Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series - David Stoll

Professor of Anthropology, David Stoll will give this lecture.

“ ‘My daughter is looking for a better future’: How Central American asylum claims could affect the 2020 presidential race”

Central America’s leading export is now its youth, to the U.S. labor market. Until recently, most migrants were working-age males fifteen years or older. This talk will describe how households in one town are sending teenage girls and women to file petitions for asylum. If such strategies continue to be successful, they could undermine voter support for humanitarian provisions in U.S. immigration policy. Unfortunately, how Americans react to unauthorized immigration has become a loyalty test for many Democrats and Republicans.