Michael Paarlberg is an assistant professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and an associate fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. He is a scholar of migration and diasporas, authoritarianism, and crime in Latin America. Previously, he was a journalist with the Guardian. He served as chief Latin America policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign. He was formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and earned his PhD from Georgetown University.