Fulbright Grant aids new look at immigration

September 05, 2007

Doris Marie Provine, a professor and former director of the School of Justice and Social Inquiry at Arizona State University has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to do research in Canada and Mexico. Recipients of Fulbright awards are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement and leadership potential in their field. Provine’s current work centers on unauthorized immigrants who have set down roots in their adopted homes and in particular how city officials in Vancouver, Phoenix and Mexico City manage immigration issues; how police, judges and other legal officials are dealing with people they believe to be in the country without authorization. She seeks to understand how local public officials in various capacities deal with residents who lack legal authorization to live there, including police and local courts, school officials, and others who routinely encounter the public in various transactions. “Cities in the United States are increasingly in a position to either deflect or welcome new immigrants because the federal government is increasingly leaving important immigration decisions at the local level,” says Provine. The project – “Unauthorized Settlement and Law in Cross-National Perspective” – is focusing on these cities because of their long-shared borders, their common trading commitments under the North American Free Trade Agreement and their cultural affinities, Provine says. Through comparative analysis Provine seeks to enhance the complex relationship between physical residence and membership in a political community. “Undocumented immigrants are the part of this flow of humanity that raises particularly difficult issues for cities in the United States and elsewhere,” says Provine. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational program sponsored by the U.S. government. For more than 50 years it has sponsored the exchange of students and scholars between the United States and other countries around the world through a variety of initiatives to "increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries of the world." Its U.S. Scholar Program sends approximately 800 American scholars and professionals per year to more than 130 countries, where they lecture and conduct research in a wide variety of academic and professional fields. Carla Mitchell, <a href="mailto:carla.mitchell@asu.edu">carla.mitchell@asu.edu</a> (480) 965-1441 College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

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