CONFERENCE: “Beyond National Security: Immigrant Communities and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

“Beyond National Security: Immigrant Communities and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights” October 14-15, 2010 (student organized workshop on October 16) Northeastern University School of Law Dockser Hall 65 Forsythe Street (off Huntington Avenue) Boston, MA Public roundtables on Thursday and Friday. Registration link for roundtables here.

This two-day institute focuses on two significant trends in the treatment of noncitizens in the United States. Beginning in the mid-1990s and gaining momentum after September 11, 2001, the federal government imposed increasingly harsh deportation policies, dramatically expanded the enforcement of immigration laws, and delegated more and more immigration enforcement power to state and local police – all in the name of national security. At the same time, a wave of state and local laws has been taking aim at the rights of noncitizens in areas such as employment, housing, health, family life, and education. On both fronts, immigrant communities and their supporters throughout the US are increasingly turning to human rights approaches in response.

On October 14-15, 2010, Northeastern Law School’s Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE), with support from the Ford Foundation, will bring together a core group of leading immigration and human rights advocates, scholars, and activists for a two-day interdisciplinary institute to address these developments within a human rights framework. What effects have harsh deportation policies and increased immigration enforcement had on the economic, social, and cultural rights of immigrants? How are encroachments on such rights increasingly being used at the sub-national level as a tool of immigration enforcement? How can human rights strategies best be used to counter those effects?

Institute Co-chairs: Hope Lewis, Professor of Law & Rachel Rosenbloom, Assistant Professor of Law.

KJ