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Collaborative on Global Children's Issues

April 18, 2023

“Alone and Exploited”?

The Impacts of U.S. Immigration Enforcement on Child Migration and Labor

In February 2023, the New York Times published “Alone and Exploited,” a harrowing article on the experiences of newly-arrived migrant children in the United States who are often exploited for their work in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws. Having crossed the U.S. southern border unaccompanied, many of these young people are under pressure to earn money to support their families back home, pay rent and living expenses, as well as debts to smugglers, while also attending school and navigating immigration and asylum systems with little support. Following an onslaught of criticism, the White House promised an investigation to “crack down” on migrant child labor and new mechanisms to report abuse.

During this webinar, participants will explore the dynamics of migrant child labor in the United States. Will efforts to “crack down” on child labor stop exploitation? How will forthcoming changes to U.S. asylum processes impact migrant children and their livelihoods? Most importantly, what do migrant youth have to say about their experiences?

This event is co-sponsored by the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues and the Institute for the Study of International Migration.

Participants

Stephanie Canizales

Stephanie Canizales

Stephanie Canizales is professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Merced. Her research centers youth in the study of migration. Her forthcoming book Sin Padres ni Papeles interrogates how Central American and Mexican-origin youth navigate coming of age without parents and legal immigration status in the United States. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Stephanie is the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants whose experiences motivate her commitment to scholar-advocacy.

Katharine Donato

Katharine Donato

Katharine Donato is the Donald G. Herzberg Professor of International Migration in the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the School of Foreign Service. She is a member of the faculty committee for the Collaborative on Global Children's Issues.

Lauren Heidbrink

Lauren Heidbrink

Lauren Heidbrink is an anthropologist and associate professor of human development at California State University, Long Beach. She is a visiting fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego and with the Program in Latin American Studies at Princeton University. Heidbrink is author of Migrant Youth, Transnational Families, and the State: Care and Contested Interests (2014) and Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation (2020).

Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez

Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez

Dr. Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez is a Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate in the history department at the University of Illinois, Chicago. A social and legal historian of child migration, her current book project traces the origins of undocumented youth labor trafficking, the "school-to-deportation" pipeline, and migrant child detention. Her writing has appeared in peer-reviewed academic venues as well as national media outlets like the Washington Post, Time, and Teen Vogue.

Gabriella Sanchez

Gabriella Sanchez

Gabriella Sanchez (moderator) is a research fellow with Georgetown University’s Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues. She is a border control and migration enforcement scholar. Trained as a sociocultural anthropologist, Sanchez has written extensively about migration-related crimes, drawing from her work with migrant communities in the Americas, North Africa, and Europe. Sanchez lives on the U.S.-Mexico border and earned a Ph.D. from Arizona State University.

Michele Statz

Michele Statz

Michele Statz is assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and affiliated faculty with the University of Minnesota Law School. She is an anthropologist of law and a leading researcher in rural and Indigenous access to justice. Statz is also involved in projects on global youth and mobility, the examination of best interests, and cause lawyering. Her first book, Lawyering an Uncertain Cause: Immigration Advocacy and Chinese Youth in the U.S., was published in 2018.

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