KU News Release

Former commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization Service to speak at KU

LAWRENCE — Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, will address national policy issues associated with immigration at a lecture sponsored by the Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship at the University of Kansas.

Meissner will speak at 5:30 p.m. Monday, March 31, at the Spencer Museum of Art auditorium. Her lecture is titled “Immigration and America’s Future: Where are we going? Where should we be going?” and is part of the annual Self Graduate Fellowship Symposium for current Self fellows and alumni. The lecture is open to the public, but seating is limited.

Meissner is a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, where she directs the organization’s work on U.S. immigration policy. She also contributes to the institute’s work on immigration and national security, the politics of immigration, administering immigration systems and government agencies, and cooperation with other countries. MPI is a nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based policy research organization devoted to the study of international migration.

Meissner recently served as director of MPI’s Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future, a bipartisan group of distinguished leaders. The group’s report and recommendations address how to harness the advantages of immigration for a 21st century economy and society.

From 1993 to 2000, she served in the Clinton administration as commissioner of the INS, then part of the U.S. Department of Justice. She joined the department in 1973 as a White House fellow and special assistant to the attorney general. She served in various senior policy posts at the department until 1981, when she became acting commissioner of INS and then executive associate commissioner, the third ranking post in the agency.

In 1986, she joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a senior associate. Meissner created the endowment’s Immigration Policy Project, which became MPI in 2001.

Meissner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Inter-American Dialogue and the Pacific Council on International Diplomacy. She is also a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees, she began her professional career there as assistant director of student financial aid. She also was the first executive director of the National Women’s Political Caucus.

The Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship provides four years of support for exceptional doctoral students in science, engineering, business, economics and mathematics who demonstrate the promise to make significant contributions to their fields of study and society as a whole. Self fellows participate in a professional development program that provides general education and training in communication, management and leadership to prepare them for future leadership roles, complementing the specialized education and training provided in doctoral programs.

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