PERSON: Mark Krikorian

Center for Immigration Studies

Executive Director

Mark Krikorian has been the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an American anti-immigration think-tank, since 1995. Krikorian is a regular contributor to the conservative publication National Review. Krikorian is credited with popularizing the concept of illegal immigrant self-deportation with the term “attrition through enforcement,” and is an advisor to Project 2025, a right-wing conservative political initiative by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.

Krikorian was born in the United States to American-born parents of Armenian descent from the (former) Soviet Republic. His father worked as a chef and restaurant manager, moving his family from New Haven, to Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, and then Boston again, always living in densely Armenian neighborhoods. His parents spoke to their children in Armenian but to each other in English. Krikorian knew only Armenian when he entered kindergarten. He lost his right eye to a retinal blastoma while still a baby.

He earned his B.A. at Georgetown University and a master’s at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, further spending two years studying at the Yerevan State University in then-Soviet Armenia.

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