LAII Hosts Symposium on "Borderline Slavery: Contemporary Issues in Border Security and the Human Trade"

October 18, 2012

Today (Thursday, Oct. 18) the Latin American & Iberian Institute (LAII) hosts a one-day symposium to promote scholarship, public awareness, and effective public policy to combat human trafficking in Mexico, the United States, and our shared border region. The symposium, "Borderline Slavery: Contemporary Issues in Border Security and the Human Trade," will take place from 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. in the UNM Student Union Building, Ballroom A. Scholars from around the country will address border security and human rights, immigration and human trafficking in the U.S. - Mexico borderlands. The event is free and open to the public; no registration required.

A special keynote luncheon will be held with Sociology Professor Timothy Dunn, Salisbury University, from 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. in Lobo A & B. This event, too, is free and open to the public; no registration required. Dunn began working at SU in the fall of 1999, several months after completing a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He lived in El Paso, Texas, from 1994-1999 conducting field research for his dissertation, which was a case study of immigration enforcement and the Border Patrol in the El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua portion of the US-Mexico border, centering on bureaucracy, human rights, and civic action for social change. The University of Texas Press published an updated version of it as a book, titled Blockading the Border and Human Rights: The El Paso Operation that Remade Immigration Enforcement (May 2009). He also wrote a 1996 book on border enforcement titled The Militarization of the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1978-1992: Low Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home (Center for Mexican American Studies, UT-Austin).

Event Information:  For more comprehensive information about the symposium, including an agenda, please see the "Borderline Slavery: Contemporary Issues in Border Security and the Human Trade" webpage. For additional comments or questions, please contact the LAII at laii@unm.edu or 505.277.2961.

Information provided in part by UNMToday.