UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — An interdisciplinary symposium on the Ethics of Immigration Enforcement will take place March 17 and 18, both virtually and at the Greg Sutliff Auditorium in the Lewis Katz Building at Penn State University Park.
This event is open to the public and will feature researchers and practitioners doing work at the intersection of immigration and policing.
About the symposium: Various aspects of immigration policy in the United States and elsewhere have come under criticism in recent years. It is far more challenging, though, to formulate a coherent vision of what immigration policy should be beyond just what it should not be. Equally challenging is determining the ethical responsibilities of policymakers and law enforcement officials who must act under imperfect conditions. Moreover, histories of colonialism, racial discrimination and violence and their lasting legacies complicate what a just immigration policy would consist of today. The symposium will explore these and other issues.
“The issue of immigration moves on and off the front pages of the news, but it continues to pose urgent humanitarian challenges in the United States and many other places around the world,” said one of the symposium’s organizers, Désirée Lim, assistant professor of philosophy and research associate in the Rock Ethics Institute. “When evaluating and trying to determine just immigration policy, we must pay careful attention to how it will be enforced, which is the central focus of this symposium.”
The event’s keynote speakers are Bridget Cambria, co-founder of Aldea - The People’s Justice Center and an immigration attorney, and José Jorge Mendoza, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Washington.
Sponsors for the event are the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights, Latina/o Studies, Department of Philosophy and Schreyer Honors College.
Both members of Penn State and the broader community are welcome to attend the symposium in person or virtually.
Those who plan to attend in person and would like lunch Friday should register here. Those who plan to attend virtually should register here to obtain the Zoom link.
For questions about the event, please contact Rock Ethics Institute Assistant Director Ben Jones (btj7@psu.edu).