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Symposium Abstract
The published articles from the 2005 symposium open with Marc Belanger’s Immigration, Race, and Economic Globilization on the U.S.-Mexican Border: Tangled Histories and Contemporary Realities. Belanger offers explanations for why immigration policies and political movements have been unsuccessful. Belanger relates historical issues of national identity and race in the United States before emphasizing the role of immigration in globalization and economic order. In “Labor as Property: Guestworkers, International Trade, and the Democracy Deficit,”
Ruben J. Garcia focuses on guestworker programs aimed at providing temporary employment in the United States and unskilled workers’ lack of bargaining power. Garcia then describes the deleterious effect that this lack of bargaining power has on the global market and how the solution is to decrease the number of guestworker programs instead of expanding them.
Natsu Taylor Saito identifies commonly accepted presumptions that form a basis for policies and policy discussions on border security. She then summarizes the fundamental problems of these presumptions and argues that border security is not advanced by pursuing policies based on these presumptions.
In At the Border: What Tres Mujeres Tell Us About Walls and Fences, M. Isabel Medina argues that restrictive border policies should be replaced by policies that treat the border as a unified whole. Medina uses personal narratives to illustrate that communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have much in common. She then suggests the creation of a border area to be regulated by a binationial authority. Such a policy would inure benefits to both countries, such as enhancing national security and residential life.
Patricia Medige's article The Labyrinth: Pursuing a Human Trafficking Case in Middle America exposes hardships experienced by a group of migrant farm workers who claimed violations under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act against a human trafficker who brought the farmers into the United States. The article suggests possible improvements to the protections for victims of human trafficking and other exploitation.
Cultural Assimilation as a Mitigating Factor to Immigration Offenses under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines by Blair T. Westover examines cultural assimilation as a mitigating factor in reentry cases against illegal immigrants. The Note outlines the operation of federal sentencing guidelines in the context of illegal immigration reentry. It also argues that federal sentencing guidelines do not forbid cultural assimilation as a mitigating factor because cultural assimilation is related to factors explicitly allowed, and is unrelated to national origin and the threat of deportation.
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Symposium Articles
Marc Belanger, "Immigration, Race, and Economic Globalization on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Tangled Histories and Contemporary Realities."
Ruben J. Garcia, "Labor as Property: Guestworks, International Trade, and the Democracy Deficit."
Natsu Taylor Saito, "Border Constructions: Immigration Enforcement and Territorial Presumptions."
M. Isabel Medina, "At the Border: What Tres Mujeres Tell Us About Walls and Fences."
Patricia Medige, "The Labyrinth: Pursuing a Human Trafficking Case in Middle America."
Blair T. Westover, "Cultural Assimilation as a Mitigating Factor to Immigration Offenses under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines." |
