Annual Event

María Cristina García, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, is the Howard A. Newman Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.  She is the author of four books on refugee policy including her most recent, State of Disaster: The Failure of US Migration Policy in an Age of Climate Change. She is also co-editor of two anthologies, including her most recent Whose America? U.S. Immigration Policy since 1980. García is a past president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She serves on the History advisory board of the State of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.

What policies should the United States adopt in response to the growing number of climate refugees? Historian Maria Cristina Garcia examines U.S. responses to environmental disasters in Central America to see what lessons might be learned for shaping humanitarian and immigration policies in an era of accelerating climate change. Central America has been vulnerable to sudden-onset disasters like hurricanes and slower-developing conditions like drought, but the region has also suffered from policy failures that pile disaster upon disaster, forcing people to migrate within their countries and across international borders, where they have few legal protections.  Garcia’s presentation offers a view into some of the challenges of the present and future.

This event will be followed by a reception for attendees.