Speaker Series: Amelia Frank-Vitale

Connecting overlapping regimes of mobility control, from the invisible gangland borders within San Pedro Sula to the growing expansiveness of the US border’s reach, this book shows how deportation does not deter migration but, in fact, keeps people moving, and how U.S. policies fuel the migration “crisis” they claim to address. Drawing from her own accompaniment of migrant caravans over many years, Frank-Vitale also explores how caravans emerge as both protest movement and migration tactic in response to this expanding border regime.

To register, contact Sophie Kofman at skofman@abfn.org. 

Amelia Frank-Vitale studies how people manage and make sense of an ever-expanding US border regime in the Americas. Vitale’s body of work connects regional immigration and security policies, organized crime, state violence, and strategic immobility as a survival strategy in Honduras and in migration.

Vitale’s research trajectory began with a focus on transit migration in and through Mexico. There, they document the dangers facing mostly Central Americans who were attempting to migrate through an increasingly hostile landscape as immigration enforcement and collateral consequences of Mexico’s so-called drug war put migrants in the cross hairs of both legal and illicit authorities. As part of this research, Vitale explored the various strategies that people employ to navigate this minefield, including coming together to migrate en masse, in the form of caravans, and making use of smugglers.