The UCR community recently welcomed three political experts to participate in an active discussion on the subject of immigration policies in both the United States and Europe at the "Crossing Borders" event on Nov. 5. Hosted by the Global Issues Forum (GIF), a newly-formed group of students and faculty who are interested in international issues, the event served as an opportunity to bridge the gap between students and academic faculty. The goal was to spark a conversation around the important global issue of immigration.
The panel included: Richard Alba, distinguished professor of sociology at City University of New York; Sara Wallace Goodman, UCI faculty and author of Immigration and Membership Politics in Western Europe; and UCR's very own Karthick Ramakrishnan, professor and associate dean of the School of Public Policy.
The panel started off with the experts explaining their research and knowledge on immigration separately. Immigration policies, statistics of migrants and their socioeconomic effect on the country, as well as migrants' assimilation and integration into host countries were among the topics addressed in the discussion. Following the presentations, it was open-floor for the public to present their questions to the three panelists.
Located at HUB302N, the event drew a full room of engaged UCR community members.
Second-year undergraduate student and GIF student leader Asra Irfan said, "It was amazing to hear about immigration policies from the perspective of faculty as they highlighted important concepts from basic immigration policies to their impact on an international scale." GIF student leader Vashti Gonzalez adds, "All the faculty was very personable and I enjoyed getting to listen to their points of view on many things including politics to our hometown."
The "Crossing Borders" event is the first of several forums that GIF will be hosting throughout the year. The next UCR Global Issues Forum is on Dec. 2 and is entitled "Living History: Austerity, Crisis, and Politics in 2015 Greece."
Global Issues Forum: Crossing Borders Video