Jessica M. Vaughan

Jessica M. Vaughan currently holds the position of Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, where she has worked since 1992. Her area of expertise is immigration policy and operations, covering topics such as visa programs, immigration benefits, and immigration enforcement and public safety.

Vaughan teamed up in 2022 with the University of Houston’s Borders, Trade, and Immigration Institute and Sam Houston State University’s Institute for Homeland Security to launch the annual Conference to Combat Human Trafficking. She has directed a Department of Justice-funded project on the use of immigration law enforcement in transnational gang suppression. In addition, she is an instructor for senior law enforcement officer training seminars at Northwestern University's Center for Public Safety in Illinois and she routinely speaks at law enforcement and academic conferences around the country.

She has testified before Congress dozens of times, including before both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Most recently, she testified before the House Judiciary Committee on both “Restoring Integrity and Security to the Visa Process" and on “Restoring Immigration Enforcement in America.” Vaughan has also testified before several other congressional committees — including Homeland Security, Oversight and Accountability, and Natural Resources — and regularly advises federal and state lawmakers, agencies, and citizen groups on immigration policy and its impacts.

Prior to joining the Center, Mrs. Vaughan was a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department, where she served in Belgium and Trinidad & Tobago. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, National Review, Boston Globe, The Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, the National Interest, Arizona Republic, and other publications, and can be found at cis.org. She is frequently cited in news media reports on immigration, and has appeared on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and PBS's NewsHour. She is on X (Twitter) at @JessicaV_CIS.

Mrs. Vaughan has a master's degree from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree from Washington College in Maryland.