GOVERNMENT POLICY
Religion informs immigration debate

IN THE NORTHEAST
• George J. Borjas is the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. An immigrant from Cuba, he is the author of Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy (Princeton University Press, 1999) and supports restrictions on immigration. He explained his personal history and views on immigration reform in a 1996 Wall Street Journal story. Contact 617-495-1393, gborjas@harvard.edu.
• Samuel P. Huntington is a government professor at Harvard University and the author of Who Are We? Challenges to America's National Identity (Simon & Schuster, 2004). In that book, Huntington argues that the United States faces a crisis of national identity in part because of Hispanic immigration and the unwillingness of some immigrants to assimilate into the "Anglo-Protestant" identity of the United States. Contact 617-495-4432, bbaiter@wcfia.harvard.edu.

IN THE EAST
• Mark J. Miller, a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware, is editor of the International Migration Review. That quarterly review is published by the Center for Migration Studies in New York, which studies human migration and refugee movements. Contact 302-831-1926, mjmiller@udel.edu.
• Sean Mariano Garcia is a senior associate specializing in Mexico and Brazil with the Latin America Working Group, based in Washington, D.C. That nonprofit coalition - including religious groups ranging from Jews to Quakers to Unitarians to Mennonites - encourages the U.S. to develop policies toward Latin America that promote human rights, justice and peace. Garcia says faith-based communities are becoming more involved in the immigration debate, and need to involve evangelicals in the conversation - including Latino evangelicals. Contact 202-546-7010, sgarcia@lawg.org.
• Douglas S. Massey is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. He also is co-director of the Mexican Migration Project, which compiles a year-by-year history of Mexican migration to the United States based on interviews with migrants. He wrote a paper on U.S.-Mexican border policy published in September 2005 by the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Law Foundation, in which he argues that "punitive immigration and border policies tend to backfire." He is co-author of Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration (Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 2003). Contact 609-258-4949, dmassey@princeton.edu.
• Joseph Nevins is an assistant professor of geography at Vassar College. He is the author of Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the 'Illegal Alien' and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary (Routledge, 2002). Nevins wrote in the Christian Science Monitor in August 2005 that at least 3,000 migrants have died crossing the Arizona desert in the last decade - and the deaths will continue unless immigration policy changes. Contact 845-437-7823, jonevins@vassar.edu.
• Daniel J. Tichenor is a research professor at the Eagleton Institute of Politics and professor of political science at Rutgers University. He is the author of Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton University Press, 2002). Contact 732-932-9384 ext. 283, tichen@rci.rutgers.edu.

IN THE SOUTHEAST
• The Rev. Paul Brant, a Jesuit priest from Charlottesville, works with Hispanic immigrants, now in Virginia and previously in eastern North Carolina. For a time he celebrated Mass on Sunday mornings in a laundry where migrants would come to wash their clothes for the week. He's also organized a grass-roots effort encouraging immigrants, congregations, employers and others to urge Congress to pass immigration reform. Contact 252-229-0584, paulbrantsj@yahoo.com.
• Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste is associate chairman of the modern and classical languages department and director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at Georgia State University. Contact 404-651-2265, Fernandez@gsu.edu.
• Nolo Martinez is assistant director for research and outreach at the Center for New North Carolinians. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro created the center in 2001 to deal with immigrant issues, in a state that's seen a 400 percent increase in Hispanic population between 1990 and 2000. Contact 336-256-1061, nolomartinez@hotmail.com.
• Emilio A. Parrado is an assistant professor of sociology at Duke University. He has done research on the impact of immigration both on communities in the United States and in Mexico, including the responses of public schools to rising numbers of Hispanic students. Contact 919-660-5777, eparrado@soc.duke.edu.

IN THE SOUTH
• David Coffey is an associate professor of agricultural education at Western Kentucky University. He has studied the impact of Latino immigration on Kentucky's economy - the number of Hispanics in the area has tripled, he says - and has taught Spanish to Kentucky farmers and English to recent immigrants who work in restaurants, in the fields and roofing houses. Contact 270-745-5065, david.coffey@wku.edu.
• Hernan Prado is founder and president of the Alabama Latin American Association. Since 1990, according to a 2004 series in the Birmingham Post-Herald, Alabama has seen an explosion in its Hispanic population, and a report released in July 2005 by the Pew Hispanic Center found that the Hispanic population is growing faster in the South than anywhere else in the U.S. Contact 205-951-0255, hprado@alasweb.org.
• Dan Cornfield is a sociology professor at Vanderbilt University and acting director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies. He has studied the experience of Latino and other immigrants in midsized U.S. cities such as Nashville. Contact through the Vanderbilt News Service, 615-322-2706.

IN THE MIDWEST
• The Rev. Daniel Groody is an assistant professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame and director of the Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture at the university's Institute for Latino Studies. He helped produce a documentary film called Dying to Live: A Migrant's Journey and has spent time along the U.S.-Mexico border interviewing migrants about their spiritual lives. He is the author of Border of Death, Valley of Life: An Immigrant Journey of Heart and Spirit (Rowman & Littlefield Press, 2002). Contact 574-631-3233, dgroody@nd.edu.
• Luis Alberto Urrea, a poet, essayist and native of Tijuana, was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for his book The Devil's Highway: A True Story (Little, Brown & Co., 2004). The book chronicles the attempt 26 Mexican men made in May 2001 to cross the desert into southern Arizona. Only 12 survived. Urrea also is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Contact luisurrea@luisurrea.com or through Carolyn O'Keefe at Little, Brown, 212-522-1188, Carolyn.okeefe@twbg.com.
• Silvia Pedraza is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan. She has written about Cuban and Mexican immigration to the United States. Contact 734-647-3659, spedraza@umich.edu.
• Joshua Hoyt is executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, which supports comprehensive immigration reform, including family reunification and a path to citizenship for undocumented workers. Its 120 members include Muslim, Christian, Jewish and interfaith organizations. Contact 312-332-7360 ext.11, jhoyt@icirr.org.
• Oscar Chacón is director of Enlaces América, a project of the Chicago-based Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights. Enlaces América works to empower Latino immigrant organizations in the U.S., in part to become involved in advocacy for immigration reform. Contact 312-660-1343, ochacon@enlacesamerica.org.
• Christelle Langer is vice president for marketing and communications with the Minneapolis Foundation. The foundation created a web site on immigration to Minnesota and in spring 2005 sponsored a series of discussions on immigration's impact on the state. Contact 612-672-3832, clanger@mplsfoundation.org.

IN THE SOUTHWEST
• Beth Sanders is media contact for No More Deaths, a Tucson-based coalition of individuals, congregations and human rights advocates formed in response to the deaths of migrants crossing the desert in southern Arizona. No More Deaths volunteers help staff water and medical-assistance stations in the Sonoran desert and patrol the desert to search for migrants in distress. Contact 520-909-0636, beth10sanders@yahoo.com.
• Nestor Rodriguez is director of the Center for Immigration Research and chairman of the sociology department at the University of Houston. He can speak about the impact of the 1996 immigration act and about migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border. Contact 713-743-3946, nodriguez@uh.edu.
• The Rev. Harold Recinos is professor of church and society at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. He has worked with immigrants in the United States and abroad and studies issues related to immigrants and refugees in the United States. Contact 214-768-1773, hrecinos@smu.edu.
• The Rev. John Fife retired in 2005 after serving 30 years as pastor of Southside Presbyterian Church in Tucson. Fife works with humanitarian programs that provide food, water and medical care for migrants crossing the Arizona desert, including Samaritans and Humane Borders. Contact 520-882-4879, jfife666@aol.com.
• Ruben Martinez, an associate professor in the creative writing program at the University of Houston, is the son of immigrants - his father is from Mexico, and his mother from El Salvador. He is the author of The New Americans (The New Press, 2004), which tells the stories of seven immigrant families and is the companion book to a PBS series on immigration from 2003. He's also the author of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail (Picador, 2002) Contact 213-804-4682, ruben6211@mac.com.
• Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., is chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, which has 91 members, and was one of more than 80 congressional representatives who issued a letter on Oct. 7, 2005, calling for stronger enforcement of immigration laws. Contact through Will Adams, 202-226-6997, will.adams@mail.house.gov.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• Nancy and Dick Bureson are lay missionaries working with Church Without Borders, a joint project of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego and the Maryknoll Lay Missioners. The project brings Catholics from the United States across the border into Tijuana to visit impoverished neighborhoods and to consider a faithful response. Contact 858-270-8007, borderproject@earthlink.net.
• Moises Escalante is health and benefits access education coordinator for the Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights. That statewide coalition, based in San Francisco, advocates for humane immigration laws. Contact 213-480-8800, moises_icir@yahoo.com.
• The Rev. Luis Kendzierski is director of a shelter called Casa del Migrante in Tijuana, Mexico, and a member of the Scalabrinian Missionaries, an order of Catholic priests devoted to working with immigrants and migrants. At the shelter, migrants traveling to or from the U.S. are given food and a safe place to sleep. Contact 664-682-5180, sadelmig@yahoo.com, or through the Rev. Richard Zanotti, a Scalabrinian priest in Sun Valley, Calif., at 818-765-3350, rjzanotti@excite.com.
• Wayne Cornelius is a professor of political science and U.S.-Mexico relations at the University of California at San Diego. He also is director of the university's Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and is co-editor of Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective (Stanford University Press, 2004). Contact 858-822-4447, wcorneli@ucsd.edu.
• Khaled M. Abou El Fadl is an Islamic law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a 2005 Carnegie Scholar in Islamic studies. He also teaches courses in immigration law, human rights law and terrorism, and gave testimony to the 9/11 Commission regarding Muslim views on immigration reform and the impact of stricter immigration enforcement on Muslims. Contact through his assistant, Naheed Fakoor, 818-419-4445, Fakoor@law.ucla.edu, or through Philip Little at 310-206-1131, little@law.ucla.edu.
• Victor Davis Hanson is a fifth-generation Californian, a farmer, a classicist and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of Mexifornia: A State of Becoming (Encounter Books, 2004), in which he argues that California is being transformed by illegal immigration from Mexico. Contact preferred by email only at author@victorhanson.com or jheyne@victorhanson.com.
• Uriel Iniguez is executive director of the Washington State Commission on Hispanic Affairs. The commission is working to draft a legislative agenda for Latinos for the 2006 legislative session on issues including immigration. Contact 800-443-0294 or 360-725-5661, Hispanic@cha.wa.gov.