About

The Immigration Forum is a platform aimed at filling the gap in middle and high school education about the global immigration crisis. The forum was started by Antonia Lucia Brillembourg, a high school student, who spent the last three years working with asylum seekers in the United States. She is a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from Venezuela and Argentina.

It is estimated that by 2050 there will be at least 220 millions migrants displaced worldwide because of persecution, human rights violations, climate change, wars, and inequities. Despite the importance of this issue, it is currently not a topic of discussion nor a part of a student’s curriculum at the high school level. This led Antonia to start an annual conference that connects students from different countries with renowned scholars to learn about the global immigration crisis and start conversations within their own communities.

The 2020 Immigration Forum webinar panelists included Professor Zeid, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, who spoke on the global immigration crisis from a human rights perspective; Professor Katherine Benton-Cohen from Georgetown University, who spoke on the role gender plays in immigration; and Professor Jane Hong from Occidental College who spoke on the history of immigration in the US and naturalization laws governing Asian immigrants.