InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies

HR-4437 passed the Congress in December of 2005, and among its provisions would make felons out of undocumented immigrants. Subsequently, there has been a flurry of federal and local attempts to increase immigration enforcement under the guise that they are leeching resources from more “deserving” Americans. The following is a conversation with UCLA Professors Patricia Gándara and Gary Orfield regarding how the Civil Rights Project (CRP) is looking to focus immigration and education as pressing, contemporary civil rights issues. Professors Gándara and Orfield highlight how researchers can address social inequities by first performing sound, empirical analyses, and then making the academic findings accessible for non-academic audiences to inform public policy.