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p class=”p1″>Enrique Morones, founder of Border Angels — a San Diego-based non-profit organization active in immigration and human rights issues pertaining to the U.S.-Mexico border — will be giving a lecture on Tuesday.
Border Angels, founded in 1986 by Morones, focuses on issues that affect the Latino/a community, and has recently gained attention for the “water drops” initiative, for which volunteers travel along popular routes used by people crossing the border illegally to leave jugs of water behind in an effort to prevent unnecessary deaths due to dehydration.
“We assist immigrants on the road to citizenship by providing free and low-cost legal assistance, as well as encouraging English language education and a comprehensive understanding of American culture, society, and legal system,” according to the Border Angels website.
Morones’s two-day visit, sponsored by the Latino/a studies program, American studies program, the Cornell Farmworkers program, among other departments, will include classroom visits and meetings with students.
“He is passionate about [immigration] and has converted that passion into concrete actions that have a deep impact on people’s lives,” Prof. Mary Jo Dudley, developmental psychology, and director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, said in a press release for the College of Arts & Sciences. Dudley helped organize the visit for COML 4575: Migration in the Americas: Engaged Research Methods and Practice, in which students work closely with immigrant farmworkers.
Outside of his work with Border Angels, Morones continues to champion human rights in both the public and private sector. He was the first individual to be granted dual citizenship with both Mexico and the United States in 1998, according to the organization’s website, and was the recipient of the 2009 National Human Rights Award, an honor granted by the former president of Mexico Felipe Calderon.
Morones has been active in human rights issues for decades, and in 2006 he led thousands of activists and American citizens across the U.S. on a “Marcha Migrante,” a demonstration that has since evolved to an annual event to demand immigration reform.
The lecture will take place at the First Unitarian Church in Ithaca at 6 p.m. and is open to the public.