Event: Workshop: “Contested Terrain: Undocumented Migration and Enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico Border”
When: Monday, Oct. 10, 10 a.m.4 p.m.
Where: Conference Room, Second Floor, Benson Library. A map is available online.
Background: Hundreds of thousands of unauthorized people continue to cross the border annually. U.S. government responses have included doubling the size of the Border Patrol to almost 20,000, increasing the prosecution of migrants and spending billions of dollars in constructing a fence/wall across hundreds of miles on the border.
Workshop panelists will address the impacts of heightened border enforcement on local communities, responses of Mexican migrants to increased enforcement, local reactions to the construction of the border fence/wall and Mexican government responses to migration-related events at the northern Mexican border.
Panels are:
New U.S. Enforcement Strategy and Perspectives from Mexico, moderated by Nestor Rodriguez, professor of sociology and Population Research Center research associate at The University of Texas at Austin. Rodriguez is author of works focusing on Mexican and Central American migration and U.S. deportations. His research includes investigating the impact of U.S. deportations to Mexico and Central America on migrants, communities and families, both in the United States and in their countries of origin.
Barricading the Border and Clandestine Crossings, moderated by Bryan Roberts, C.B. Smith, Sr., Chair on U.S.-Mexico Relations at The University of Texas at Austin. Roberts is author of numerous books and articles focusing on migration, urbanization and other social developments in many Latin American countries. His research includes a study of forced and voluntary return migration to Mexico (Jalisco) and Central America.
The event is sponsored by the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies and Mexican Center with support from the Department of Sociology, Center for Mexican American Studies, Population Research Center and the C. B. Smith, Sr. Centennial Chair in U.S.-Mexico Relations.
