(New Orleans)—Loyola University New Orleans’ Society for Civic Engagement (LSCE) is hosting a panel discussion on the theme of Immigrant Labor on Wednesday, October 25, 2006. The event will be held at 7 p.m. in Nunemaker Auditorium, on the third floor of Monroe Hall. A coffee and cookie reception will follow.

The panel will be a talk show format with four panelists and Jennifer Bearden, LSCE’s director of communications, serving as moderator. The four panelists will be Dan Griswold, Kathleen Gasparian, Pablo Alvarado, and Temple Black.

Daniel T. Griswold is director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies. Since joining Cato in 1997, he has authored or coauthored major studies on globalization, the World Trade Organization, the U.S. trade deficit, trade and democracy, immigration and other subjects. Griswold's October 2002 paper Willing Workers: Fixing the Problem of Illegal Mexican Migration to the United States was used in the Flake-Kolbe-McCain immigration bill in 2003, which President Bush drew upon in early 2004 as the basis for his guest worker program. Griswold has testified before congressional committees and federal agencies on immigration, the trade deficit, steel trade, and the costs of protectionism. Earlier in his career, he served as a congressional press secretary and the editorial page editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette. Griswold has been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, and other publications, and has appeared on C-SPAN, CNN, PBS, BBC, and Fox News Channel. He holds a master of science degree in the politics of the world economy from the London School of Economics.

Kathleen Gasparian earned her juris doctor degree in 2002 from Loyola University New Orleans and previously served as a Judicial Law Clerk for the U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Office of Immigration Review. She is currently an associate with David Ware & Associates and specializes in Immigration and Nationality Law. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Mid-South Chapter Ambassador for the American Immigration Law Foundation.

Pablo Alvarado currently serves as the National Coordinator of the National Day Labor Organizing Network. His responsibilities include leading day labor organizations in their pursuit to represent the day labor community in various forums and giving day laborers a public voice. He is the recipient of the Next Generation Leadership Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, which recognizes entrepreneurial, risk-taking and fair leaders who seek to develop solutions to major challenges of democracy, including issues of race, changing demographics, the digital divide, and massive globalization. In 2004, Alvarado was recognized by the Ford Foundation's Leadership for a Changing World program. Alvarado worked with the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles as the Lead Coordinator of their Day Labor Project. Under his leadership, CHIRLA’s Day Labor Project received recognition from the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission during the year 2000. He brings an extensive background of working with day laborers and community organizing to the Day Labor Rights Project. In August 2005, TIME Magazine named Alvarado among the 25 most influential hispanics in the US.

Temple H. Black is director of public affairs for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Department of Homeland Security, located in New Orleans, Louisiana. The district covers a five-state area including Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee.

Lieutenant Colonel Black retired from active duty with the United States Air Force in December 1998. In October 2000, he joined the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in Washington as a senior spokesman. In November 2001, he transferred back home to New Orleans.

Colonel Black has extensive public affairs experience in developing and managing communications programs. After a five-year stint at the Pentagon as Chief of Special Events, he was assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, the home of Air Force One. There he orchestrated numerous national and international press-events including many with former presidents Bush and Clinton. He was responsible for innumerable national media events including "CBS Salutes the Troops"…President Bush’s welcome-home to American POWs. From there, he was assigned to Langley Air Force Base, as Chief of Media for Air Combat Command. The following year, he was selected by then Secretary of State, Madeline Albright to serve a 15-month assignment to Serbia, as Senior American Military Advisor to then U.S. Ambassador Jacques Klein. During his Air Force career, he devised public affairs strategies for the United Nations; created a process to airlift the Department of Defense media-pool to worldwide crises on short notice; and opened the NATO public information program in Turkey. He also led many of the national and international press activities associated with the opening ceremonies of the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans.

Loyola University New Orleans is a Jesuit-Catholic institution with a total student enrollment of 4,724 including 800 law students.

For more information, please contact Roger White at 865-3530.