Immigrant Sanctuary or Danger

Hospitals have for centuries been considered safe havens for immigrants and people on the move. However, immigrants and migrants who seek health care have also been targeted for exclusion and deportation. This article discusses the history of how hospitals and health care facilities in the United States have acted both as sanctuaries and as sites of immigration enforcement. This debate came to a head in California in the 1970s, when conservatives began attacking local public health facilities’ informal sanctuary practices. Following the California battles, which culminated in Proposition 187 in 1994, immigrant rights movements have increasingly connected calls for sanctuary with demands for a right to health care.

Decolonizing 'integration': a post-colonial analysis of immigrant 'integration' in Canada & Germany

Migrant ‘host’ countries in the global north demand that newcomers ‘integrate’ into their societies by demonstrating language skills, economic participation, socialization, and adjusting to the norms and values of the destination country. However the question that remains unanswered is: who is the ‘host’ population, and who creates the norms and values that the newcomers are required to match up to? In the context of immigrant integration, this paper applies a postcolonial lens to understand the historical linkages in Canada (settler society) and Germany (ethic nation) that shape the everyday realities of immigrants in the present. The concept of immigrant ‘integration’ can be seen as a form of present-day colonialism that works to re-impose the idea of European hegemony over ‘other’ racialized groups, and distracts from the recognition and redress of Indigenous and immigrant rights. Key words: Canada, Germany, Integration, immigration, colonialism, racism, decolonization

Decolonizing 'integration': a post-colonial analysis of immigrant 'integration' in Canada & Germany

Migrant ‘host’ countries in the global north demand that newcomers ‘integrate’ into their societies by demonstrating language skills, economic participation, socialization, and adjusting to the norms and values of the destination country. However the question that remains unanswered is: who is the ‘host’ population, and who creates the norms and values that the newcomers are required to match up to? In the context of immigrant integration, this paper applies a postcolonial lens to understand the historical linkages in Canada (settler society) and Germany (ethic nation) that shape the everyday realities of immigrants in the present. The concept of immigrant ‘integration’ can be seen as a form of present-day colonialism that works to re-impose the idea of European hegemony over ‘other’ racialized groups, and distracts from the recognition and redress of Indigenous and immigrant rights. Key words: Canada, Germany, Integration, immigration, colonialism, racism, decolonization

Barring the Gates

When long-term Chicago resident and World War II veteran Rodolfo Lozoya traveled to Mexico in 1957 to visit his ailing mother, he probably did not think that he would face the threat of permanent separation from his US citizen wife and children. But when he tried to reenter the United States, authorities excluded him from the country because of his alleged past membership in the Communist Party. The saga of Lozoya’s exclusion and his family’s separation offer insights into the hypocritical nature of democracy in Cold War America. The case also sheds light on the intertwined lives of citizens and noncitizens, and how immigrant rights groups such as the Midwest Committee for Protection of Foreign Born mobilized to defend people from exclusion and deportation under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952. Federal censors’ decision to withhold materials on Lozoya more than fifty-five years later, and thirty years after his death, points to the enduring legacy of the Cold War and to the pervasive fear of radical politics in the twenty-first century.

Dynamics of Distinction and Solidarity within Social Movements: Explaining Relations between Privileged and Underprivileged Groups in the U.S. Immigrant Rights Movement

Undocumented immigrant youths, known as the Dreamers, rose to exceptional prominence in the American immigrant rights movement in the 2000s and 2010s. The Dreamers had considerable success in presenting themselves as assimilated and hard-working patriots worthy of regularization. While this strategy worked well in the media and politics, it also created a distance between the Dreamers and less privileged groups of undocumented immigrants. In 2013, just when they were widely recognized as legitimate, the Dreamers made the remarkable move to change their strategy: rather than presenting themselves as model immigrants uniquely worthy of regularization, they began mobilizing for policies benefiting all undocumented migrants. By documenting and explaining this change in strategy, this paper addresses the broader question of what separates and binds privileged and underprivileged subgroups in social movements.

Familial Moralities: Moral (Re)source of Commitment in the Immigrant Rights Movement in El Paso, Texas

Social movement scholars acknowledge the importance of morality in joining and shaping social movements. There is less knowledge about the content of morality that keeps social movement participants committed, once in. Moral commitments, I argue, emerge from the work conducted within social movements. By looking at everyday activities in the immigrant rights movement in El Paso, Texas, I analyze how commitment is shaped through the caregiving practices of staff and volunteers within two organizations serving immigrants and asylum seekers on the border: Compromiso and Casa Asuncion. Despite the strenuous work involved, I find care givers in these two organizations make sense of their continued participation by drawing on what I call familial moralities. At Compromiso, a legal aid office, caregivers reflect on their or others’ immigrant family histories, creating an intellectual attachment to the work through family. At Casa Asuncion, a migrant shelter, caregivers draw on new familial roles with migrants and the shelter staff, creating an emotional attachment as family.