On this page, you will find:

To find organisations working for LGBTQI+ rights, visit our Mexico LGBTQI+ Resources page.
To find organisations providing legal or other types of assistance to refugees in Mexico, visit our Mexico Legal Assistance page

COI Experts

Email: profegonzales1@gmail.com

Dr Gonzales holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (2008) and an M.A. in Latin American Studies from Stanford University (2002). Dr Gonzales’s scholarly interests focus on Latino and Latin American politics, migration control, deportation, human rights, transnational gangs, and migrant social movements in the U.S., Mexico, and Central America. He has published in the International Journal of Latino Studies, the North American Congress on Latin America-Report on the Americas, and with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. His research has been used in Federal immigration proceedings on behalf of Mexican and Central American asylum seekers.

Email: afeldmann@uc.cl

Dr Andreas E. Feldmann is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Catholic University in Santiago de Chile. His research specializes in International Relations with a focus on political violence and terrorism; population uprooting and human rights, and international cooperation. His most recent work has appeared in Latin American Politics and SocietyTerrorism and Political ViolenceBeyond LawRevista de Ciencia PolíticaJournal of Peacebuilding and Development, and Migración y Desarrollo.Dr. Feldmann has worked as a consultant for International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and served as assistant to the Special Rapporteur on Migrant Workers and Members of their Families of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (2000-6). He earned a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame (2002) and worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow Researcher/Instructor in the Human Rights Program at the University of Chicago (2003-5).

Email: B.Smith.1@warwick.ac.uk

Dr Benjamin T. Smith is professor of Latin American history at the University of Warwick. He is an expert on twentieth century Mexican politics and has published six books on the subject. He has been living and studying in Mexico for nearly fifteen years after receiving his BA, M.Phil and Ph.D from the University of Cambridge. He has also published many academic articles on varied subjects including indigenous politics, elections, taxation, healthcare, the Catholic church and moral panics over drugs. He also writes popular pieces on modern Mexico in Dissent, the Guardian, and Nexos magazine and has appeared on Sky TV, BBC Radio, and France 24. He is currently working on a history of the drug trade in Mexico and has provided many expert witness accounts for refugees fleeing drug violence in Mexico and Central America. 

Email: jmslack@utep.edu

Jeremy Slack is Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Texas at El Paso, in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. His research interests include violence, deportation, migration, borders, and trafficking, with a special focus on Mexico. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Arizona, 2015.

586-404-4110 (Office)
leon@unitedvoicesusa.com
www.unitedvoicesusa.com

Leon Boyer is a retired Supervisory Border Patrol Agent, where he served in various leadership capacities including, at the U.S. Border Patrol Headquarters’ Intelligence Division. He is the Director of United Voices Interpreting and Consulting, LLC, which serves to provide consultation and expert witness services. His specialties include knowledge in arrest and removal documents, Transnational Criminal Organizations and violence, narcotics and human trafficking, alien smuggling, and migration, with special focus on Mexico.

Mr. Boyer teaches Political Science, Homeland Security, and Border Security at two Michigan community colleges. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Administration from the University of Arizona, a Master of Arts in International Relations and Conflict Resolution from American Military University, and a Master of Science in Psychology from Grand Canyon University.

Email:  mark.velazquez@uconn.edu

Mark Overmyer-Velázquez is Associate Professor of History and the founding Director of El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean & Latin American Studies at the University of Connecticut. Trained at Yale University as a historian of Latin America and U.S. Latinos, Professor Overmyer-Velázquez has dedicated his research and teaching to these intersecting fields. He completed his last book, Beyond la Frontera: The History of Mexico-U.S. Migration (Oxford, 2011), while on fellowship as the Peggy Rockefeller Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. His new book project analyzes the historical experiences of people from Latin America and the Caribbean in their hemispheric and global diasporas. Global Latin(o) Americanos: Transoceanic Diasporas and Regional Migrations (Oxford, 2017), emerges from his work as a Fulbright Scholar examining the history of Peruvian migrants in Chile. Winner of the New England Council on Latin American Studies Best Book Award, his first work, Visions of the Emerald City: Modernity, Tradition and the Formation of Porfirian Oaxaca, Mexico (Duke, 2006; Spanish translation 2010), analyzes the mutually defining processes of modernity and tradition during late 19th and early 20th century Mexico. Former co-chair of the Latina/o Studies Section of the Latin American Studies Association, he also edited the two volume, Latino America: State by State (Greenwood, 2008), which addresses the historical significance of the growing Latin(o) American population throughout the United States. He serves as Vice Chairperson of Connecticut Students for a Dream (http://www.ct4adream.org/), a state-wide organization that advocates and provides assistance for undocumented students and their families. He is willing to provide his expertise pro bono in cases where NGOs do not have funds.

Email: mybarra@uw.edu

Megan Ybarra is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Washington, Seattle. She only accepts Country of Origin Information cases for rural northern Guatemala and rural southern Mexico, and only from non-profit law clinics. Her first research project examines settler colonialism, violence and land activism in Guatemala’s Maya Forest. Her work has been published in journals including AntipodeJournal of Peasant Studies and Geoforum. Her current research interests include abolitionist solidarity in immigrant justice activism in the US and Mexico’s immigration enforcement practices towards Central American migrants.

 

Email: p.watt@sheffield.ac.uk

Phone: (UK) 0114 222 0544

Dr. Peter Watt is Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Sheffield. He is co-author of Drug War Mexico. Politics, Violence and Neoliberalism in the New Narcoeconomy, Zed Books, 2012. His teaching and research interests include Latin American history, narcotrafficking and organised crime, white collar crime, issues relating to the protection of human rights, US/Latin American relations, the media and freedom of expression and new social movements in Latin America. He is also a writer for the North American Congress on Latin America. He is currently working with Mexican refugees seeking asylum in the US.

Email: rbc23@cornell.edu

Dr. Raymond Craib specializes in Latin American history and within that broad field Mexico and Chile. He has an an MA for the University of Mexico and a Ph.d. from Yale. He has spent a number of years in Mexico, beginning in the early 1990s and through to 2003 and continues to follow political events closely there. He also worked in Chile since 2006 and travels there regularly. His work in Mexico addresses issues in the 19th and 20th centuries related to cartography, property, and agrarian social relations. In Chile, he has focused on radicalism among university students and workers in the early twentieth century. He considers himself to have a robust knowledge related to immigration issues.

COI Resources

The following sections contain documents that can be consulted when looking for country of origin information.

Click here to see Ecoi’s online collection of multi-sourced COI Reports.

Mexico Legal Assistance

Find organisations offering legal and other types of assistance to refugees in Mexico.

Mexico LGBTQI+ Resources

Find organisations working for refugee LGBTQI+ rights in Mexico.

We are always looking to expand the resources on our platform. If you know about relevant experts, or you are aware of organisations and/or resources to include in our directories, please get in touch.

Last updated June 2023