of forced migration, and i have been there doing research as well. talk to us about you have been aboutrecently, so talk that and how do you think about what you learned in bangladesh? cindy: we did put out a proposal for a bangladesh compact, and just to say the history around that, we were really inspired and are thinking about the compact, not the global. so at the country level, and even before that when i looked at the millennium challenge corporation, with the idea there is where you also pull together resources to support a country to achieve greater inclusive status, and with that there is a set of policy reforms that are not about conditionality, like we will give you money if you do this, but what are the policy reforms necessary so that we achieve the outcomes we jointly set forth? and that is in a different context because it's not around displacement. then there were the examples like the jordan compacts where there was a big commitment of aid, finance, and target investment that created a package where it created the conditions for jordan to really make a case to its own people to say that we are hosting a large number of syrian refugees and in order to give them access to employment opportunities, we need to grow the pie. that's a very understandable thing to believe, and the international community did step up and that led to the jordan compacts, which is outlined in assessments and commitments that enabled a productive dialogue and created access to work permits for syrians, and there have been different reiterations and commitments and i would say continual improvements. again, not that it is perfect. in the case in bangladesh we thought is there also a package that can be put together to really change the dialogue and i would say we have not achieved success. i think it's really a tough conversation. however, i will say that we have seen -- and i saw on my recent trip there, some signs of progress and that, while there hasn't been a large policy shift, you are seeing greater cash for work opportunities for refugees, you are seen the starts of planning and what would a local plan and cost look like that does try to grow the pie for everyone. and i do think those policy changes are really important. and we have done a report on the economic and fiscal effects of granting refugees labor market access. there are tricky political dimensions, but the more we can tell that positive narrative about growing the pie and the contributions refugees could make if they had access to the labor market, it is also an important part of the story around displacement, and people lose sight that refugees are displaced on average for 10 that are those displaced for five or more years are closer to 15 years or 20 years. erol: and that point about growing the pie for everyone gets to the idea that host communities are critical, that brian mentioned before. ky, i want to turn to you about a little about what we can do to help with this. so in your imc or other experiences, you showed this is a really, i think, meaningful illustration of the scale of the problem and the reality that this is about people. what can we do about it? ky: and i think humanitarian organizations like the medical corps can put a band-aid on the problem. this is the reality. and these detention centers, they are, in theory, managed by the government, but they are really led by militia groups. erol: militia groups? ky: militia groups. so our access is dependent upon these militia groups, who prescribed the conditions, in terms of how long they detain, who they detain in these environments, what they are fed. and it is a real challenge, for our staff, day in and day out, to be witness to these horrific conditions. but if we speak out, our access to this vulnerable population would be denied. so i think the long-term solution here, and we have seen this, and you touched on the multilateral gcm approach her, but we have also seen effective measures between bilateral and regional cooperation between countries that export laborers and migrants and countries that take them in. i think through the colombo meetings that brought together the south and southeast asian countries, as well as abu dhabi, that had the gulf states, and having that regional bilateral cooperation, where, perhaps in those countries where they are exporting migrants, policy and information campaigns that allows the migrants to understand the conditions within which they would be deploying to, but also working with the countries that are taking in these migrants to create the types of policies that do not result in exploiting the laborers and providing conditions within which they are meeting the labor gap, but also being able to take care of themselves and their families. so i do think, again, this momentum needs to be built at the multilateral, at the regional, at the bilateral level, and ultimately, the solution is not how much aid and assistance we can provide to migrants. it is ultimately the big governmental policies that have to shift to be able to allow for migration to take place in a meaningful way. erol: i think that makes a lot of sense. brian, iom is not just a secretariat for the global compact. you guys are and implementing organization. you do a lot of important work on these and other issues. so same question to you. what we do about this? and i am primarily asking about the field, but i think that this idea of the policies and what we can do regionally and internationally and here in washington is really important. so take it in whatever direction you would like, but what can we do? brian: i will take it to your report. erol: great. title becausethe the whole idea of shadows because shadows can be caused by anything, right? can be caused by a building, a person, by whatever. ".ol: i am 6'3 i cause a few shadows going down the street. [laughter] 6'3". well, i am not the point is there is multiple things that can create the same situation. the same horrific situation. and you both have just been talking quite a bit about policies. and when we look at labor sending and labor receiving countries, the unintended consequence of having your visa tied to your employer. if your visa is tied to your employer and things are not going well, you don't have the mobility. you do not have the opportunity. redress in ae practical fashion. it may not exist. a single entry visa versus a double entry visa. people go for work. you have a situation at home, you have to come back. there is a funeral or something. then you go back to work. you were a regular migrant and now you are an irregular migrant. a policy that created that. >> yeah, i think that is really important. brian: your report talks about conscription in eritrea, and how that has such a significant impact on the creation of irregular migration, because people don't want to be deferred. we so often think about the natural disasters and the conflicts as drivers of displacement, and they are hugely significant. some of the policy issues really have a very, very similar impact. so to help unpack the issues, which is why i'm really happy that we are having this discourse today, to be able to articulate the whole complexity of the situation -- because you were talking about drivers earlier. one of the issues when we're looking at drivers is that can you really just find one? in syria, absolutely. right? that's pretty clear, what a driver is. in large swathes of the world, what was the tipping point, when you and your family said "we are done"? what exactly is that? >> love so of the statistics you pulled together, i think it was 1%salvador, when there is a increase in the homicide rate, inre is a 188% increase outward migration. in the w.f.p. report, in el niño communities, 1.5 times more likely to then become irregular migrants. but it is so -- erol: i am so happy that one person has read the report. [laughter] brian: but what about causality? brian: and allow me to have a far more distinguished person follow up on that issue. [laughter] because that is what we grapple with, this issue of causality. cindy: i was going to say those correlations are interesting, but it goes back to we need more research. and there are these moments in the central america studies i mentioned where just circumstances enabled us to use causal identification strategy. but we really have to double down -- it is self-serving for someone at a think tank say we need more research, so take it with a grain of salt. [laughter] but i agree. and i think it is critical because it is on the basis of correlation and case studies, and i am a qualitative researcher, pulling it together, and here is the picture and how systems and new policies respond? i'll end with back on how you communicate with people, there's a great study that came out of ucsd that was kind of putting people into someone else's shoes, what would you do? maybe it seems simple, and it really does get them to think differently. you talk about the statistics, but in terms of communicating and connecting with people, what is our common understanding to help build this new system? i think there are so much to the stories that all of you have told. would be that point for me or anyone else to say, i am out of here? i want to say my threshold, from a life of comfort, is much lower than what people are facing when they make the decisions. erol: to the point where it's not really a decision at all. cindy: right. erol: i can ask you guys a zillion questions. we have a good audience here today. and i want to open it up to some questions. i have two colleagues with microphones. all i would ask is you stand up and tell us your name and what organization you are with, if you are with one, and try to end your intervention with a question mark, if possible. we have a gentleman right here and then we will take this woman in the middle. >> my name is liliana rodriguez from argentina. i really was very impressed about those pictures. if i correctly understood you, you said one bathroom for that amount of people. my question is, what about the health issues there? is there any system that allows of volunteera kind medical team to treat them? erol: that is a good question. and if the panel could indulge me, maybe i can take two or can allow the folks to go. gentleman with the glasses over here. >> thank you for talking with us today. my name is jake gandalf grad , student at american university. i have a ton of questions, but i will stick to one that has been kind of on my mind lately. i read recently that climate change was one of the big drivers causing the mass migration from the northern triangle and central america. and i was wondering if you guys have looked at this a little bit in your research. what other areas in the world are going to start seeing more climate change have an effect on irregular migration? and what is the dialogue internationally to address it and how to go about dealing with it? erol: thank you for asking the climate change question. it was on my list of questions. so nice that it worked out that way. yes? >> my name is louisa i worked at the organization of american states, a working group for the venezuelan migration crisis. i am very impressed, listening to you. this is so enriching. but at the same time, i have a question because i haven't heard anything about venezuela. i would like to know why this migration crisis in venezuela has not reached the global awareness it serves. i was there in the border between colombia and venezuela, , like,is something that i haven't seen anything in my life like that before. so i would like to know why. erol: certainly not in america. thank you for that question. it is important. since the first question was geared mostly at ky, but you guys can take any and all of these. and if you skirt any of them, i will make sure to make a follow-up. ky: so on the question regarding access to health care within libya, there is about 800,000 migrants, give or take, in libya these days. the majority are not living in detention centers. they are within host communities themselves. there are groups, like the international medical corps, we partner with iom and unhcr that do provide public health in clinics. our mobile medical teams come in and provide sea rescues. but again, a lot of focus and attention has been on the detention centers themselves. we need to focus a little bit more on the broader population of migrants within libya itself. but again, it is a balance between shedding more of a light and focus on these migrants, because one of the issues we are constantly grappling with is we operate a clinic in order to provide support to the migrants. when they are lining up and queuing in front of our clinic, it raises their visibility, and militia groups can come by and pick them up and put them in these detention centers. so in terms of getting access and the ability to provide care, it is an ongoing challenge in terms of dealing with the armed militia groups who are really in control in many of these areas. one quick comment on venezuela -- my wife is venezuelan and she asks the same question every day, why aren't we doing more? i think when we look at the numbers of whether we are giving them refugee status or not, there are more displaced persons thanng out of venezuela even in syria. this is a great problem and a perplexing issue in terms of why it has not resulted in more action. >> thank you. cindy: i also ask that question. someone i collaborated with at brookings put out an interesting piece showing that the disparity in international funding that has been made available to displaced venezuelans -- i know there are a number of reasons , and i haven't done an in-depth enough reflection and research to say what a hierarchy is, but going back to erol's opening remarks, i think the u.s., we just don't have that kind of coordinated, focused global group that is shining a light and stepping up. there is a lot of fantastic commitment by bilateral donors and private sector. i also collaborated with the partnership of refugees, who the chobani yogurt, who recently said that the private sector also has to help. i do not know the answer, but it is something we have to be asking, and pushing to make sure that greater attention is paid. unfortunately, i think in a lot of crises, we see that greater attention is paid when something happens. maybe there is a big epidemic, or something. so i do hope that the attention and leadership of the countries continues, and it could be a positive story. and i will just quickly say, on climate, it is not an area of my expertise, but i know that in areas of west africa, there are increasing trends -- there are reports -- i do not know they are all verified, but i know in the case of syria, that climate change played a role. so that is an area that it is a reality where we continue to acknowledge the reality of human-caused climate change. there is a response, greater research that bridges the conversation we had about different causes, that there are , and, potentially, but there are these longer-term trends that we need to pay attention to as well. briana: i guess, to start with the prisons, the detention centers, i wish it was a matter of how do we get to here. i interviewed a lot of those people who came from the detention centers. the vast majority are outside of government control. they just don't have any access a workou either have prison or a killing prison. the work prison is where your conditionsood enough let the owner about prison can sell you on the daily labor market. and then there is one you are not. the situation is so horrific. there have been some steps -- i am an optimist, and there are a lot of joint positions on how to improve the situation and how to have access. but the situation is so much more horrible than the lack of access to basic services. as critically important as they are, it is unfortunately just so much worse. for the question on climate change, one of the most confrontational meetings i was ever a participant in was in fiji, the u.n. climate change compact. it was a regional consultation, where i had been brought as a subject matter expert on displacement. and the idea that pacific island states would look at migration as adaptation strategy as opposed to about compensation? the west had different opinions. so it was a very heated conversation. the west had different opinions. so it was a very heated conversation. believe recently, and i , i think you referenced it in your report, they bought some so, in fiji, in order to -- migration is one of the adaptation strategies. that is starting to enter the discourse a bit more than it used to. for venezuela, i.o.m.'s been privileged to work shortly with -- work jointly with unhcr on the platform for assistance of venezuelans outside of venezuela. i agree with everything that the person with a question had. you are completely correct. it is not getting the resources that it needs. it needs a significantly more. just today, the head of the platform put out a statement focusing on this particular issue. you just need to continue it. you asked why. i don't know, geography? i don't know for sure. if you want to galvanize a response to libya, and you're looking for funding from the e.u., the fact that it is right across the ocean, we cannot discount that. the amount of resources that go into turkey. and you look at the proximity issues. so is that part of it? that would not surprise me. but the honest answer is i do don't have a good answer to your question. erol: normally as a moderator, i don't answer questions, but i will use moderator prerogative to answer a couple of these. i will start with venezuela, which i think is really a fantastic having looked at this one. recently, i don't think these are the full answers, but your question about why it is not getting more attention is partially an appeal for us to talk about this more generally, and i am fully on board with that. but i think it is a really important one. the first answer is a little bit of donor fatigue, although what brian said, and the way i think about that is i.o.m. and unhcr -- by the way, if you are looking for a bright spot in all of the darkness, the collaboration between unhcr and i.o.m. is something to watch, both in venezuela and in bangladesh and other places. i think you guys are doing admirable partnerships and working together in ways that you haven't before. but there is a regional appeal , response framework or plan for venezuela displacement. the appeal this year is less than $800 million. it sounds like a lot of money. 800 million dollars is a lot of money. if you are thinking about responses to global crises and 5 million venezuelans displaced at the end of the year, the international community could sneeze and come up with $800 million if they actually wanted to. the u.s. is actually one of the larger contributors to that, but was mentioned, the europeans are much more focused on sub-saharan africans coming across the mediterranean, they are focused on syrians and afghans. and i get the sense -- and i am not quoting anybody -- i get the sense that kind of like the u.s. and canada, you guys are in the western hemisphere, this is a western hemisphere problem riyadh i think they are contributing, playing ball, going to the meetings, but they are looking to leadership on these issues from the united states. i will just leave that there. one part of the venezuela conversation that does not get talked about near enough is the islands. the caribbean islands, if you think of curacao, there is something like 22,000 venezuelans in curacao. 15,000 of the population on but that isch, unlocked when the population in the island is 22,000. that is almost backbreaking. columbia has the most, 1% of the population in columbia. i will not go too far on that rant, but i think it is important. quickly on climate change, climate change is such a fundamental thing to talk about, because our next conversation we will have on this will talk probably about how climate change is at the root of all the other root causes. we i don't think that -- list it as a root cause, but if you think about climate change, it is the root cause of food insecurity, of rising sea levels and forcing people to leave, so i think that is really critical. in the last thing i will say on climate is that there isn't really a good international architecture response to those displaced by climate. i think most of the gcr and gcm mention people displaced by climate, and that is a positive start, but we have a long way to go. the reason i said 100 million people is a conservative estimate of irregular migrants globally, because all of the people who are having to leave home are moving irregularly because of climate and don't have official status. they don't fall under protection , correct me if i am wrong, panel, but they don't fall under any protection like that. i want to take a few more questions. gentlemen in the glasses here, and then we will take one from there and the women here. i am trying to be equal opportunity. >> thank you for this timely and valuable resource. my question is one of the key recommendations that you have on leveraging the private sector. so my question to the panelists is what can be done to increase the private sector role in these responses? certain organizations like the you and the government, and also, what particular role can ,he private sector way today especially with the markets -- you know,ning the middle income and high income content? erol: excellent question. gentlemen in the middle here. >> i can't believe we have venezuelans and columbia so much without anyone pointing out that columbia has the largest amount of internally displaced population in the world, 7 million. in any case, our idp -- and talk about lack of attention. i doubt if 1 person in 10 was aware that columbia had the largest population of internally displaced people in this audience. are idp's irregular migrants or something else? and how does the number of idp's in the world company or to the number of thank you so much for number ofd to the irregular migrants? >> excellent question, thank you very much. thank you very much for exposition,c everyone. i would like to mention some comments and then have a question. i feel like right now, in the world, we are seeing more and huge amount of migrants around the world that are escaping home because there are criminalized states that are in power, or criminalized groups taking power over their lives. so they really have to leave. or they are in war, conflict or war, right? those are criminal situations, criminal power. i feel like the foremost power , aretutions, etc. moving really slow. i the end, we are creating a insive amount of population the irregular situation, that are extremely vulnerable, either as a victim for the criminal groups or criminal powers, or they are passing to the workers of the criminal economy. so my comment is this fact, in one way or another, touch or discuss, or is it too far away from the discussion? i know it is a very naive question. i think it is super important. there is more and more vulnerability of the migrants, and we are talking about millions and millions of people. i feel like the machine is eating itself, right? erol: i think that is a really good question, actually. on page six of the report, talk --ut how people's movements, smugglers, trafficantes, coyotes et cetera, it is no , longer a niche business. there is a u.n. report -- i use the term business elaborately. there is a report out that says between $5.5 billion and $7 billion in the recent year was made by people-smuggling. the u.n. spends $7 billion a year on global humanitarian assistance. part of the shadows construct is actually to draw attention to the people moving through those irregular pathways is actually a lot of times, they are using these criminal networks that have existed for other things. so thank you for bringing that up. and i apologize to the panelists for getting excited about page six there for a second. [laughter] maybe i will go the other way. brian: i will start with the last comment. just really echoing what you said, erol. the smuggling and trafficking networks are so highly sophisticated. they have got supply chains like a fortune 500 company. an issue that ties into the shadows is that displacement more and more so in outward migration, when we think about it, many people think about it in an antiquated fashion. that is the one way movement from the global south into the global north. that is just simply not the case anymore. as of about i think three years ago, i am thinking of the world migration report, that is when south-south mobility and south-south migration exceeded the idea of south-north. but then the data gets spottier. and there is not so much light on the problem, hence the shadows. and since that is a growing trend, having these original migration patterns much more so than crossing continents, it is an issue that exist and certainly an issue that is going to continue. for the private sector, to put the optimist hat on, i think we have an opportunity right now. a week or so ago, it came out from the business roundtable, 150-some odd ceo's that turned milton friedman upside down, and said that shareholder profit is not the sole rationale of a corporation anymore. thank you very much. we appreciate those signatories. so what does it mean? and how do we unpack it? and how will that impact migrants? think of the positive impact it could have on managing the supply chains, on the ethical recruitment issues occurring. i think that is just a great space where the u.s. can have a leading role. the u.s. chamber of commerce is pretty forward-leaning in this area. the u.s. is pretty forward-leaning in terms of private sector engagement. in terms of what the private sector can do itself, i look at it two separate ways, or kind of three. pro bono, low bono, and no bono. you now? if it is philanthropy, that is great. [laughter] >> we are all equal opportunity recipients of largess, preferably cash. aside from that, it is when the market makes sense, and you are looking at an intervention, doing what that business does and really creating markets, creating job opportunities in unstable environments. there is risk associated with that and ways to head to that risk, so it will be a conversation i would love to continue. with the idp's in colombia, it is the largest in the world. as far as the overall number of migrants that we are facing, i think i.o.m. puts the figure roughly about 58 million. i kind of tie the comment on venezuela to the initial comment . something for a lot of people to understand is the circular fashion of venezuelan migration. there is a lot of outflows but a there is also a lot of people that are going to colombia to access services and then going back to venezuela. erol: sometimes on a daily basis. brian: yeah. and our biggest request, which came out in a statement just earlier today is, can the neighboring countries maintain what, to date, has been some relatively lax immigration standards, allowing people to cross out of venezuela and coming and accessing services? that is not simply an economic issue, right? it is not simply do we have the services and the capacity, it is also a political issue. to go full circle, i'd say, back when the head of the thai red cross had to make a decision to get assistance to myanmar migrants, which means he was not getting assistance to certain thais who were in need, these are the decisions that have to be made, and they are not made in a political vacuum. he took a lot of heat for that, and in the end, i really appreciated him for it. so hopefully in the end that governments will be even more progressive as far as welcoming the migrants and refugees that are crossing into their countries. cindy: i think we only have one minute left, so i will only answer one question. to highlight, i think it is really exciting what has happened in terms of the different private sector engagement. i would push, i would say give , cash if you can, if you are not in a position to do something else. it goes back to what i spoke about, growing the pie. whether it is regular migrants refugees, -- hosting whether it is a regular migrants or refugees, but you've got to keep growing the pie so we can promote social cohesion and creating opportunities, and leaving no one behind. there are a lot of ways to do that. and one quick point, the center for global migrants and refugees international launched a new initiative to look at how can we increase labor market access for refugees, that is on the policy side, but then how do we further engage the private sector so we can generate more sustainable solutions together? erol: absolutely. ky? ky: i will say this -- all states have the prerogative, the sovereign prerogative, to be able to prescribe the conditions for entry for non-nationals within their countries. but they should do so with evidence and data. this is really whether private sector can help. because as cindy mentioned, we need more irregular migration opportunities that are labor based. so the private sector can match skills between what is the labor gap between countries, with countries that can export and train individuals. so this is where it can benefit a whole industry in terms of the private sector third to be able to be these brokers. you can train the laborers, place the laborers, and ultimately it benefits those countries that really need additional skill sets, and those who have a surplus of individuals that do not necessarily have those opportunities at home. it goes back to you have a right to be able to set those conditions, and make sure that is done with evidence and data and not on the rhetoric that is not just on practical realities. erol: my last question to the panel is if you were to leave the audience with a tweet length take away, based on this conversation or anything else of how we will bring this in -- i will put up what mine is, which is part of the report. and while we think about it, i think all of you for taking the time to do this and thanks everyone for taking the time to be here and asking really thoughtful questions. i am struck by the quality of questions asked at these events. thank you for maintaining that high bar. so we have not started with cindy yet. actually, ky. ky: to be transparent, erol gave us a heads up that he would ask us this. so migrants, whether they aren't refugees, regular, irregular, to think that they are a drain on social services, a study noted 85% of the money is that migrants made stayed within those host communities. it stays there in terms of the taxes they pay, the rent they pay, food consumption. so therefore, it is an economic boon in terms of what it means for host communities. that would be my tweet he and 85% of what all migrants make stay within their host communities. erol: i was wondering when you were going to get to the tweet. [laughter] 280 characters. cindy: he gave us a heads up and i did not prepare. so i will and with a note that it is precisely in these most challenging times that we have to reject the politics of fear and reach for hope, light, and optimism. brian: i did not do any -- i am a u.s. citizen. i did not do anything to earn my passport and earn the ability to fly to 100 plus countries without a visa. so my tweet is there goes god, and there go i. erol: thank you so much to the panelists. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> journalists and white house officials examined the media and the trump administration. that is life starting at 2:00 eastern here on c-span. bernie sanders will hold a town hall and ice cream social and hampshire. i've coverage is 3:00 eastern here on c-span. elizabeth warren will meet with supporters at a house party in new hampshire. begins at 2:30 p.m. you can listen live with the free radio app. in the wake of the shootings in houseo and dayton, the judiciary committee early from a summer recess to mark up three bills. that includes banning high-capacity magazines, restricting firearms for those deemed a risk to themselves by a court and anyone convicted of hate crimes. if you are on the go, listen to our live coverage using the free c-span radio app. night, university of pennsylvania law school professor amy on free expression on college campuses in the conflicts surrounding an opinion piece she co-authored. >> this ruffled a lot of people, not all cultures are alike. we were comparing it to other cultures which aren't as functional. we gave some examples. that initially caused a firestorm. on c-span.ight >> yesterday, the president announced the establishment of u.s. space command, the military's 11th combatant command. he was joined in the white house rose garden by vice president pence, defense secretary mark esper, and general john raymond, who was confirmed as the commander of space command by the senate on june 27, 2019. at the start, the president announced that the vice president would travel to poland in his place due to hurricane dorian approaching florida. this is 10 minutes. pres. trump: thank you very much. it is a great honor. on a beautiful day in the rose garden. please sit. thank you. to ensure all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm, i have decided to send our vice president, mike pence, to poland this weekend in my place. it's something very important for me to be here.

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