Editor's Note: As soon as I graduated from Notre Dame, I realized that I never took proper advantage of one of the biggest perks of being at a university: all those lectures. You may not be able to pop by DeBart 101 every week to listen to experts opine about cell biology or geopolitics, but, in this new series, we're bringing the lecture hall to you. Our editors will scour the campus for one presentation per week to attend and share with our readers, reporting back with a quote and a few highlights from the latest event in the life of the mind.
"Si el migrante no es tu hermano, Dios no es tu padre." — Rev. Daniel Groody, CSC, '86
This quotation — "If the migrant is not your brother, God is not your father" — came from Immigration and Just Peace, a panel discussion hosted by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies on Wednesday, September 5. Father Groody, an associate professor of theology and global affairs and the director of both the Kellogg Global Leadership Program and the Center for Latino Spirituality and Culture, shared the quote on behalf of a nun his team encountered during their migration research in Mexico. It provides a poignant summary of the spiritual component of the day's topic: the family and child separation policies enacted this summer by the United States government.
Groody was joined on the panel by Erin Corcoran, the executive director of the Kroc Institute; psychology professor Darcia Narvaez; Lisa Koop, the associate director of legal services for the National Immigrant Justice Center and an instructor in the Law School; and Cory Smith, the vice president of policy, communications and advocacy at legal charity Kids in Need of Defense. Each member of the panel addressed the issue from their area of expertise, from the history of U.S. policy toward unaccompanied minors at the border to the effects of family separation on a child's developing brain.
Want to hear more from the panelists? The entire discussion can be viewed on YouTube at this link.
Sarah Cahalan is an associate editor of this magazine.