Cross-Border Immigration Challenges

Robert T. (Bob) Phillips and his wife, Teresa, lived and worked on the Arizona/Mexico border from 2005 to 2015. Bob directed a children’s clinic for low-income families in Northern Mexico, as well as a community foundation and helped to found a cross-border nongovernmental organization (NGO), the Border Community Alliance. In the middle of the COVID19 pandemic, he assisted a Mexican foundation (FESAC) to coordinate the resources of U.S. and Mexican NGOs to find lasting solutions to the unprecedented challenges posed by the growing number of migrants and asylum seekers forced to stay in increasingly dangerous and overwhelmed Mexican border cities. Bob is a senior advisor to FESAC and the lead consultant for Green Valley Community Foundation.

Some of Bob’s community involvement include being a mentor for the Stanford Alumni Mentor program; serving on the Community Advisory Panel for KQED, an NPR radio station in Northern California; and guest lecturing on U.S./Mexico border health and migrant issues at both Stanford University Medical Center and the Haas Center for Public Service.

On the academic side, Bob holds a bachelor's in International Relations from Dartmouth and a master's in International Development from Stanford University. As a Stanford Exchange Scholar, he studied Middle Eastern Political and Economic Development and Islam at the American University of Beirut.

Bob enjoys surfing, hiking, kayaking, international travel, community service, and family gatherings. He has four grown children. He and his wife are currently raising their 16-year-old granddaughter.