Ali Noorani is a 2023-24 Democracy Fellow at the Center for Effective Government (CEG) at the Harris School of Public Policy. maroon To talk about his career and talk about his books at the National Immigration Forum Beyond the border and his belief in the virtuous cycle of democracy.
Noorani earned a bachelor's degree in economics and social work from the University of California, Berkeley in 1996 and a master's degree in public health from Boston University in 1999. From 2008 he served as President and CEO of the National Immigration Forum until 2022. He currently serves as program director for the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Noorani is the author of two of his books.There Goes the Neighborhood: How communities overcome prejudice and confront the challenges of American immigration. and Beyond Borders: Reconciling a Nation of Immigrants—Also on the Substack blog titled: difficult fatherThere, he records his life as “an old man, a girl, and a father.”
Note: This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Chicago Maroon (CM): How did you become part of the Center for Effective Government?
Ali Noorani (AN): I knew [CEG Executive Director] Saadia [Sindhu] I've been really impressed over the past year and a half. [CEG’s] The goal is to build a talent pool that thinks about effective government, whether at the city, state or federal level. And at the moment, I feel that the more people who have the skills and curiosity to join the civil service, the better.
CM: You spent 14 years at the National Immigration Forum as Chairman and CEO. How have the organization's goals and agenda changed over that time? Fourteen years is a long time, especially for three presidents with vastly different views on immigration.
An: I got involved in immigration advocacy in late 2003, during the George W. Bush administration. I worked in Massachusetts and ended up running the National Immigration Forum in 2008. But throughout the course of the Bush administration, we see how Republicans thought this country needed to welcome immigrants, not just those at the bottom. From a labor perspective, there was a really compassionate conservative element to it, whether it was refugee resettlement, dealing with undocumented immigrants, or helping people process legal immigration.
That sentiment continued with President Obama on both the Democratic and Republican sides. However, as time passes, [the Obama presidency]This urgency was heightened by the rise in immigration due to reasons such as war, poverty, climate change, and impunity from other countries. And migration began to be weaponized by malicious actors. I think then we will begin to see the Syrian refugee crisis and how it has affected Syria's political strategy. [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán has become part of the British far-right's political strategy. And it really provided Mr. Trump and others with a very clear and convincing message to scare voters into some pretty tough, pretty anti-immigrant positions. [very] It's not where George W. Bush was.
CM: So where is the intersection between effective government and immigration reform? And is a lot of what you're doing with immigration reform about government effectiveness, or is this belief in Is it about other factors that are involved in an even more complex problem?
An: I think many Americans view the federal government's approach to immigration as a measure of whether the government is effective. The problem is, as you said, the immigration policy landscape is very complex. And it's very long. So the government may be doing something that is very effective and widely agreed upon when it comes to immigration in terms of processing visas, but then people's perceptions of what the government is doing at the border are changing. It's going to be very different. And one group may find it very effective and another group may find it ineffective. I don't know if the immigration debate is at a point where we can actually have a rational discussion about whether government is effective or not. Because the system is so broken that we have a long way to go before we reach a conclusion. No government, no matter how effective, can introduce or implement a system as fundamentally broken as our immigration system.
CM: Let's move on to the Hewlett Foundation for a moment. You're the program director there. So I'm curious to know what kind of work you specifically do, and what that looks like in terms of the public's level of trust in political and electoral systems.
An: The Hewlett Foundation's Democracy Program has an overarching goal of reducing political polarization. And we achieve that through her two different strategies. One is to promote credible elections, and the other is to strengthen national governing institutions. The basic idea here is that if someone participates in an election thinking they can be trusted and sees the national governing institutions delivering on their needs, the virtuous cycle of democracy will continue for another day. It means staying alive. The problem these days is that trust in elections and institutions is incredibly low. We are excited to partner with and support organizations from the center to the left to the right who are seeking to strengthen election infrastructure and processes and improve national governance institutions. It is a great honor to work for such an organization.
CM: And is the virtuous cycle you mentioned something that you're looking back at and trying to recreate that happened in the past, or is it going somewhere you've never been before and may not actually be able to get to? Do you mean the process of getting there?
An: I think it's “both”, right? I think the process is just as important as the product. If that process is not effective, much less likely to succeed, how do you rebuild trust in elections and institutions through a process that makes people feel included? It's important, but so are the results. Poll after poll shows that people like their representatives, right? But they don't like Congress as a whole.They trust their elections, but they don't. of Elections in general. So there's a dissonance there, a real gap that needs to be filled in terms of people's experience of democracy and their perception of democracy.
CM: In recent books, cross the borderYou offer very personal stories about individuals and families in Central America, set against the backdrop of migration at the U.S.-Mexico border. How important is the anecdotal aspect when discussing immigration in the United States?
An: You know, I think immigration is often reduced to a policy issue, or at best a political issue. More importantly for most Americans, I think immigration is a matter of cultural values. So when I was writing this book, I was always trying to think – well, what is the story that we're trying to tell? [the reader] Who is it and why did they decide they had to emigrate? What challenges and opportunities did they see? And what was the reaction, positive or negative, of their new home? By telling a story, people begin to see themselves in someone else's journey.
And we can have policy conversations. That way we can have political conversations. I think it's a mistake to think that the wisest policies are the most persuasive.
CM: You started a Substack blog. difficult father, recently. What's it been like working on a project like this? Those blog posts weave family into many of the issues we talk about and work on.
An: What I'm trying to do through CRanky Papa It's about taking a step back from work. It gives you a chance to think about what you have in mind without being too specific about a particular project. And having a 15-month-old surprises me every day. But it kind of comes back to the question, “How do we tell stories about a changing country?” If you are a policy student, you can have a conversation about policy. But we are not ordinary people.and difficult father It gives me an opportunity to communicate what I'm seeing, reading, and learning in a way that resonates a little more broadly.
CM: Going back to your university experience, have you had the opportunity to interact with students and faculty? What events and programs have you participated in so far?
An: I think it was last year or the year before, when we held an event at IOP. [Institute of Politics] With Russell Moore, who was a friend there. So this is probably my second time coming to campus. The University of Chicago has a good reputation, right? And the Harris School does a great job of not only helping people in government become more effective, but also getting people into government who want government to work more effectively. I think I have. And if you look at the federal government, I think we're going to see significant turnover in federal staff and expertise over the next few years. And where will the next generation of talent come from? It's coming from places like the University of Chicago.
CM: Finally, do you have any projects in mind right now, whether it's your work at the Hewlett Foundation, another book, or a creative work?
An: There was something that was going around in my little brain. I'm very interested in how people actually interact with government. As I said, I think people have a great experience at City Hall most of the time, right? You know who should fix the hole, and you know who you can yell at. And over and over again, your voice will be heard. I feel like the state government is a few clicks away and the federal government is a few clicks away. But ultimately, the federal government's impact on each of our lives is inversely proportional to how close it is to us. So I don't have a clear idea here, but let's see what happens with this.
