SPP Co-Hosts “Roundtable on Immigration Policy” at Pepperdine Washington, DC Campus

On Monday, June 3, 2024, the School of Public Policy co-hosted an off-the-record half-day conversation about US immigration policy with the bipartisan engagement organization, Braver Angels. It was held at Pepperdine’s campus building in Washington, DC. The fifteen participants represented diverse perspectives on immigration and came from various organizations from academia, activist organizations, think tanks, and former federal government officials.

School of Public Policy (SPP) dean Pete Peterson was part of the organizing committee and helped to structure the meeting to include both conversation and relationship-building elements. “Immigration is one of those policy areas, which suffers from deep distrust between activists, scholars, and policy makers on all sides of this issue,” described Peterson. “It was vital that SPP serve in the role of unbiased convener, making sure that there was viewpoint diversity in the room, and engaging a respected small group facilitator in David Blankenhorn from Braver Angels,” he added

Conversation questions focused on values and common ground among the participants. The group did not overlook the importance of having multiple viewpoints on immigration policy represented. At the conclusion of the discussion, one of the participants commented that it was a good idea to get everyone around the table. Another guest stated, “We haven’t made a lot of progress not talking; let’s try this.”

The unanimous opinion of the participants was that this meeting should serve as the first of future conversations in the near future.