Migration Research Initiative
Global migration, with its implications for human rights and human dignity, is of clear and increasing importance around the world.
The Migration Research Initiative, based at the Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights in the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, brings together scholars, students, faith leaders, and partner organizations to understand the human experience of those who move across borders. The initiative’s work is inspired and informed by the Catholic Church’s teaching that every human life is sacred. Rooted in this principle, the initiative seeks to lead migration research and conversations that maintain a focus on justice and human dignity.
The initiative is multidisciplinary and global. It taps into the expertise of faculty in law, policy, the social sciences, and other fields while leveraging the worldwide network and relationships of the Keough School and Notre Dame as a whole. Key supporters include the Notre Dame Poverty Initiative, a University-wide effort to create a world intolerant of poverty by expanding knowledge about how to solve it.
“As a global Catholic research university, Notre Dame is able to bring both a scholarly approach and a moral perspective to studies of migration. Both dimensions need to be considered if we are going to advance our understanding of the dynamics of migration and deepen our appreciation for the dignity of migrants.”
Migration Research Working Group
As part of the Migration Research Initiative, this multidisciplinary group led by Associate Professor of Sociology Steven Alvarado and Professor of Migration Amy Hsin collaborate on research and partnerships to advance scholarship in the area of migration.
News
Conference in Rome underscores theology’s crucial role in migration research and policy
Partners, including the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development, explored how theology can reorient public conversations about migration by focusing on human dignity.
How the Catholic Church is responding to immigration policies at the U.S.-Mexico border
The Klau Institute provided funding to Josie Soehnge Cohen, a Ph.D. student in anthropology, to collect research data in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Researcher Amy Hsin shows how immigration policy can strengthen opportunity
“The University’s commitment to recognizing the dignity of each person and supporting opportunity is an important part of public dialogue about immigration ... .”
Klau Institute fellows learn about civil and human rights while serving South Bend community
Through the Melsheimer Fellowship Program, students served as tutors at One More Citizen to help local residents prepare for the U.S. naturalization exam.
The New Yorker’s Jonathan Blitzer talks about how immigration became a political crisis
The author of “Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here” described the Catch-22 of the U.S. political conversation around immigration.
Initiative on migration launched at Notre Dame
Housed in the Keough School’s Klau Institute for Civil and Human Rights, the new initiative will draw upon strengths already in place at Notre Dame while seeking to build new capabilities and explore promising avenues of research.