UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration

The faculty and students associated with the UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration have watched in horror as the Trump administration has repeatedly dehumanized immigrants in both rhetoric and practice. We see the parallels between this war against immigrants, which has resulted in the deportation of millions and the detention of at least 50,000 immigrants every day, and the ongoing, increased and emboldened state violence against African Americans. We condemn the acts in our country’s long and unacceptable history of anti-Black racism, the latest of which include the police murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks. We also express our outrage over the disparities that make African Americans and other communities of color particularly vulnerable to covid-19 and subjects them to the brunt of the economy’s collapse.

Xenophobia, which fuels the deportation and detention of immigrants, parallels the anti-Black racism that has resulted in the murder of so many Black men and women at the hands of the police. Nonetheless, we take inspiration from the protests that fill the streets of American cities, just as we do from the immigrant rights movement. In the passion, diversity and persistence of these responses to injustice throughout the nation and the globe, we see the glimmerings of a new and better world, one committed to racial and social equality. For these reasons, just as we are committed to immigrant rights, we stand in unflinching support of Black Lives Matter.

César J. Ayala
Professor, Department of Sociology

Joseph P. Berra
Project Director, Human Rights in the Americas

Rogers Brubaker
Professor, Department of Sociology
UCLA Foundation Chair

Ingrid V. Eagly
Professor of Law Faculty Director
David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy

Lieba Faier
Associate Professor, Department of Geography

Lisa Gantz, MD
Clinical Instructor
UCLA Pediatric Residency Program
UCLA Pritzker Center Child Health and Wellbeing Fellow
Olive View-UCLA Medical Center
High Desert Regional Health Center

Anne J. Gilliland, Ph.D.
Associate Dean and Professor, Department of Information Studies
Director, Center for Information as Evidence

Jamie Goodwin-White
Associate Professor, Department of Geography

Patricia Greenfield
Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychology

Tobias Higbie,
Professor, Department of History
Chair, Labor Studies

Laurie Kain Hart
Professor, Department of Anthropology and Global Studies
Director, Center for European and Russian Studies

Gail Kligman
Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology
Special Academic Advisor on International Studies to the UCLA Vice Chancellor for Research

Cecilia Menjívar
Professor, Department of Sociology
Dorothy L. Meier Social Equities Chair

Hiroshi Motomura
Susan Westerberg Prager Distinguished Professor of Law

Marjorie F. Orellana
Professor, Department of Education
Co-director of the UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration

Michael A. Rodriguez, MD, MPH
Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Family Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health
Chair, UCLA Global Health Minor
Founding Director, Health Equity Network of the Americas

Carlos E. Santos,
Associate Professor, Department of Social Welfare

Sural Shah, MD, MPH
UCLA Internal Medicine-Pediatrics

Jennifer Silvers
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Roger Waldinger,
Distinguished Professor, Department of Sociology
Director of the UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration

Erica Weaver
Assistant Professor, Department of English

Min Zhou
Professor, Department of Sociology and Asian American Studies
Walter & Shirley Wang Endowed Chair, US-China Relations and Communications
Director, Asia Pacific Center