Monday, September 13, 2010 – 7:00pm

With the Taliban going strong and the polar ice caps melting away, we wouldn’t blame you for feeling like there’s nothing to laugh about – until now. You may not have thought policy wonks were funny, but we’re about to prove you wrong with:

“It’s a Funny World”

Featuring

* Ophira Eisenberg
* Ian Bremmer
* Kevin Bleyer
* Robert George
* With emcee Christian Finnegan

Monday, September 13 at COMIX
343 West 14th Street (just east of Ninth Avenue)

For more information and tickets click HERE.

”We’ve got a structural problem where Americans aren’t being matched up properly with the jobs that are available,” Michele Wucker from the World Policy Institute told CNBC, adding that the stimulus plan needs “to be used wisely.”

by Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
June 20, 2010

Amid a growing national angst about illegal immigration, Americans keep hearing a chorus: Secure the border first. Then talk about immigration reform….

……..Michele Wucker, executive director of the World Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, said border incursions happen wherever two countries have unequal economies or black-market trade.

Wucker, author of “Lockout: Why America Keeps Getting Immigration Wrong,” said those who demand a sort of iron curtain prior to policy change are obstructionists: “It means don’t ever come up with a workable system.”

Arizona has the most to gain from a new policy paradigm, Wucker argued, because the status quo made the state a thoroughfare for smuggling. Yet the state’s political leaders, caught up in a wave of public opinion, no longer press for reform.

“When I see John McCain saying, ‘Build the dang fence,’ I’m very sad,” Wucker said. “Arizona would benefit more than any other state from immigration reform at a national level. They’re really cutting off their nose to spite their face.”

“We’ve had zero reports of violent attacks since the quake,” says Michele Wucker, executive director of the World Policy Institute and author of Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola. Dominican officials have also been instrumental in helping international aid groups access their earthquake-ravaged neighbor, Wucker says.

Follow this link to read the whole article. The article is available in French at nouvelobs.com as “Comment Haïti et la République Dominicaine ont fait la paix.”

In the days following the earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince and killed over 200,000 people, the United States granted temporary protected status (TPS) to those undocumented immigrants from Haiti who were living in the United States prior to the date of the quake. It was the right thing to do after such an “act of God.” Yet, it stood in stark contrast to the failure of the United States to use its migration policy to help Haitians in 2008, when the island was struck by a series of natural disasters that were arguably man-made—a series of storms made increasingly more frequent and violent by rising sea levels and temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

Posted March 19, 2010. For the full article visit the links above.

Video of my discussion with Yolande James, Minister of Cultural Communities, Government of Quebec, at the World Policy Institute April 7, 2010.

Canada has long taken pride in its reputation for successfully welcoming immigrants. Nevertheless, like other immigrant destinations, it has faced challenges like combating racism, matching immigrants’ skills with appropriate jobs, and ensuring that immigrants have the language skills they need. Under a bilateral agreement with the Canadian federal government, Québec is able to make its own policies on the immigrants it selects, and to design and implement its own policies on integration and diversity -that is, “immigrant” policies, and not just “immigration” policies.

Québec’s Minister of Immigration and Cultural Communities Yolande James, the daughter of Canadian citizens who emigrated from St. Lucia and St. Vincent, spoke with WPI Executive Director Michele Wucker about Québec’s successes and the lessons that it has learned.  Minister James also spoke about how Québec has used immigration policies to support Haiti following the January 12 earthquake.

Excerpt:

Acknowledging the rights of immigrant groups, “recognizing special ties among particular groups of countries” and reciprocation are often part and parcel of granting suffrage, says Michele Wucker, executive director of the World Policy Institute. The EU, the Commonwealth, Brazil, Portugal and Spain are cases in point. However, the decision in South Korea had the effect of enfranchising mostly Taiwanese immigrants rather than being a “quid pro quo” reform benefiting Japan, and the country has thus far only indicated that it hopes for a similar move here in Japan. Also worth noting is that whereas 6,000 noncitizens benefited from the law change in South Korea, there are over 900,000 permanent foreign residents in Japan, including over 400,000 “special permanent residents” — mostly Koreans and Taiwanese who lived in Japan before and during the war, as well as their descendants.

So what about the argument that, rather than give voting rights to permanent residents, they should be encouraged to naturalize instead? This attitude is prevalent in North America, where noncitizen voting rights have been rolled back. In contrast, Chile introduced alien suffrage to in part to compensate for its slow, inefficient nationalization system.

“If people feel that they are part of a community with their neighbors, then they are more likely to embrace national values and even apply for citizenship as well,” suggests Wucker. Indeed, movements in Toronto as well as Rome have used this argument in pressing for the involvement of immigrant groups in local politics, though demonstrating objectively that granting foreigners the vote leads to an increased demand for naturalization has proved a challenge.

CLICK TO READ FULL STORY

Beyond Relief: Helping Haiti (Transcript)

Beyond Relief: Helping Haiti (Audio)

Speakers:

Pamela Cox, Vice President, Latin America and the Caribbean Region, World Bank Group

Arvind Subramanian, Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

Michele Wucker, Executive Director, World Policy Institute

Presider:

Marcus Mabry, International Business Editor, New York Times

Watch experts discuss the political and economic challenges facing Haiti and the role foreign aid can play in the country’s recovery and development.

Il faut à tout prix éviter de refaire les erreurs du passé et utiliser la reconstruction comme une occasion d’engager la société civile haïtienne…..

• Par Michele Wucker
• Michele Wucker est la directrice exécutive du World Policy Institute (Institut des politiques mondiales) et l’auteure de Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola [Pourquoi le coq se bat: Dominicains, Haïtiens et le combat pour Hispaniola]

(translation of the article that appeared on ForeignPolicy.com Jannuary 19th)