UMass Dartmouth Associate Professor Lisa Maya Knauer,to moderate panel discussion on legal, policy, and humanitarian challenges of unaccompanied child migrants
Local perspectives on the national challenge of unaccompanied child migrants entering the United States will be the focus during a panel discussion at UMass Dartmouth, Monday, October 27, 2014, at 3 p.m., at UMass Dartmouth's Claire T. Carney Library Grand Reading Room. Adolfo de la Cruz, a student at New Bedford High School and Maya K'iche' teenager who fled his native Guatemala in 2013 to escape gang members who were threatening him and his family, will take part in the discussion.
UMass Dartmouth Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Lisa Maya Knauer will serve as moderator. Dr. Knauer has worked with and written about the Central American community in New Bedford since 2007, and spent 2011 in Guatemala as a Fulbright Scholar.
Also taking part in the panel discussion:
Irene Scharf, Professor of Law, University of Massachusetts Law School
Professor Scharf directs the school's Immigration Law Clinic. Under Prof. Scharf's supervision, students in the law clinic have represented Central American clients in immigration law proceedings.
Carlos Benavides, Associate Professor of Spanish and Chair of Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
Dr. Benavides is the President of the board of the Community Economic Development Center of New Bedford (CEDC), a community-based non-profit that works with the Central American community. He is also a native of Honduras and closely follows events in his homeland, and with the Honduran community in the United States
Rev. Marc Fallon, C.S.C. and Catholic Social Services.
Rev. Fallon has ministered to and accompanied Central American immigrants in Southeastern Massachusetts for more than 10 years.