AN INVITATION

2ND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CRITICAL MIGRATION SCHOLARSHIP

**NOVEMBER 4, 2023**

USF’s Master in Migration Studies (MIMS) is pleased to host its second international conference on Critical Migration Scholarship: “**Between Borders: The Fight to Belong.**”
The international conference is a gathering of communities dignifying migration through advocacy and collective knowledge.
It will address the topic of border externalization and its effect on communities on the US/Mexico border and other borders globally, bringing together scholars, practitioners and activists working on these topics around the world.
It will also feature research and engagement with migrant communities by MIMS faculty and students.
The final event of the conference will be the launch of USF professor Bill Ong Hing’s latest book *Humanizing Immigration: How to Transform our Racist and Unjust Immigration System*.
The conference will be followed by a reception at USF’s **Kalmanovitz Hall Auditorium**.
For any questions please don't hesitate to reach out to us directly through email at migrationstudies@usfca.edu.
For partnership opportunities, please email Jan Lee at jlee281@usfca.edu.
For those who can’t make the in-person event, a livestream is available and registration is also required as a virtual attendee. Thank you.

REGISTER NOW

LIVESTREAM LINK AVAILABLE ON NOV 4 REGISTER NOW

we believe migration is beautiful.

SPEAKER BIOS

BORDER EXTERNALIZATION AND THE FIGHT TO BELONG ACROSS THE WORLD

Nunu Kidane is a founding-member and current Executive Director of Priority Africa Network (PAN) an advocacy organization based in Oakland. She is a graduate of the UC Berkeley with decades experience working on issues of race and immigration, nationally and globally. Nunu is also a founding member of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) the PanAfrican Network in Defense of Migrants Rights and serves as an Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace & Dignity. In 2012, Nunu was recognized by the Obama administration and received the "Champions of Change" award for her work with Black diasporic communities.
Edgar is a doctor in anthropology by the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS) in Mexico City. His main research interests include migrations, border critical studies, coloniality and race. He is currently a member of the research project: "Vulnerabilities, racism and political subjectivities in Tunisia: the ethnographic case of migrants from West Africa", funded by the Maghreb Action on Displacement and Rights (MADAR) british network, in partnership with the Institute for Research on the Contemporary Maghreb (IRMC) of Tunis. He was a doctoral student associated with IRMC-Tunis and a member of the international research group "Temporalities of Future" a German-Mexican binational study and research program at the Freie Universität Berlin). The Mexican Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) awarded him the national prize "Fray Bernardino de Sahagún" for his master's thesis in 2018.
Holding a PhD in Political, Cultural and Historical Geography Sorbonne and qualified as associate professor in section 23-CNU, she have delivered undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Paris Cité University and Sorbonne University. She has conducted a series of empirical surveys in the cities and camps of sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco, with the aim of understanding bordering process and the instruments of spatial dispersal politics. Her research lies at the intersection between studies on the effects of the European externalization of border controls in Morocco and the study of solidarity dynamics and infra-Polis stogrants and wited incomer, she pointed the Asiciand of solidarity for intermediary groups. She joined the Political Anthropology Laboratory (EHESS and CNRS) and the City Diplomacy Lab of Columbia Global Centers-Paris as an associate researcher.

BORDER EXTERNALIZATION AND THE FIGHT TO BELONG ON THE US/MEXICO BORDER

Doctor in Social Sciences, academic at the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico and professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City. She consults for various international organizations. He has worked on research projects in Colombia and Mexico since 2007, such as the PRONACES-CONACYT Spatial Justice project in a research stay in Ciesas-Sureste, also a project on notable works have focused on return migration and citizenship in the Migration, Inequality, and Public Policies Seminar from El Colegio de Mexico during a postdoctoral fellow. Her lines of research are mainly linked to inequalities, mobilities and borders. Her most notable works have focused on understanding the relationship between mobility and citizenship, particularly in the framework of the return processes in Tijuana and Mexico City, and transit on the southern border of Mexico and on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, to from a critical reflection on the State and Governance. She is part of the CLACSO Migration and South-South Borders Working Group. She is a member of the National System of Researchers of Mexico Level C.
Nicole Elizabeth Ramos is the Director of Al Otro Lado's Border Rights Project, a program which conducts human rights monitoring, legal orientation and accompaniment for asylum seekers at the US-MX border, and spearheads litigation challenging border enforcement policies which restrict access to the US asylum process. Nicole also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Temple University Beasley School of Law, and is a frequent lecturer at universities and law schools throughout the United States and Mexico regarding the impact of restrictive border policies on the right to seek asylum. Nicole's advocacy on behalf of migrants at the US-Mexico border has earned her a place on Operation Secure Line, a binational government watch list maintained by the US and Mexican governments targeting attorneys, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists supporting the Central American migrant caravans.
Originally from Spain, Jesus is a research fellow at the Hope Border Institute in El Paso-Ciudad Juárez at the U.S.-Mexico border. He is an alumnus of the Master's in Mitratin Studies ip the Unsoilty a Ma Fris in Eurian unstudied un dachelor's in International Relations (studied in Spain and Brazil). He has been honored to accompany migrant justice advocacy movements in Spain, the U.S., and Central America. His research interests focus on border externalization policies, comparative migration policies, and the root causes of forced migration. He believes everyone has the right to migrate and thrive where they would like to stay.

MIMS PROGRAM SPOTLIGHT

MASTER IN MIGRATION STUDIES (MIMS) FACULTY AND STUDENT RESEARCH ON BORDERS, ASYLUM AND BELONGING PANELISTS

Amy Argenal completed her doctorate in International and Multicultural Education at the University of San Francisco, where she also received her Master's in the same area of study. She received her second Masters in Human Rights from Mahidol University in Thailand, where she continued to partner with human rights activists in South East Asia, through her doctoral research focusing on human rights activism in Myanmar. Amy served as the Director of Service Learning at Urban High School in San Francisco for eight years. She has taught at the University of San Francisco in the School of Education and the Master of Migration Studies as well as the Human Rights Studies minor at UC Davis. She is currently an Assistant Teaching Professor of Community-Engaged Research and Learning in the Sociology Department at the University of California Santa Cruz. In addition to her work, she engages in immigrant and refugee rights work and partners with local communities in Central America in their struggle to defend land and water.
Jane Pak is Co-Executive Director at Refugee and Immigrant Transitions (RIT), and Adjunct Professor in the Master in Migration Studies program at the University of San Francisco. Jane’s work is informed by Critical Refugee Studies, liberatory education, community-engaged research, and her family history of forced migration, resistance, and community care. She brings 20+ years of experience in education in various contexts across nonprofit, higher education, government, and business sectors. She is presently co-developing a community research practice at RIT that aims to coalesce community knowledge to inform systems change. Jane holds a Doctorate in International & Multicultural Education from the University of San Francisco; MA in International Educational Administration and Policy Analysis from Stanford University; MBA from Clarkson University; and BMATH from the University of Waterloo, Canada.
Angelica Soria is a student at the University of San Francisco in the Master in Migration Studies program. Before the University of San Francisco, Angelica received her Bachelors of Art in International Relations and Bachelors of Art in Public Policy from the University of Redlands. Angelica’s current research focuses on the militarization of the US-Mexico border through the increase of border enforcement and laws that criminalize migrants as well as on the anti-Mexican-immigrant rhetoric in the United States that is used to influence politics and society and vice versa. Angelica currently serves as the Treasurer for the Migration Studies & Solidarity Network (MSSN) and works as a paralegal in business immigration law.
Leticia Morales is a second-year student in the University of San Francisco's Master's in Migration Studies Program. They have a bachelor’s degree in psychology, gender studies, and Chicana/o/x Studies from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Their interest in migration issues stems from their experience as the child of two Mexican immigrants and a passion for social justice. Aside from immigrants’ rights movements, they are active in the Central American Solidarity movement, particularly through their work with the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). Leticia’s current work focuses on the mobility and forced displacement of queer bodies transiting through Mexico. Considering the increasing externalization of the United States’ border, civil society organizations in Mexico have had to play increasingly important roles in migration flows. Through a study of civil society organizations in Mexico, Leticia seek to address the voids in international migration governance and its historical lack of attention to LGBTQ+ migrants.
Sequoyah Vasquez Hilton is a second-year student in the Migration Studies Master’s program at the University of San Francisco. She received received her Bachelor’s of Arts in Political Science at the University of California Santa Barbara, and in her time studying became very interested in the role of US action in Latin American countries, the successive migration flows and displacement caused by those actions, and the militaristic response by the US at the US-Mexico border. She chose the MIMS program because of its faculty’s dedication to mixing what we learn in the classroom to real community action, and the commitment of the program to dignify and support migration. Currently, she is researching how remittances affect relationships between transnational Latine families over time, and the role of neoliberal government policies that shift the burden of economic support structures from the state to the family unit. She aims to conduct interviews with remitters, and learn how the pressure and stress of continued remittances affects their mental health and relationship with their family. In Sequoyah’s free time, she likes to draw, paint, woodburn and swim at China Beach!

MEET ALL OUR FACULTY HERE

Amy Argenal

PROFESSOR
Jane Pak

PROFESSOR
Angelica Soria

STUDENT COHORT 7
Leticia Morales

STUDENT COHORT 7
Sequoyah Hilton

STUDENT COHORT 7

migration is a human rights issue.

BOOK LAUNCH

USF Law Professor Bill Hing's Bio

Rev. Deborah Lee became the Executive Director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity in 2018. Prior to becoming Executive Director, Rev. Lee served since 2009 as the Program Director for the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity (and under its predecessor names: Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights and CLUE-CA). In that role, Rev. Lee built up the Immigrant Justice program of the organization, engaging dozens of congregations in Northern California to become Sanctuary congregations and to respond to the wave of migrant youth and families and the detention and deportation crisis. Her work has been recognized as innovative and impactful with awards from the United Nation’s Association of the East Bay, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy,and the national United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministry.
Lorena Melgarejo has served as the the Executive Director of Faith in Action since 2017. With over 20 years in community organizing experience, Lorena started her career as a union organizer for Justice for Janitors and later worked as a faith-based organizer for Faith in Action National. In 2005, she became Lead Organizer for San Francisco Organizing Project. Before she stepped into her Executive Director position with Faith in Action Bay Area, Lorena coordinated parish organizing and immigrant solidarity for Faith in Action and the San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese’s Office of Human Integrity. Lorena is a longtime resident of the Mission District in San Francisco.
Francisco Ugarte is a longtime immigrant rights and social justice advocate. Francisco currently manages the Immigration Defense Unit at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, where he provides direct representation for immigrants facing deportation, and advises criminal defenders how to avoid adverse immigration consequences resulting from a plea bargain. Hired and mentored by the late Jeff Adachi, he was named co-Public Defender of the Year in 2018 for his work representing Jose Ines Garcia Zarate in one of the country's highest profile homicide trials. In 2017 after the election of then President Donald Trump, Francisco helped lead the formation of the Public Defender's first deportation defense unit, designed to provide an emergency line of defense for immigrants in deportation proceedings but unable to afford a lawyer. The unit is now California’s largest deportation defense provider for immigrants who are detained and facing deportation. Prior to working at the Public Defender's Office, Francisco worked at Dolores Street Community Services, where he founded and built that organization's first deportation defense program amidst a climate of large scale workplace and home immigration raids. In 2009, Francisco litigated Matter of Garcia-Garcia, 25 I&N Dec. 93 (BIA 2009), the first immigration case which held that a non-citizen could request a court to order that ICE remove an ankle bracelet from a non-citizen in deportation proceedings. Francisco was recognized in 2015 by Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) for his work representing survivors of domestic violence wrongfully turned over to ICE for deportation, and in 2011 by Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) for his immigration raids defense work.
Francisco started his career as a union organizer in 1994, where he worked for eight years helping workers build and strengthen their unions. After graduating from CUNY School of Law in 2005, he worked as a labor attorney at Leonard Carder, LLP, where he defended workers and unions in state, federal, and administrative courts. He has played key roles in local and statewide fights to strengthen San Francisco's sanctuary ordinance, and frequently lectures on topics relating to the merger of immigration and criminal law. He is regularly quoted in the media on issues of immigrant rights.
Jacqueline Brown is an immigration attorney with experience solving a wide array of immigration issues pertaining to asylum, deportation defense, and family-based immigration.
Jacqueline began her career in immigration law at the San Francisco Immigration Court as an attorney advisor through the Department of Justice Honors Program. There, she wrote hundreds of orders and written decisions for the Immigration Judges. When working at her firm, she dedicated a significant part of her private practice to providing pro bono legal representation to individuals who are especially in need of legal services and unable to afford them. She has worked with the Board of Immigration Appeals Pro Bono Project, the National Center for Immigrant and Refugee Children, CLINIC’s National Pro Bono Project for Children, and the Community of East Palo Alto Legal Services. She received the San Francisco Bar Association’s 2010 Barrister of the Year Award, as well as the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s 2011 Pro Bono Benefactor and 2010 and 2014 Pro Bono Champion Awards, and the California Bar Association’s Wiley W. Manual Award. She is also one of nine recipients of the California Bar Association’s 2011 President Services Awards for her pro bono work with immigrant children.
Jacqueline is the Director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic.
Eric Cohen has been with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) since 1988, and has been its Executive Director since 2007. He has extensive experience training attorneys, paralegals, community advocates, and organizers on a variety of immigration law, immigrants’ rights, and leadership development topics. Eric is a national expert on naturalization and citizenship law and is the primary author of the ILRC’s manual entitled, Naturalization and U.S. Citizenship: The Essential Legal Guide. Eric helped develop ILRC's community model for naturalization workshops. Additionally, Eric has worked on voter outreach and education programs for naturalized citizens.
Prior to working at the ILRC, Eric worked with the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Labor Immigrant Assistance Project where he worked on legalization and union organizing campaigns.
Eric obtained a B.A. degree in History from Colorado College and a J.D. degree from Stanford Law School. He is conversant in Spanish and is a member of the State Bar of California.