Kaltura Video
Latinos, immigration policy, and the national interest
Date & time
Mar 28, 2007,
4:00-5:30 pm EDT
Location
Cecilia Muñoz, Vice President, Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation, National Council of La Raza; Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
The debate on immigration reform has become one of the nation's major domestic policy challenges and opportunities, inspiring some of the largest peaceful demonstrations in the nation's history last spring, as well as significant concerns about the impact of immigrants and demographic change on the nation as a whole and the U.S. workforce in particular. Cecilia Muñoz, Vice President at the National Council of La Raza, the nation's largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, currently Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence at the Ford School, will discuss the debate from the point of view of an advocate and policy maker, outlining the difficult coalition relationships that are attempting to pass legislation, and highlighting the implications of this debate for Latinos, other constituencies, and the nation as a whole.
Cecilia Muñoz is vice president for the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), 'the largest constituency-based Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group in the United States.' Her duties include oversight of all legislative activities pertaining to the policy staff. For the better part of the past three decades she has been at the forefront of most major immigration policy battles in the US . In 2000 she was awarded the prestigious McArthur 'Genius' Fellowship by the John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation. Prior to joining NCLR Munoz worked for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago as head of the Legalization Outreach Program for Catholic Charities, operating 12 field offices focused on aiding undocumented immigrants obtain legal US citizenship. She received her Masters degree from UC Berkeley in 1986 and her BA from the University of Michigan in 1984. Her parents immigrated to the US from La Paz, Bolivia and settled in Detroit, Michigan where Cecilia was born in 1962.
Co-sponsored with the National Poverty Center