New York City has been the epicenter of the arrival of thousands of migrants coming from the US southern border. The humanitarian crisis is exacerbated by state authorities, bipartisan disputes, and lengthy bureaucratic procedures. Amidst this crisis, people on the move are caught up in contentious debates regarding interpretations of migrant vulnerabilities or alleged criminality, resulting in a culture of suspicion, hierarchization of vulnerabilities, and exacerbation of racial and gender profiling. How have sociology and other social sciences conceptualized and represented people on the move? What are the implications of the use of specific terms such as “migrant” versus “refugee” to describe individuals experiencing certain forms of mobility? This course delves into interdisciplinary scholarship, drawing from transnationalism, mobility, and border studies, forced displacement, and critical migration studies. We begin with a historical account of immigrants coming to the US in the late 19th Century and the roots of concepts such as “illegal alien”. Students then examine the creation and proliferation of different figures of mobility such as the “undocumented migrant”, which often is represented as an economic migrant and/or criminal and deportable, and the “refugee”, portrayed as an individual fleeing violence and in need of protection. Assignments will require students to engage with topics such as asylum, detention, deportation, illegalization, and racialization of migrants, among others, while choosing specific cases across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Discussion board posts, student presentations, and a final paper on a specific problem related to the figures of mobility will compose the final grade.