Joseph Wiltberger received his PhD in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds appointments as Visiting Scholar at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego and Assistant Professor of Central American Studies at California State University, Northridge. He has conducted extensive ethnographic field research in El Salvador and among transnational Central American migrants in the United States and in border areas. Paying particular attention to the experiences of marginalized youth, his research has explored the forces that drive the large-scale emigration of Salvadorans and how local, national, and transnational organizations respond to their migration. His most recent work concerns the conjuncture of the uptick in migration driven by gang-related violence and insecurity in the Northern Triangle of Central America and the shift toward more restrictive immigration enforcement strategies in the United States.