The U.N. announced Monday that America’s Amy Pope, a onetime adviser to ex-U.S. President Barack Obama and White House incumbent Joe Biden, now heads its globalist migration agency.
UPI reports Pope, who said she was “humbled and honored” after defeating Director General António Vitorino of Portugal in a ballot, will serve as director general for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for a five-year term, starting on Oct. 1.
Pope said in a tweet after the vote she was looking forward to a key role in an issue that is growing in global importance from the Mexico border in the U.S. right across Europe and into Africa and Asia.
“I am committed to making IOM more representative of its member states so that as a global community, we can creatively and proactively respond to challenges while also harnessing the benefits of well-managed migration,” Pope said.
File/U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks alongside Amy Pope (L), Senior Director at the National Security Council, and Ali Mayorkas (R), Department of Homeland Security Deputy Secretary, during the opening session of the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, February 17, 2015. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
“With evolving threats posed by climate and conflict, together we can assist vulnerable communities on the move seeking protection and deliver on the promise of migration,” Pope added.
Pope has called climate change “one of the most significant challenges for our generation,” according to AFP.
She also argues the IOM should do far more to leverage its massive amounts of data to detect and address problems before they spark large migration flows.
“We need to flip the conversation,” Pope said in the AFP interview. “We can and we should begin to do interventions on the front end.”
The IOM was established in 1951 and tasked with leading globalist responses to mass migration.
Pope was Biden’s senior advisor on migration after he took office in 2021, having served under Obama as senior director on trans-border security (2013-2015) and then deputy homeland security advisor (2015-2017).
She came up with strategies for the White House on confronting migration surges, human trafficking and responding to Zika and Ebola outbreaks before leaving to join the IOM.
The 49-year-old U.S. lawyer had only been at the IOM since September 2021 as one of the U.N. agency’s two deputy directors before she challenged for the top job.
The U.S. remains the IOM’s single largest bilateral donor under the Biden administration.
The organization has nearly 19,000 staffers working in 171 countries to promote “humane and orderly” migration.