Welcome!
The National Science Foundation (NSF) - Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Collaborative Site Program on Immigration Policy and US-Mexico Border Communities is designed to provide undergraduate students with training in research methods and opportunities to conduct collaborative projects with community partners on the nature and impacts of US immigration policy in the Paso del Norte borderlands region of Las Cruces-El Paso-Ciudad Juárez.
The program has been supported since September 2017 by the NSF-REU program under Award #1659195 (until August 2021). 50 undergraduate students from New Mexico State University (NMSU), the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP), and from colleges and universities around the United States have participated in our 9-week summer programs. Our approach is rooted in the principles of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), and we are fortunate to work with the committed staff and volunteers of community organizations in the Paso del Norte region.
The NSF renewed its support for this program for the period 2022-25 under Award #2149449. We will announce the new application cycle in November 2024 with details about the Summer 2025 program and an application deadline of February 15, 2025. We are grateful to the NSF-REU program for its continued support.
OVERVIEW OF SUMMER 2023 AND 2024 ACTIVITIES
Our summer 2023 and 2024 cohorts came from New Mexico State University, the University of Texas-El Paso, and eleven other universities across the United States. In each summer, the program provided students with background research and methodological training on immigration and border policies, with a particular focus on asylum and the impacts of changes in US policy. See the syllabi and schedule of activities for Summer 2023 here and for Summer 2024 here.
Students partnered with community organizations and shelters for migrants in Las Cruces, El Paso, and Ciudad Juárez, where they conducted almost 100 interviews and surveys migrants and their families from several countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Mexico, Ecuador, and Guatemala. We are grateful to the Border Servant Corps and the Kiki Romero Migrant Shelter for their support and collaboration with our program. We aim to continue these and related research activities in Summer 2025.
RECENT NEWS ARTICLES
NMSU Undergraduates address migrant journeys and issues through summer research program (07/31/24). See this news article about Summer 2024 program.
On the border: NMSU undergraduates present immigration research from the summer program (07/27/23). See this news article for an overview of our Summer 2023 program.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
We are also publishing findings in Mexico through a new partnership with the Observatorio de las Democracias en el Sur de México y Centroamérica (ODEMCA) and Chiapas Paralelo. See the articles below:
Jeremy Slack, UTEP, Al borde del caos: las comunidades fronterizas en la época de asilo (31 January 2023)
Neil Harvey, NMSU, Los costos humanos de las políticas de contención migratoria (18 September 2023)
María Lima Valdez, Cornell University and NSF REU Summer 2023 Cohort, La estrecha relación de la violencia del narcotráfico y el por qué las personas migran a los Estados Unidos (9 November 2023)
Adri Silva, University of the South and NSF REU Summer 2023 Cohort, La ley de asilo: ¿una ley humanitaria u otra barrera para cruzar? (15 January 2024)
Ashley Infante, New Mexico State University, and Sebastián Rivero Acosta, University of Texas-El Paso, and NSF REU Summer 2023 Cohort, La extorsión y criminalización de los migrantes (8 March 2024)
Mario Varo, University of California-Berkeley, and NSF REU Summer 2023 Cohort, Frontera digitales: retos en la frontera de El Paso y Ciudad Juárez (16 April 2024)
Elsie Yang, McGill University, and NSF REU Summer 2023 Cohort, La Resistencia Contra la Mina "Cobre Panamá" Sigue... (7 June 2024)