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12/14/2007

Experts meet at Baker Institute on U.S.-Mexico Border Project

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
RICE NEWS STAFF

Eighteen experts on issues involving the U.S.-Mexico border met Dec. 7 at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy to discuss the institute's border project.

GEORGE WONG

Experts from the U.S. and Mexico met Dec. 7 at the Baker Institute to discuss border issues such as immigration and security.

The focus of the U.S.-Mexico Border Project is on immigration and other sensitive and critical issues along the border. The scope of the program is to define problems, organize scholarly task forces to conduct research studies, formulate proposals and engage politicians at the highest levels of government in the United States and Mexico.

In addition to nine Mexican experts and their nine U.S. counterparts, participants in the brainstorming session included Edward Djerejian, founding director of the Baker Institute; Mark Scheid, managing director for Programs and International Studies at the Baker Institute; and Erika de la Garza, program director for the Baker Institute's Latin American Initiative.

The Mexican participants were Ismael Aguilar-Barajas, professor of economics at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM); Jorge Chabat, professor of international studies at the Center for Research and Teaching; Rodolfo Cruz Piñeiro, director of population studies at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF); Alejandro Díaz-Bautista, professor of economics and researcher at COLEF, Rafaél Fernández de Castro, professor of international studies at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México; Juan Carlos Foncerrada, director of international affairs at the National Investigation and Security Center; Tony Payan, assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso; Andrés Rozental, senior nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations; and Jorge E. Tello Peón, vice president for development of international information at CEMEX and professor at ITESM.

U.S. experts at the meeting were Chris Bronk, fellow in technology, society and public policy at the Baker Institute; Gordon Hanson, director of Pacific economies and professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD); Chappell Lawson, associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Doris Meissner, senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute; Pia Orrenius, senior economist and policy adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; Demetrios G. Papademetriou, co-founder and president of the Migration Policy Institute; Mark Rosenblum, assistant professor of political science at the University of New Orleans; David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute and assistant director in the department of political science at the University of San Diego; and Stephen Zamora, professor of law at the University of Houston and an attorney with Haynes-Boone.

The U.S.-Mexico Border Project is funded primarily by the Houston Endowment.