Worldwide International Visitors at CIBS

The Center for Inter-American and Border Studies received about 19 members of the International Visitor Leadership Program with the U.S. Department of State. On April 26, 2019, Joe Heyman, director of CIBS spoke with visitors from Argentina, Botswana, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Lithuania, Suriname, among other countries, about immigration and current issues at the U.S.-Mexico border. Dr. Heyman spoke about the research projects conducted about the border, and explained how the US government constructs migration as a national security threat. However, immigration “is not a threat,” he pointed out. Additionally, he spoke about the situation at the border before the rise of violence in Mexico, what led to such levels of violence, climate change and the resulting climate migration. The focuses at CIBS, he said, heavily relies on human rights in migration, the shared environment between the U.S. and México, and the social and cultural connections at the US-Mexico border.