Three Boys, Three Murders: Children’s Rights, State Violence and the Open Wound of the U.S.-Mexico Border

This article examines the killing of three teenage boys at the U.S.-Mexico border between 2010 and 2013. Through an examination of these murders at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Enforcement agents, the article argues that the murders of Sergio Adrían Hernández Guereca, José Antonio Elena Rodríguez and Cruz Marcelino Velasquez Acevedo at the U.S.-Mexico border exemplify the reality that not all children are afforded the so-called universal protection of childhood as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights law. We can see how the state repudiates its role as protector of brown children at the border through the deployment of three tactics—the protecting of Border Patrol agents, victim-blaming and the justification of lethal violence in non-life-threatening situations, and the casting of the U.S.-Mexico border as a zone of exceptionalism—and ultimately how situating these killings within a human rights framework illuminates the possibilities of such a framework

Lift Every Voice: Institutional Climate and the Experiences of Undocumented Students at Jesuit Universities

In recent years, researchers have paid increased attention to the challenges undocumented students face in accessing higher education. However, within this growing field of inquiry, the unique experiences of undocumented students at Jesuit universities have been largely unexamined. Building on the groundbreaking study of the situation of undocumented students at the 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States, which was published as the Immigrant Student National Position Paper (ISNPP), this article presents findings collected at the University of San Francisco as a part of a university-wide effort to assess the needs of undocumented students on campus. Three key themes emerged from this mixed-method study: (1) social justice is a draw and an anchor for undocumented students, (2) an institutional culture of silence breeds silence as an individual navigational strategy among undocumented students, and (3) unique financial stresses shape feelings of belonging for undocumented students. These themes both corroborate the ISNPP report and build a more nuanced understanding of the undocumented student experience on Jesuit campuses by highlighting the influence of institutional climate on student voice and student experience at the University of San Francisco