The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility is a subsidiary organization of The New School, a private liberal arts college in New York City. It provides grants to scholars researching the status of migrants around the world, exploring topics like “climate-induced migration,” “mobility,” and “refugees and forced migration,” the first of which has a dedicated subsidiary project. ^{1 2}

Background

The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility is a subsidiary organization of The New School, a private liberal arts college based in New York City. ²

Activities

The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility provides grants to scholars researching the status of migrants around the world, exploring topics like “climate-induced migration,” “mobility,” and “refugees and forced migration,” the first of which has a dedicated subsidiary project. ^{1 2}

One of its research reports, prepared by Zolberg Institute director T. Alexander Aleinikoff and executive director of the Center for Migration Studies of New York Donald Kerwin, is a study of the Trump administration’s refugee resettlement program that also provided policy recommendations for the Biden administration. ³

Starting in the fall of 2021, Zolberg began offering a certificate in “migration studies,” consisting of six university courses on the economic, environmental, social, and political aspects of immigration. ⁴ It hosts a podcast called “Tempest Tossed,” featuring discussions on U.S. immigration policy from a left-of-center perspective. ⁵ The institute also offers a free, non-accredited course called “Human Rights and Migration,” which claims in its course description that “nationalist politics and the COVID pandemic have produced policies and rhetoric that limit global mobility and impose significant harms on migrants and refugees.” ⁶

In tandem with Cornell University Law School, the Zolberg Institute runs a project called the Global Strategic Litigation Council for Refugee Rights, a legal advocacy and activist organization it claims is for helping refugees migrate to foreign countries, including the United States. ⁷

The Zolberg Institute works with the New York Mayor’s Office of Affairs to recruit student dellows, its internship program for college students. The Institute also provides support to students pursuing “embedded research” on immigrant communities’ experience of immigration to the United States and their mobility in the American economy. ²

Zolberg works with The New School’s Parsons School of Design and the Milano School of Public Engagement on researching the alleged impact climate change and environmental disasters have on global migration rates. ²

Leadership

Alexander Aleinikoff is the director of the Zolberg Institute as of 2024. Serving in the position since 2017, Aleinikoff has also authored several books on immigration, including one published by Harvard University. He previously worked as the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees from 2010 to 2015. He also served as the co-chair of the Immigration Task Force on former President Barack Obama’s transition team in 2008. ⁸

As of 2024, Zolberg’s advisory board consists of Deborah Amos, a reporter for NPR News; Victoria Hattman, an immigration professor at The New School for Social Research; Andrew Kaldor, an Australia-based investor; Renata Kaldor, an advisory board member of the Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law (UNSW); Ira Katznelson, a Ruggles professor for Political Science and History at Columbia University; Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and a former Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); Ilse Melamid, a former New School registrar; David Miliband, a former Labour Party member of the U.K. Parliament and president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee; Bitta Mostofi, the commissioner of the New York Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA); Robert H. Mundheim, a corporate governance advisor at law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP; Edafe Okporo, a former refugee and memoir author; Peter A. Seligman, the CEO of Conservation International; and Joel Towers, a Parsons professor and director of the Tishman Environment and Design Center. ⁸

The Zolberg Institute’s website, as of 2024, honors two deceased advisory board members: Henry H. Arnhold of the Arnhold Foundation and the Mulago Foundation, and minority independent filmmaker representative and founder of the KJM3 Entertainment Group Michelle Materre. ⁸

1. “Climate-Induced Migration.” Zolberg Institute. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://zolberginstitute.org/initiatives/climate-induced-migration/.
2. “About.” Zolberg Institute. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://zolberginstitute.org/about/.
3. “Improving the U.S. Immigration System in the First Year of the Biden Administration.” Zolberg Institute. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://zolberginstitute.org/initiatives/improving-us-immigration-system-proposals/.
4. “Certificate in Migration Studies.” Zolberg Institute. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://zolberginstitute.org/initiatives/migration-studies-certificate/.
5. “Tempest Tossed.” Tempest Tossed. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://www.tempesttossed.com/.
6. “Human Rights and Migration.” Zolberg Institute. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://zolberginstitute.org/initiatives/migration-course/.
7. “Global Strategic Litigation Council for Refugee Rights.” Zolberg Institute. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://zolberginstitute.org/initiatives/gslc/.
8. “Team.” Zolberg Institute. Accessed October 13, 2024. https://zolberginstitute.org/team/.