Marcela Escobari and Charles Lane

Marcela Escobari and Charles Lane are two of the nation’s leading experts in immigration, migration and asylum policy. The pair will present in tandem, building on the Chautauqua Lecture Series theme of “The 2026 Election: What’s at Stake?,” with an examination of our national dialogue on immigration as the election approaches — and, ultimately, the impact of immigration politics and policies on real people. The program opens a five-part weeklong series presented at Chautauqua in partnership with the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution, each program featuring experts from both organizations. Marcela Escobari is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. She has been twice confirmed by the U.S. Senate under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and most recently served in the White House National Security Council as special assistant to the president and coordinator for the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection. In this role, Escobari led efforts to promote safe, orderly and humane migration and advance a collaborative, regional response to the displacement of more than 8 million people across Latin America and the Caribbean. This regional response contributed to a more-than-70% decrease in irregular migration at the U.S. border in 2024, helping stabilize and integrate over 4.5 million migrants and refugees within Latin America. From 2021 to 2024, Escobari was assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, a position she also held from 2016 to 2017 as the first woman to serve in this role. Previously, as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, she launched the Workforce of the Future initiative focused on identifying policies to restore opportunity and enable inclusive growth in U.S. cities and states in the wake of globalization and COVID-19. Before joining government, Escobari was the executive director of Harvard’s…