McGuinn 217
Telephone: 617-552-1605
Email: alejandro.olayomendez@bc.edu
Migration, Refugees, and Humanitarian Interventions
Dr. Olayo-Méndez developed his expertise by analyzing the interactions between migrants and humanitarian aid organizations along migration routes in Mexico and the ways these interactions shape the migratory processes in the region. He is particularly interested in the intersection of humanitarian aid and migration, as well as questions regarding human rights, inequality, transit migration, meso-level structures, and the so-called “Migration Industry.” His latest report, which he co-authored with researchers from Harvard and Tufts, examines the physical and mental health of a growing number of asylum seekers who have been waiting along the northern Mexico border to apply for protection from violence and harm.
Alejandro has worked with Dr. Hein de Haas and Dr. Alexander Betts at the University of Oxford. He has collaborated with Jesuit Refugee Service by conducting interviews with internally displaced people (IDP) in Colombia and Tamil Nadu, India. He has also done clinical work with immigrant and refugee communities in Chicago, IL, and Spokane, WA. He is currently preparing a project to research the effects of 'Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP)' on Mexican communities, humanitarian interventions, and the lived experiences of asylum seekers at the Mexico-US Border.
Alejandro is a Jesuit Priest from the West Coast Province in the U.S.
ARTICLES
Diamond, M. B., Testa, L., Novak, C., Kempton-Amaral, K., Porteny, T., and Olayo-Méndez, A., (2020). A Population in Peril: A Health Crisis among Asylum Seekers on the Northern Border of Mexico. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Global Health Institute. Available from globalhealth.harvard.edu
Olayo-Méndez, A (2017). La 72: An Oasis along the Migration Routes in Mexico, Forced Migration Review, 56, 10-11
Olayo-Méndez, A (2017). ‘Programa de la Frontera Sur’ and Interdiction, Peace Review, 29(1), 24-30
Olayo-Méndez, A., Haymes, S. N., & Vidal de Haymes, M. (2014). Mexican Migration-Corridor Hospitality, Peace Review, 26(2), 209-217
Olayo Méndez, J. A. (2006). Latino Parenting Expectations and Styles: A Literature Review, Protecting Children, 21(2), 53−61
CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDITED VOLUMES
Kubal, A. and Olayo-Méndez, A. (Forthcoming). Mirrors of Justice? Undocumented Immigrants in Courts in the United States and Russia, in R. Koulish & V. D. W. Maartje (eds.) Trump, Brexit and Fortress Europe. New York, Fordham University Press
Olayo-Méndez, A. (2019). The US-Mexico Border: More than a Political Line, in A. Ares, M. García Durán, J. Iglesias, C. Estrada Villaseñor (eds.) Migratory Flows at The Borders of Our World, Bogota, Universidad Javeriana.
Olayo-Méndez, A. (2019). La Esperanza: Una Categoría Teológica para Acercarse a la Migración, in A. Carpio Pérez and Y.B. Solís Nicot (eds.) Migración y Religión, Ciudad de México, Universidad Iberoamericana.
Alejandro has done clinical work with migrant women in Chicago, IL, and was a school social worker at Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane, WA.