MSU experts on immigration available to media

Hard facts and dispassionate discussion are hard to come by when it comes to immigration. Estimates of the number of undocumented immigrants entering the country annually vary, as does analysis of the net economic gains or costs associated with this influx. On the other hand, opinion, much of it vitriolic, is abundant and too often obscures some of the more nuanced pieces of the immigration story. For example, what’s the relationship between General Motors Corp. workers and undocumented immigrants when viewed against the backdrop of globalization, perhaps the most powerful economic force on the planet today? Michigan State University experts are available to offer well-reasoned analysis and commentary about immigration, particularly as it relates to Michigan and the upper Midwest.

Economist Rene Rosenbaum argues that Michigan’s autoworkers and undocumented immigrants are pawns with little ability to resist powerful international economic forces. In the era of globalization, multinational companies are emerging as dominant players, and Rosenbaum believes that any discussion of culpability for U.S. immigration problems must include these companies. Consumers, hungry for cheap foods, goods and services produced by big corporations that employ many undocumented workers, also are implicated in current immigration challenges, according to Rosenbaum. He is an associate professor in the MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and senior scholar with the Julian Samora Research Institute at MSU. He researches community economic development and issues surrounding farmworkers and Latinos.

Rene Rosenbaum is available at (517) 432-3383 or rosenba5@msu.edu.

Manuel Chavez, associate director of the MSU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, has worked recently on issues of border security and regional collaboration and is well suited to comment on immigration in context of media coverage of the North American auto industry. In a time of layoffs and consolidation for U.S. carmakers, are immigrants being cast as a threat to traditional labor groups? Or, with the rise of emerging markets, especially China, are reporters starting to cover the beginnings of a new border-spanning solidarity visible across North America’s blue collar communities? How do the current stories and headlines foster understanding or divisiveness? Chavez can comment on these and other questions. He also is an assistant professor of journalism and an expert on North American interdependence and U.S.-Mexico relations.

Manuel Chavez is available at (517) 353-1690 or chavezm1@msu.edu.

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