EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to clarify information related to the use of the CBP One App. Please use this version.
Three New Mexico State University students recently joined seven other students from around the country to present research findings from their summer National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates program.
Lead by Neil Harvey, NMSU government professor and principal investigator of the program, in collaboration with co-principal investigator Jeremy Slack of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Texas-El Paso, the NSF REU is a 9-week summer program that allows students to conduct hands-on research about border and immigration policy. Partnering with Border-Servant Corps, a humanitarian organization providing temporary shelter for migrants on the U.S./Mexico border, as well as with the Kiki Romero Municipal Shelter for Migrants in Ciudad Juárez, the students conducted personal interviews with migrants from Central and South America.
“We’re very fortunate to have a partnership with a community-based organization known as Border Servant Corps that has a hospitality center that receives migrants who have been given documentation and a court date to make a claim for asylum,” Harvey said.
Harvey’s NSF-funded program for undergraduate research began in 2018 and has seen a growing interest from students across the country. This year, the program received 61 applications, eight were from NMSU.
“We’re proud that since our program began,” Harvey said, “we’ve been able to train 40 students in research methods and applied research on immigration and border issues with another 20 to be recruited over the next two summers.”
Students who come out of the program have gone on to do master’s degrees in areas like international relations, anthropology and Latin American studies, with one student pursuing a doctorate in anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany and doing her field work in Mexico.
“I feel like this program really taught us that our borders are just really complicated,” said Angel Amabsico, NMSU student double-majoring in government and Spanish. “Not only is it an international issue, but it’s also a national issue. There are so many topics, agencies, terms and concepts that we get to understand and delve into. Even after our presentations, we’re learning new things. It’s ongoing and it’s always changing.”
Amabisco’s presentation focused on the CBP One App, an application introduced by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in late 2020 that initially allowed migrants to fill out I-94 forms from their phones.
The CBP One app is used as a method for migrants who lack documents for admission to make an appointment at a Port of Entry where they present themselves for processing by CBP. If allowed admission to the U.S., they are given a Notice to Appear at a later date with an immigration judge or USCIS when they can present their claim for asylum in the United States.
Amabisco referred to several problems with the app raised by migrants that he interviewed, including long wait times, inequities in gaining good internet access, and extortion by privately-run shelters in Ciudad Juárez while waiting to attain an appointment.
Ashley Infante, an NMSU student double-majoring in Government and Justice, Political Philosophy and Law (JPPL), focused her presentation on the root causes of migration and how political influence has continually impacted the conversation around immigration in America. Raised in California, she often heard negative comments about immigration and the Southern border. Infante has a different outlook after working under this program in Las Cruces and she wants people to understand the complexities of the situation.
“For me, it was hard to go into shelters in Juárez and Las Cruces and talk to people who were facing very difficult, real problems,” Infante said. “As someone going in who was blessed to have been born in the U.S., it was very hard to step into that situation and then have to come back. It’s knowing your position of privilege and knowing that you can come in and out of it.”
NMSU Nursing major Fatima Oliveros focused on the toll the often-deadly journey to the southern border can take on migrants emotionally, physically and mentally. She explained why it is necessary to properly accommodate migrants with proper care when they arrive.
Harvey also touched on this topic, listing ways U.S. policy has lost sight of the care needed for those seeking asylum.
“The national debate around immigration is pretty much on the lines of how best to contain migration rather than how best to learn why people are leaving and what they need,” Harvey said.
Oliveros shared her initial struggle with being the only nursing major in the program and why she now thinks more nurses should apply.
“I was really intimidated because I’m a nursing major and everyone else was in political science,” Oliveros said. “I thought they might be better prepared and more knowledgeable, but after talking with the students, graduate assistants, and professors I had a better perspective of how a nursing major can be useful in discussing what’s happening at the border.”
All three students encouraged others to apply for next summer’s program, which will start taking applications in November. Oliveros noted that NMSU’s proximity to the border is a huge advantage to the program at NMSU.
“It’s one thing to read books or articles or go online and check things out and do research,” Harvey said, “which is important, and we do it, but it’s another thing to be physically present and learn directly from migrants about what they’ve just gone through and are still going through.”
Infante says the research experience has urged her to consider one day becoming an immigration lawyer. Each student said the research they learned and the connections they made will leave a long-lasting impression.
“I find it hard to kind of process the information I was receiving,” Amabisco said. “These people are here because they have an appointment to see a judge and we, as students, know the reality of what the results of that might be. You have to try to differentiate between being a researcher and human being so when you approach these people you can connect with them. I ended up exchanging numbers with a migrant to help her, and months later she texted me to let me know she made it to her destination in Chicago, IL.”
-30-