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ICFRC: Immigration and Asylum: A View from the Border

Listen to an audio podcast of this program.

Yolanda Rivera received her BA in Psychology from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania before pursuing her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Texas in El Paso. Yolanda worked as a 5th/6th grade teacher at the American Institute of Monterrey in Monterrey, Texas before moving back to the United States with her family and pursuing a J.D. from the University of Iowa, specializing in immigration law. Yolanda volunteers at the Iowa City Compassion Legal Clinic, and in August 2018 she volunteered with the organization Lawyers for Good Government/Raices at the Karnes Detention Center, providing legal advice to families who had recently been reunified. In March 2019, she returned to Texas to volunteer with the ProBar organization, where she conduced intake interviews for unaccompanied minors held in detention centers in the Harlingen Area.

Yolanda was born and raised in Puerto Rico and is married to a Mexican citizen. While living in Mexico with her husband and crossing the border daily to study at the University of Texas, Yolanda acquired a unique perspective on US/Mexico border interactions. With the growing relevance of immigration reform and border security policies, Yolanda Rivera's discussion hits on asylum and immigration with a unique perspective from the border.

For more information on the Foreign Relations Council visit their website at www.icfrc.org.

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