This event has now ended but you can watch a recording of the great discussion below.
Date: April 22
Event time: 1:00 PM ET / 17:00 GMT
Migrant arrivals at the US-Mexico border in recent weeks has led to usual outcries by some of a “border crisis.” Many of these individuals arriving are asylum-seekers from Central America seeking international protection, where compounding pressures and the failure to address conditions displacing individuals, including climate risks, are among the reasons driving forced movements to US borders.
In February, President Biden issued an executive order on Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs to Resettle Refugees and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration. It offers the possibility of US commitment to address climate change and forced migration through increased support to climate resilience, protection and resettlement pathways for individuals displaced by climate-related impacts, and opportunities for international cooperation. In response to the executive order, Climate Refugees released the report Climate Change, Forced Displacement, Peace & Security: Biden Administration Actions That Ensure Rights.
Now Climate Refugees with co-host the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University are hosting a virtual panel discussion on Central American migration at US borders through the lens of actors and activists working on the frontlines. We will bring together experts in asylum, climate policy, and environmental justice, working at individual, community and regional levels to discuss their respective work and solutions, and an overarching view on what can be done at the global level, ahead of the climate negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow.
Register for Zoom link.
Special Opening Remarks
Congressman Joaquin Castro, US House of Representatives, Texas.
Panelists
Erika Andiola is the Chief Advocacy Officer for RAICES and former Press Secretary for Latino Outreach for Bernie 2016. She started her community organizing experience when she co-founded the Arizona Dream Act Coalition. She then served in the National Coordinating Committee and the Board of Directors for the United We Dream Network. Her personal struggle as an undocumented woman herself, with an undocumented family, has given her the drive and the passion to keep fighting for immigrant and human rights.
Alma Maquitico is the co-director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, where she leads NNIRR’s strategic human rights work to uphold human rights standards on the US-Mexico border, build intersectional solidarity and frameworks and political action to guarantee human rights and dignity. Alma's work has centered on developing initiatives to address rural development, climate change, and human rights. Over the past twenty years, she has provided technical assistance to various grassroots organizations addressing food, agriculture, and ecological sustainability, particularly with migrant and refugee communities on the US-Mexico borderlands. In addition, Maquitico has helped build grassroots networks to monitor and document human rights violations resulting from immigration enforcement in communities along the US-Mexico border. She is the author and co-author of various articles and publications at NNIRR and beyond. Her most recent publication is forthcoming, Food as Territory: Reclaiming the Food Territories of Migrants and Refugees. For more information about NNIRR's work please visit www.nnirr.org.
Jasmine Sanders is a climate scientist, strategist, advocate and Executive Director of Our Climate, a climate change advocacy organization energized by its youth grassroots movement. Prior to her appointment as Executive Director of Our Climate, she managed the strategic initiatives and special projects for the international refugee rights protection agency HIAS. Her passion for environmental issues and keen academic aptitude in the sciences and mathematics won her the coveted internship with the U.S. House of Representatives Science, Space and Technology Committee and a policy fellowship with Terpstra Associates, a DC lobbying firm where she advocated on Capitol Hill for agricultural and environmental issues. She holds a graduate degree from the University of Essex with a MSc in Tropical Marine Biology. Specializing in climate change,Ms. Sanders is a graduate from the University of South Alabama with a BS in Biology and a minor in Spanish. She currently resides in Washington, DC.
Adrián Martinez Blanco, MA is the Director of La Ruta del Clima, a Costa Rican NGO that promotes public participation in climate and environmental decision-making that has been an observer, advocating at the UNFCCC climate summits since 2014. Adrián is the co-author, along with his colleague Helen Gutierrez, of the newly released Movilidad Humana: Derechos Humanos y Justicia Climática (Human Mobility: Human Rights and Climate Justice). His areas of research includes climate impacts, loss and damage, human rights, public participation and international climate law. He is a current PhD candidate at the University of Eastern Finland and holds a Master in Environment, Development and Peace with a specialty in climate public policies.
Moderator
Amali Tower, Founder and Executive Director of Climate Refugees. Author of the recent report, Climate Change, Forced Displacement, Peace & Security: Biden Administration Actions That Ensure Rights