Andrew W. Mellon Fellows in the Humanities

Roberto Suro

Class of Fall 2019

Professor of Journalism and Public Policy

University of Southern California

Understanding Mixed Motive Migrations: Developing Comparison Cases

In his Academy project, Suro examines the challenges that recent flows of asylum-seeking migrants pose for many Western democracies. Current migration crises, he argues, are exacerbated by a mismatch between the dynamics of humanitarian migration and the policies designed to manage them. Migration policies in the US and much of Europe are based on a sharp distinction between voluntary and forced migrations, when the reality of migrants’ lives often combines elements of both. While US asylum and refugee policies use discrete criteria to determine if migrants need protection, several factors bedevil that process: what causes migrations, who migrants are, and how they actually migrate. As a result, Suro argues, migration management has collapsed in several instances, and political support for open immigration policies is badly frayed. Building on decades of research into Central American migration to the US, Suro looks to expand his analysis to Europe. Berlin offers a multi-decade history as a migrant destination across several waves of immigration. Suro aims to develop policy options by updating our understanding of migration flows, the political reactions that roil the topic, and post-migration trajectories.

Roberto Suro holds a joint appointment as a tenured professor in journalism and public policy at the University of Southern California, where he directs the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, an interdisciplinary center exploring demographic diversity in today’s global cities. Prior to joining the USC faculty, in 2007, Suro was founding director of Pew Hispanic Center and served on the management committee that launched the Pew Research Center, in 2004. He worked previously for the Chicago Sun Times, Chicago Tribune, TIME, and the New York Times, with postings as bureau chief in Rome and Houston, as well as for the Washington Post as a staff writer on the national desk, where he covered the Justice Department and Pentagon, and served as deputy national editor. Suro’s books include Writing Immigration: Scholars and Journalists in Dialogue (California, 2011), co-edited with Marcelo Suarez-Orozco and Vivian Louie, Strangers among Us: Latino Lives in a Changing America (Vintage, 1999), and Watching America’s Door: The Immigration Backlash and the New Policy Debate (Twentieth Century Fund, 1996). He serves as a trustee of the Haynes Foundation, which supports social science research in Los Angeles.