Criminal Law & Migration Control: Recent History & Future Possibilities

Immigration enforcement in the United States has undergone a revolutionary transformation over the past three decades. Once episodic, border-focused, and generally confined to the efforts of a relatively small federal agency, immigration enforcement is now exceedingly well-funded and integrated deeply into the everyday policing of the interior United States. Not only are federal immigration agents more numerous and ubiquitous in the interior, but immigration enforcement has been integrated into the policing practices of state and local officials who once saw their purview as largely distinct from that of federal immigration enforcement agents. This essay briefly explains these developments, from shortly before the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 through the present day, and assesses their consequences. It includes a brief discussion of the ways states and localities have responded to federal enforcement trends, whether through amplification or constraint.

A minor theory of direct action politics and performance in New Orleans’ economic justice movement

In this paper, I develop a minor theory that blurs boundaries between prefigurative direct action and symbolic performance to reconsider strategies for resistance and world-building. Drawing on participant observation and interviews of economic justice organizers and activists in New Orleans in 2015, I examine two events through this minor theory: an immigration reform protest and a collaboratively written skit about income inequality. By emphasizing the performance of protest and the potential for protest through performance, I consider how these events empowered activists to make claims on spaces of the city, develop long-term embodied solidarities, disrupt dominant narratives, and en act more just alternatives. These events took place against the backdrop of intensifying racial and economic inequalities in post-Katrina New Orleans, following a long history of both repression and resistance in the city. Through performance-based direct actions, New Orleans’s economic justice movement moves beyond a reactive politics rooted in outrage and anguish toward a direct action politics constructive of a more just world.

The Great Communicators and political reconstruction: A comparative study between President Ronald Reagan and President Barack Obama

<p>Presidents come into office wanting to make America a better place, and Stephen Skowronek’s recurring model of presidential authority is perfectly suited when comparing one president to another, across political time. President Ronald Reagan was categorised as a reconstructive president alongside Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt, according to Skowronek’s model; at the end of his first term, President Obama’s has the potential to be remembered as the sixth president of reconstruction. While the nature of reconstruction has changed and has become more superficial with the ageing of the United States political system, Obama’s reconstructive potential is no less potent than that of Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln. The passing of Health Care reform is Obama’s biggest achievement of his presidency to date and is one of the biggest domestic reforms undertaken since the 1960s. Looking ahead to Obama’s second term, further progress looks possible to enhance his reconstructive potential. If Obama can secure immigration reform, then he will give 12 million illegal immigrants the chance to come out from the shadows and work toward residency and legally live the American dream. With the election and re-election of Obama by an emerging majority made up of women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and young Americans, the Age of Reagan that existed, has now been replaced by a more diverse coalition. If a democrat can win the White House in 2016, it will truly mean that the Age of Obama has begun. Obama’s most potent legacy will become more evident in the years to come as many Americans will not remember what the unemployment rate was when he assumed office or what it was when he left office. The partisan bickering that dominated for much of Obama’s first term will have faded into distant memory, but what will shine through from the Obama presidency is opportunity. Americans will never forget how Obama changed the limits of possibility for generations to come. Today there are ten year old African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American children all over the United States who believe that, because of the Obama presidency, they too can one day become president. That in itself is hugely reconstructive and by being elected President, Obama has achieved something more potent than any other reconstructive presidents could have ever achieved.</p>

The Great Communicators and political reconstruction: A comparative study between President Ronald Reagan and President Barack Obama

<p>Presidents come into office wanting to make America a better place, and Stephen Skowronek’s recurring model of presidential authority is perfectly suited when comparing one president to another, across political time. President Ronald Reagan was categorised as a reconstructive president alongside Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt, according to Skowronek’s model; at the end of his first term, President Obama’s has the potential to be remembered as the sixth president of reconstruction. While the nature of reconstruction has changed and has become more superficial with the ageing of the United States political system, Obama’s reconstructive potential is no less potent than that of Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln. The passing of Health Care reform is Obama’s biggest achievement of his presidency to date and is one of the biggest domestic reforms undertaken since the 1960s. Looking ahead to Obama’s second term, further progress looks possible to enhance his reconstructive potential. If Obama can secure immigration reform, then he will give 12 million illegal immigrants the chance to come out from the shadows and work toward residency and legally live the American dream. With the election and re-election of Obama by an emerging majority made up of women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and young Americans, the Age of Reagan that existed, has now been replaced by a more diverse coalition. If a democrat can win the White House in 2016, it will truly mean that the Age of Obama has begun. Obama’s most potent legacy will become more evident in the years to come as many Americans will not remember what the unemployment rate was when he assumed office or what it was when he left office. The partisan bickering that dominated for much of Obama’s first term will have faded into distant memory, but what will shine through from the Obama presidency is opportunity. Americans will never forget how Obama changed the limits of possibility for generations to come. Today there are ten year old African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American children all over the United States who believe that, because of the Obama presidency, they too can one day become president. That in itself is hugely reconstructive and by being elected President, Obama has achieved something more potent than any other reconstructive presidents could have ever achieved.</p>

Behind the Scenes

Chapter 5 looks at the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by senators on three bills debated and voted on in 2013: the debt-ceiling bill known commonly as “No Budget, No Pay,” the “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration reform bill, and an agriculture bill. It looks at interview data collected in 2013 from legislative directors for nineteen senators examining responses to how much time and effort legislators put into each bill and their overall satisfaction of the outcome. While conventional wisdom would expect to see moderates prioritize the No Budget No Pay Act and the immigration bill, spending most of their time and resources on these bills and report satisfaction with each bill’s final content and legislative process, I find that on average, moderate respondents were less likely to report satisfaction with the overall outcome of the legislative process, despite the time and effort put into the process.

Behind the Scenes

Chapter 6 looks at the behind-the-scenes influence senators exerted on three bills debated and voted on in 2013: the debt-ceiling bill known commonly as “No Budget, No Pay,” the “Gang of Eight” comprehensive immigration reform bill, and an agriculture bill. It looks at interview data collected in 2013 from legislative directors for nineteen senators examining responses that answer the question of whether back-room dealing is how moderates use their power. That is to say, do legislators consider moderate preferences in an effort to build a large enough coalition to pass legislation? Interview data suggest that while leaders do try to protect moderates, coalitions are built with the opposing side, not with centrists. Indeed, legislators rarely view moderates as the most powerful senators in the Senate, and are seldom lobbied for their vote.

ICE Offices and Immigration Courts: Accompaniment in Zones of Illegality

In this article, I examine two sites of the contemporary illegality industry in the United States: the ICE Field Office and the Immigration Court. Drawing on ongoing ethnographic engagement, including accompaniment and observations in a regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Field Office and an Executive Office of Immigration Reform (EOIR) Court, I trace how human interactions and social relations in each of these bureaucratic sites structure and reinforce conditions of precarity, insecurity, and marginality among undocumented and asylum seeking people in the United States. In both sites, the enforcement power of the state is visible through the configurations of bureaucratic processes and the structures of interactions between migrants and federal government officials. Examining these two sites from the vantage point of engaged ethnography, I illustrate how routine, bureaucratic encounters (re)produce illegality and exclusion by enacting violence against migrants through the powers of surveillance and administrative monitoring, and the threat of deportation and family separation. I also reflect on the political potential that emerges through activist anthropology and accompaniment with migrants in sites of state violence.