The GIMI grew out of a collaboration between Ph.D students working on immigration-related issues within the Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies at the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, the Carlos A. Costa Immigration and Human Rights Clinic at the College of Law, and the Initiative on Social Work and Forced Migration at the Robert Stemple College of Public Health and Social Work.
The GIMI has grown beyond its original core groups to work with professors from the Departments of Criminology and Criminal Justice and Global and Sociocultural Studies. The GIMI has also partnered with the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at FIU, nonprofit organizations such as Americans for Immigrant Justice, and private attorneys representing children in immigrant detention.
Examples of events that GIMI has promoted include: the Forum for Inclusive Immigration Reform, The Ongoing US Immigration Debate: From the Future of DACA and Family Separation to the Status of Asylum Seekers and International Students Confirmation, and Honduran Migrants at the Front of Democratic Processes. Future events hosted by GIMI will center on how human rights conditions and climate change drive immigration and migration. The GIMI has also helped start the Latino Business Coalition in Broward County.
Main focus areas
The Global Immigration and Migration Initiative focuses on 5 main areas:
- The human rights dimension of immigration and migration
- Forces driving global immigration and migration
- Immigrant and migrant integration in the country of settlement
- Immigrant and migrant influence in the country of origin
- Policy solutions to contemporary immigration issues
Forms of work
- Planning events such as panel discussions and seminars, both in-person and virtually.
- Promoting and coordinating interdisciplinary immigration research amongst scholars, professionals working in the field of immigration, and immigrant communities in South Florida.
- Working with local immigrant communities on community-improvement projects which meet non-political criteria.