Diego Paz

Diego is an undergraduate student in Pauli Murray College pursuing his B.A. in Political Science and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration with a Human Rights certificate through the Jackson School of Global Affairs. He is the son of immigrants and was raised along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands of California where he commuted daily from Tijuana, México to San Diego to attend school. 

Diego’s scholarly interests lie at the intersection of critical border studies, comparative immigration policy, and international security politics. He examines the transnational mobility of people, attending to human rights violations at the U.S. southern border, southern port of Spain, and Spanish North Africa. He has studied abroad in Spain for Spanish language and culture, and the University of Oxford for politics. 

This summer, Diego will work as a paralegal intern for the San Diego Public Defender Immigration Unit as a Millstone Fellow through the Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies. He is also a Liman Fellow and previously worked as a mitigation intern at the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the District of Connecticut. He’s an organizer for Mecha de Yale, archivist for Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), legal advocacy intern for Elena’s Light, and community partner for Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS). He has worked on a project with the University Network for Human Rights on forced disappearances in Mexico. At Yale, Diego guides visitors around campus as a Yale tour guide and creates content as a social media ambassador for the Yale Office of Public Affairs and Communications. He has been involved in multiple elected/appointed roles in the Yale College Council, worked as an assistant to the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School, supported first-years as a Peer Liaison for the Yale LGBTQ Center, and co-headed the Camp Yale program Cultural Connections.

Areas of research and geographical interest:

Critical Border Studies, Border Militarization, Comparative Immigration Policy, International Security Politics, U.S.-Mexico Border, Spanish North Africa, Spain, Fortress America, Fortress Europe,  Crimmigration, Nativism, Necropolitics, Latinx Studies, Human Rights, Illiberalism, Political Sociology, Postcolonial Theory, Cultural Studies, Literary Critique, Transnational Mobilities