This section presents selected academic and professional research on migration, foreign policy, and development in the Americas. The work here reflects formal research conducted through graduate study at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and professional engagements across government and policy.
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Sanctions on Venezuela: The Case for Multilateral Diplomacy over Unilateral Coercion
In August 2017, the Trump administration was weighing unilateral economic sanctions against Venezuela as a tool for removing President Nicolás Maduro from power. The situation in Venezuela was deteriorating rapidly — political crisis, economic collapse, and a deepening humanitarian emergency had destabilized the country and sent shockwaves across the region. This memo, prepared as a…
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Losing the 21st Century Workforce: How Education can reduce Irregular Migration from Northern Central America
By midnight on December 21, 2022, Title 42 — the controversial pandemic-era public health law used to expel migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border — was scheduled to end by court order. Its termination was long overdue. But its end threatened to deepen an already acute crisis at the southern border, one that had consistently diverted…
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When Borders Break: Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the Cascade of Forced Migration
In the summer of 2018, twenty-three thousand Nicaraguans sought protection in Costa Rica in a single day — 8,000 filing asylum claims, another 15,000 waiting to do so. They were fleeing a country in political freefall: protests ignited by President Daniel Ortega’s decision to increase taxes on pensions and social security had spiraled into a…
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the Venezuelan Migration Crisis and the Limits of Multilateralism
A SWOT Analysis of the Multilateral System’s Response More than 4.5 million Venezuelans had fled their country by late 2019 — the largest displacement crisis in Latin American history. The multilateral system, led by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), launched the Regional Refugee and Migrant…
Policy On The Move 