Ieva Jusionyte, the CHRHS Director and Watson Family University Professor of International Security and Anthropology, is conducting an ongoing research project on judicial expulsions and extraditions between the United States and Latin America. Over the past 40 years, the US government has ordered the extradition of Latin American foreign nationals to the United States to be tried for crimes concerning US policy or citizens, from drug trafficking to money laundering to homicides. Often, such cases result in reduced sentences or witness protection for those who comply with US legal authorities, thereby obstructing the pursuit of justice for crimes committed by these individuals in Latin America and deepening Latin American citizens’ distrust of their state’s government. In the past year, the US government’s novel expulsions of individuals for judicial proceedings to Latin America have further complicated the broader research question: Can justice be exported?

To begin answering this question, Professor Jusionyte enlisted the help of three Brown undergraduate research assistants: Veronica Dickstein ‘26, Jude Farley ‘26, and Jack Zarate ‘27. Veronica and Jack have been working on the project since last January, while Jude joined the team this September through an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award. When asked what motivated them to join the project, all three cited an interest in law, international affairs, and humanitarian work.

Together, Veronica, Jude, and Jack are creating a database of extradition cases for analysis—drawing upon public records, government press releases, media coverage, and interviews with attorneys. According to Jack, the team frequently uses the online database PACER to access publicly available electronic court records of individual extradition cases. Describing the research process as “both quantitative and qualitative,” Jack stated that they often corroborate extradition cases with media accounts while searching for procedural patterns across cases. 

Beyond public records, the undergraduate research team indicated that attempts to contact or interview individuals connected to the cases (including lawyers, plaintiffs, and defendants) have been challenging. However, such interviews are central to the project. Jude explained,

“The challenge with extradition is that it is not a public process. It’s a government-to-government process, and so you see what comes out of it. You see the arrest, and maybe you see the indictment and the charges, right? But you don’t see all the government-to-government and prosecutor-to-prosecutor communication that goes on.”

Veronica noted that prosecutors have been hesitant to engage with the research. The rest of the team concurred that many potential interviewees connected to extradition and expulsion cases fear being put at risk. While these rejections can be discouraging, Jack emphasized that this aspect of the project has further instilled in him the acuteness of the issue at hand. “There are so many stakeholders,” he said. 

Throughout the research process, all three undergraduates expressed their appreciation for Professor Jusionyte’s trust and faith in their capabilities. Veronica stated, “She has big overarching questions that she wants us to look at, and then we sit down together and figure out how to go about answering them.” She further noted that Professor Jusionyte encourages them to delve deeper into their own interests throughout the research process. 

For any undergraduate students interested in conducting research, the students emphasized the importance of keeping open communication lines with professors, as well as applying to Brown’s UTRA funding opportunities each semester. Jude added that students can “cook up their own projects” as well as engage in independent studies with professors on a research topic that interests them.