Areas of Expertise

• Migration, asylum, and refugee issues
• Migration cooperation/migration diplomacy
• Return and deportations
• Reintegration in countries of origin
• Root causes of migration
• Human trafficking and smuggling
• Unaccompanied minors/child migration
• Larbor market integration
• Migration policies of Germany, Europe, and the United States
• Transatlantic relations and US-Latin American relations

Short Bio

Victoria Rietig is head of the Center for Migration at DGAP. 

Rietig has twenty years of experience working on migration, asylum, and refugee issues. She is the author of dozens of publications, has given hundreds of lectures and trainings on migration-related topics, and regularly comments on current migration issues in leading German and international media. She has conducted research in numerous countries, especially in Europe; North, Central, and South America; North and West Africa; and the Middle East.

Before building up and leading DGAP’s Migration Program from 2019 to 2024, Rietig advised government agencies and foundations in Europe and the United States as an expert on migration policies. Prior to that, she worked as an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, and a consultant at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research in New York. 

Rietig graduated from Harvard University with a master’s degree in public policy with a focus on human trafficking and forced migration. She also completed a Magister at the Freie Universität Berlin with a focus on migration and integration. 

From 2019 to 2021, Rietig was an appointed member of the German Federal Government’s Commission on the Root Causes of Displacement.

Languages

German, English, Spanish

[Last updated: April 2025]