IGL Student Group Speaker Series on Migration: Beyond the US-Mexican Border
Speaker: Dr. Katrina Burgess, Associate Professor of Political Economy, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
Title: Beyond the US-Mexican Border: Human and Policy Challenges of Transit Migration through Mexico
Description: This presentation will challenge prevailing myths about migration south of the US border. By tracing the difficult and dangerous journey facing migrants from Central America, Haiti, and elsewhere who must cross Mexico to get to the US border, it will seek to humanize the migrants while shining a critical light on the restrictive and security-oriented migration policies currently in place. It will conclude with a proposal for a paradigm shift that prioritizes protection over punishment and recognizes the unintended consequences of criminalizing migrants and migration.
Katrina Burgess is Associate Professor of Political Economy. Before joining the Fletcher faculty, she taught at Syracuse (the Maxwell School), Brown, UCLA, and the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM). She is author of Parties and Unions in the New Global Economy, which won the 2006 Outstanding Book Award for the best publication on labor issues granted by the Section on Labor Studies and Class Relations of the Latin American Studies Association, and co-editor with Abraham F. Lowenthal of The California-Mexico Connection. Her current project addresses the impact of migration and remittances on the quality of democracy in developing countries. She has also served as Assistant Director of the U.S.-Mexico Project at the Overseas Development Council in Washington, D.C. and Associate Director of the California-Mexico Project at USC in Los Angeles.