‘Latino USA’ Host To Discuss Deportation At NMSU Immigration Conference

The daughter of immigrants and award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa will discuss the detention and deportation of immigrants tonight during the second day of the 2012 Immigration Policy Conference at NMSU.

Hinojosa, the host of the long-running radio show ?Latino USA,? which airs on National Public Radio, is the keynote speaker. Her speech is titled ?Stories from the Frontlines: Detention, Deportation and the New America.?

The conference, which runs through June 22, features scholars from different backgrounds and institutions from the United States and Mexico in a series of panels. They will explore the relationship between security policies and immigration, education and immigration, legacies of the old Bracero Program, human trafficking on the U.S.-Mexico border, and enforcement policies.

Organizers say the conference help focus on the social impacts of border enforcement and discusses the challenges facing community organizations as they seek to promote dialogue and alternative approaches based on respect for human rights.

Jose Villalobos, of the University of Texas at El Paso, will examine the gap between the Obama administration?s promises and immigrant deportation.

The conference will feature Neil Harvey, head of New Mexico State University?s Department of Government; Susan Tiano, director of NMSU?s Latin American and Iberian Institute; Alvaro Martinez of the Autonomous University of Chiapas; Luis Alfonso Herrera of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez; Diana Bustamante, executive director of the Las Cruces-based Colonias Development Council; and Kathleen Staudt and Lizely Madrigal-Gonzalez of UTEP?s Department of Political Science.

As part of the organizers? goal of connecting community with academia, some participants will visit Chaparral, a low-income community with a large immigrant population in southern New Mexico?s Dona Ana County, and meet with staff members and farmworkers at the Border Agricultural Workers Center in neighboring El Paso.

All the conference panels, which are scheduled to take place at the Corbett Center Auditorium at the heart of the NMSU campus, are free and open to the public. Spanish and English translation will be available.