As part of Immigration Education Day on Saturday morning, Creighton University facilitated a panel in the Skutt Student Center Ballroom which featured four speakers each with a unique perspective on the problem of immigration within the U.S.

Each of the panelists gave a brief speech about their thoughts on the issue and audience members were then given the opportunity to ask questions following each speech.

Joanna Williams, director of education and advocacy at the Kino Border Initiative in Nogales, AZ and Nogales, Mexico, was the first panelist to speak. Williams spoke about her experience at the Kino Border Initiative which seeks to help migrants attempting to cross the Mexico – United States border.

Williams shared the stories of migrants she has encountered through the Kino Border Initiative and spoke about the dangers migrants face in crossing the border from Mexico under current U.S. immigration policies.

“Ultimately what they’re encountering is a deadly and dehumanizing system,” Williams said.

Despite the current U.S. immigration policy of “prevention through deterrence,” Williams said, “There are people who risk death every single day to try to get to the United States.”

Dr. Jennifer Reed-Bouley, a professor and program director of theology at College of Saint Mary in Omaha, spoke about her understanding of immigration through Catholicism.

Reed-Bouley spoke about the Catholic Tradition and how it can be applied in finding a solution for the problems created by the current immigration system. Reed-Bouley suggested that the Catholic Tradition can “help us to understand a different way of being together.”

Specifically, Reed-Bouley said that the Catholic Tradition can help “to imagine future possibilities for both preventing the need for migration and for responding to migrants that align more closely with our shared beliefs about the nature of the human person and our responsibilities in society.”

María Guadalupe Sánchez Salazar, who serves as Consul of Mexico in Omaha, provided facts regarding the causes of immigration and migrants’ contribution to the U.S. economy. Salazar also spoke about her role at the Consulate of Mexico and said, “We are here to support our migrants.”

“We need to see the Mexican and the United States relationship from another perspective,” Salazar said in offering a solution for the current immigration environment. “We are different, yes, we speak different languages, we have different historical origins, but we are neighbors.”

The final panelist to speak was special assistant professor Charles “Shane” Ellison of Creighton University School of Law and director of its Immigrant and Refugee Clinic. Ellison offered a unique perspective into the legal issues involved in the current immigration system.

Ellison spoke about the false narrative surrounding immigration and specifically discussed how recent policies have been created, not to “crack-down on unlawful immigration, but seeking to further narrow and limit avenues for pursuing lawful immigration.”

He also discussed how “protecting refugees and asylum seekers was once a bipartisan issue.”

Ellison ended with a quote from Martin Luther King Jr., saying, “‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,’ – so don’t stop fighting for justice.”