Vernon Briggs R.I.P.
Longtime Center for Immigration Studies board member Vernon M. Briggs, Jr. has died. He was a labor economist who contributed significantly to the understanding of immigration’s economic impacts, especially on working Americans.
His work with Cesar Chavez while a professor at the University of Texas in the 1960s led to the publication of his first book, Chicanos and Rural Poverty. His other books included Immigration and American Unionism and Mass Immigration and the National Interest.
See his obituary here, from the Ithaca Journal (he was an emeritus professor at Cornell University).
To learn more about his contributions to the field, see this report on his life and career, and this interview. All of his writing for the Center and his congressional testimony is listed here.
He retired from the Center’s board in 2014, and we missed his ebullience and his wise counsel. Our condolences to his family.
