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CGMS March 2019 Conference: Kicked Out: U.S. Detention & Deportation Policy

Conference Information

March 28, 2019

Prince George's Room, Stamp Student Union

University of Maryland, College Park, MD

About the Conference

On March 28, 2019, the Center for Global Migration Studies will host Kicked Out, an interdisciplinary conference examining the history and contemporary impact of United States detention and deportation policies. Brining together leading scholars, public officials, students, activists, and community members, the conference is a venue to discuss the use of detention and deportation, the impact on communities, and strategies for responding.

The conference will feature a panel discussion on the national/transnational context of Detention. Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, will deliver a keynote address discussing migrant communities and the carceral state.

Conference Schedule

1:00 pm
Introductory Remarks
Julie Greene, Co-Director, Center for Global Migration Studies, University of Maryland

1:15 pm
Panel Discussion: National/Transnational Context of Detention
Moderator: Christina Getrich (University of Maryland, College Park)

Madeline Hsu (University of Texas, Austin), "Banned Bodies in Forbidden Places: Challenges of Enforcing U.S. Immigration Policy."

Robert Koulish (University of Maryland, College Park), "Detaining Immigrants by Manipulating Risk."

Abel Núñez (Executive Director, Central American Resource Center), Conditions in Central America and Connections to the U.S.

2:45 pm
Light Reception

3:30 pm
Keynote: "Migrants and the Carceral State."
Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Professor of History and African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

Conference Participants

Christina Getrich

Christina Getrich is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Maryland and Associate Director of the Center for Global Migration Studies. Her work examines Latino health disparities and the incorporation of mixed-immigration status families into U.S. society. She explores the lived and embodied experiences of immigration policies and enforcement practices in order to determine how Latino immigrants, their children, and advocates must maneuver to fight for broader social inclusion. Her current projects include an exploration of the health and wellbeing of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients in Maryland and a longitudinal study that follows the lives of second-generation Mexicans who grew up in mixed-status families living in the San Diego-Tijuana borderlands as they have transitioned from teenagers to young adults.

Julie Greene

Julie Greene is Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park with particular interest in the history of labor, the working-class, and immigration. She is founding co-director, along with Ira Berlin, of the Center for Global Migration Studies. Her most recent book, The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal, focuses on the tens of thousands of workingmen and workingwomen who traveled from all around the world to live and labor on the canal project. Dr. Greene is currently working on two book projects. the first, titled Box 25: Exploring the World of Caribbean Workers, uses a set of remarkable memoirs written by canal workers (and held in Box 25 at the Library of Congress) as the starting point for a recreation of their travels and travails. The second project, titled Movable Empire: Labor Migratiosn and the Making of U.S. Global Power, 1890-1934, examines the role of labor migration in the making of the U.S. 'New Empire', and spans across the Caribbean, Central America, and onward to Hawaii and the Philippines.

Hernandez

Kelly Lytle Hernandez is Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is also the Interim Director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA. One of the nation’s leading experts on race, immigration, and mass incarceration, she is the author of the award-winning books, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border Patrol (University of California Press, 2010), and City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). City of Inmates recently won the 2018 James Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians, 2018 Athearn Prize from the Western Historical Association, the 2018 John Hope Franklin Book Prize from the American Studies Association, and the 2018 American Book Award. Currently, Professor Lytle Hernandez is the Principal Investigator for Million Dollar Hoods, a university-based, community-drive research project that maps the fiscal and human cost of mass incarceration in Los Angeles. The Million Dollar Hoods team won a 2018 Freedom Now! Award from the Los Angeles Community Action Network. For her leadership on the Million Dollar Hoods team, Professor Lytle Hernandez was awarded the 2018 KCET Local Hero Award.

Hsu

Madeline Hsu is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and vice-president of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas and served as Director of the Center for Asian American Studies 2006-2014. Dr. Hsu received her undergraduate degrees in History from Pomona College and PhD from Yale University. Her first book was Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford University Press, 2000). Her most recent monograph, The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority (Princeton University Press, 2015), received awards from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, and the Association for Asian American Studies. Her third book, Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction was published by Oxford University Press in 2016 and the co-edited anthology, A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: U.S. Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965 is forthcoming in 2018 from the University of Illinois Press.

Koulish

Robert Koulish is Director of MLaw Programs, administered through the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSOS). MLaw is a collaboration between UMCP and the UM Carey School of Law, driven by MPOWER. Koulish is also Joel J. Feller Research Professor in Government and Politics and Lecturer at Law at the UMD Carey School of Law in Baltimore, where he teaches a seminar in immigration law and policy. Dr. Koulish earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Wisconsin and his Bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied politics and philosophy. He has traveled to and conducted research in Central Europe and along the U.S. Mexico border, investigating human rights abuses, refugees and patterns and practices of social control within legal institutions.

Nunez

Abel Núñez joined the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN) as its incoming Executive Director in March 2013. Mr. Nunez has a well-rounded background in nonprofit management and fundraising, as well as a history of community activism. Prior to CARECEN, he was Associate Director of Centro Romero in Chicago, IL, and was primarily responsible for the day to day operations, fiscal management, program administration, and communications. Mr. Núñez has a Bachelor’s of Business Administration from Hofstra University. Before he moved to Chicago, he worked in D.C. for the Latino Civil Rights Center. From 1998 to 2000, he was also on the staff of CARECEN serving first as its Citizenship and Civic Participation Project Coordinator and later as its Deputy Director. Nationally, Mr. Núñez has served since 2008 on the Board of the Salvadoran American National Network (SANN). He is one of the founding members of the Residency Now campaign which was launched in January 2012 and seeks to obtain lawful permanent residency for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua under Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Mr. Núñez received Georgetown University’s John Thompson Jr. Legacy of a Dream Award.

Co-Sponsors

This event was co-sponsored by the Organization of American Historians and University of Maryland's College of Arts and Humanities, Department of History, U.S. Latina/o Studies Program, MLaw Program, Latin American Studies Center, Department of American Studies, Department of Women's Studies, and Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity.

Conference Visitor Information

Find information on parking, lodging and transportation to the University of Maryland.