PROTECTING CHILDREN ON
THE BORDER
A Conference addressing how best to protect the human dignity and human rights of
unaccompanied immigrant children for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers.
Agenda
Friday, June 13
10: 30 a.m.
Panel I – Collateral Damage and Collective Responsibility:
Migration, Violence, and the Relationships between the
United States, Mexico, and Central America
Kroc Institute of Peace & Justice, AB
Introductions:
Ev Meade, Director, Trans-Border Institute, an historian of Human
Rights, with fifteen years of experience working with asylum seekers and
unaccompanied immigrant children from Mexico and Central America.
Eileen Truax, Director of Spanish-language Media, National Association
of Hispanic Journalists (Los Angeles, CA) and author of Dreamers: La lucha
de una generación por su sueño Americano (México: Océano, 2013).
Elana Zilberg, Associate Professor of Communications, The University
of California, San Diego, and author of Space of Detention: The Making of a
Transnational Gang Crisis between Los Angeles and San Salvador (Durham: Duke
University Press, 2001).
David Pedersen, Associate Professor of Anthropology, The University of
California, San Diego, and author of American Value: Migrants, Money, and
Meaning in El Salvador and the United States (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2013).
M. Aryah Somers, Children's Attorney and Policy Consultant, United
National High Commission for Refugees. Co-author and researcher of
Children on the Run: Unaccompanied Children Leaving Central America and Mexico
and the Need for International Protection, UNHCR, 2014.
TRANS-BORDER INSTITUTE
KIPJ, Suite #238 | 5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, CA 92110-2492
P: (619) 260-7919 | F: (619) 849-8123 | www.sandiego.edu/tbi
–2–
June 10, 2014
Moderator:
Olivia Ruiz, Professor of Cultural Studies, El Colegio de la Frontera
Norte, Tijuana, B.C., author of Reflecciones sobre la identidad de los pueblos
(Tijuana: COLEF, 1996) and numerous scholarly articles on the
relationships between migration, violence, and gender.
1:15 pm
Panel II – Right Here, Right Now:
Screening and Protecting Children at Risk of Violence,
Human Trafficking, and Domestic Abuse
Kroc Institute of Peace & Justice, AB
Ami Carpenter, Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution, University of
San Diego, researcher specializing in street gangs and sex-trafficking, and
co-founder of the San Diego Human Trafficking Advisory Council
Alex Sánchez, Executive Director, Homies Unidos, Los Angeles, CA, an
organization that works to reduce youth violence in the predominantly
Central American Immigrant communities in L.A. and in San Salvador.
Joyce Capelle, CEO, Crittenton Services for Children and Families,
Fullerton, CA, a contractor with the Office of Refugee Resettlement
(ORR) that provides short-term assessment and group home care for
youth in federal care while they are screened for trafficking, abuse, and
neglect prior to a determination of status by immigration courts.
Matthew Elijio Cannon, Children’s Program Director, Casa Cornelia Law
Center, San Diego, CA, and pro bono immigration attorney representing
juvenile victims of abuse, abandonment, neglect, and/or persecution.
3:00
Panel III – Compassion, but also Justice:
Providing Effective Legal Representation to
Unaccompanied Immigrant Children
Kroc Institute of Peace & Justice, AB
Gladis Molina, Managing Attorney, the Children’s Program, Florence
Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (Florence, AZ), with extensive
experience representing unaccompanied immigrant children at all stages of
their immigration claims in Arizona, the Rio Grande Valley, and Los
Angeles.
–3–
June 10, 2014
Meghan Johnson, Managing Attorney, ABA ProBAR Children's Project
(Harlingen, TX), an immigration lawyer specializing in representing
detained unaccompanied children.
Ashley Huebner, Managing Attorney of the Asylum Project and
Immigrant Children’ s Protection Project, National Immigrant Justice
Center (NIJC) (Chicago, IL), chair of the Asylum Committee of the
Chicago Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and
leader in providing training and legal support to pro bono attorneys
representing asylum seekers through NIJC.
Carmen M. Chávez, Executive Director, Casa Cornelia Law Center,
which has provided pro bono representation to all unaccompanied minors
detained in San Diego County since 2001, an attorney who has provided
legal services to the indigent immigration community in San Diego County
for over 18 years and mentored many public interest and pro bono
immigration lawyers.
Rosalind Oliver, Supervising Attorney for Pro Bono Programs, Kids in
Need of Defense (Los Angeles, CA), provides mentorship and supervision
pursuant to a pro bono model utilizing law firms, corporations, NGOs,
universities and volunteers to provide quality and compassionate legal
counsel to unaccompanied refugee and immigrant children in the U.S.
4:45 p.m.
Discussion – From Triage to Strategic Planning:
Setting a Research and Advocacy Agenda to Better Protect
Unaccompanied and Displaced Children