Finding “Angels” for the Boat People

This chapter covers evangelical resettlement of Southeast Asian refugees from 1975 to the early 1980s. During this time, a number of evangelical organizations ran resettlement ministries and refugee service programs. This chapter describes the professionalization of evangelical refugee resettlement, including the founding of the first evangelical resettlement agency, World Relief Refugee Services. Evangelical volunteers and former missionaries to Vietnam played a significant role in running recreational and educational activities in the refugee resettlement camps in the mid-1970s. These “missionaries without a country” became an important resource for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which relied on their interpreting and translating services. By differentiating between mainstream evangelical and progressive evangelical responses to the government’s appeal for evangelical sponsors, this chapter shows that evangelicals’ political stances on the US involvement in Vietnam fundamentally shaped their response to the refugees.

Introduction

The introduction provides an overview of the broad sweep of immigrant incarceration from the late nineteenth century through the present. Although the number of immigrants in detention today based on immigration charges is higher than ever, if we consider all forms of incarceration, including mental asylums and people being imprisoned for drug and alcohol charges, the rates of institutionalization in the mid-twentieth century rival that of the last two decades. Furthermore, even though the Immigration and Naturalization Service policy shifted in the early to mid-1950s to paroling immigrants while they applied for asylum rather than detaining them, this was also the moment when hundreds of thousands of Mexicans were being detained for short periods of time and returned to Mexico. In the late 1980s and 1990s, criminal and immigration laws merged to mandate deportation for immigrants who had committed even minor offenses decades earlier.

Japanese Peruvian Enemy Aliens during World War II

Seiichi Higashide was not an agent of the Japanese emperor or a pro-Axis immigrant, and yet he and more than 1,800 other Japanese Peruvians got caught up in a wave of anti-Japanese hysteria during World War II that led to their kidnapping, forced migration, and incarceration in hastily erected camps in Texas and New Mexico. Higashide and his family were detained as “illegal aliens” in an Immigration and Naturalization Service detention facility in Texas alongside thousands of other foreigners in other camps spread across the Southwest. After the war, Higashide and his family worked at Seabrook Farms, a food processing complex in New Jersey, which was essentially a prison work camp. In the 1950s, the Higashides became US citizens, but the trauma of detention and racism remains with the family. The Higashides’ story reveals the intersection between US empire, national security, and immigrant detention.

Deportation in an Era of Militarized Borders and Mass Incarceration

This chapter discusses the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) that was signed by President Ronald Reagan in the fall of 1986. It explains how IRCA provided legal status to anyone who could prove continuous residency in the United States since January 1, 1982. The chapter discusses the Special Agricultural Workers provision for people who had toiled over perishable crops for at least ninety days between May 1, 1985 and May 1, 1986. It focuses on the Márquez familys' story, which offers insights into some of the core elements of immigration enforcement in the mid- to late 1980s and beyond. It also highlights how the Immigration and Naturalization Service targeted the vast majority of people for deportation because they entered the country without authorization or overstayed a visa.

Insurgent Visions Of FREEDOM: Migrant Resistance Against The Settler Colonial Nation And Neoliberal Carceral State During The 1995 Esmor Immigration Prison Rebellion

The following paper provides a historical analysis of the 1995 New Jersey Esmor immigration prison rebellion and its aftermath, including two civil class actions, Jama v. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Jama v. Esmor Correctional Services Inc. The Esmor prison rebellion presents a rare example of migrant-led resistance efforts against the neoliberal Carceral State and settler colonial ideologies during the post-Civil Rights Era.

Insurgent Visions Of FREEDOM: Migrant Resistance Against The Settler Colonial Nation And Neoliberal Carceral State During The 1995 Esmor Immigration Prison Rebellion

The following paper provides a historical analysis of the 1995 New Jersey Esmor immigration prison rebellion and its aftermath, including two civil class actions, Jama v. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and Jama v. Esmor Correctional Services Inc. The Esmor prison rebellion presents a rare example of migrant-led resistance efforts against the neoliberal Carceral State and settler colonial ideologies during the post-Civil Rights Era.

Policing an Internal Border

Within the context of global trade and migration to cities in the 1980s, the department remobilized to expand its discretionary authority to combat the growing number of undocumented migrants. Hoping to maintain the trust of new immigrant populations, officials limited police authority to make arrests based on immigration status. Yet, the LAPD constructed an “alien criminal” category to justify cooperation with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and to arrest undocumented immigrants and refugees fleeing South and central America. In the process, the LAPD employed racialized constructions of illegality that criminalized the city’s Latino/a population in the name of protecting the image of Los Angeles as a world city.

Employers as Junior Immigration Inspectors: The Impact of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act

21 International Lawyer, (1987)Maurice A. Roberts and Stephen W. Yale-LoehrThe Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), also known as the Simpson-Rodino Act, is the most significant piece of immigration legislation in over thirty years. It radically revamps this already complicated area of law. Its impact on employers is particularly great, and can be seen in three ways. First, fines of up to $10,000 and even jail sentences can be imposed on businesses that knowingly hire undocumented aliens. Second, every employer must now verify and maintain records on the immigration and citizenship status of each prospective employee, even if the applicant is a U.S. citizen. Third, antidiscrimination provisions prohibit all but the smallest employers from discriminating in hiring or firing on the basis of an individual's national origin or citizenship status. Persons who feel they have been discriminated against may initiate an action against the employer.These provisions create major new responsibilities for businesses, and in effect deputize them as junior immigration inspectors. Employers must now provide the sort of enforcement check that the woefully undermanned Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is unable to perform. Lawyers will feel these duties and prohibitions doubly: first in advising their business clients, and second in having to comply themselves, in their own role as employers.This article analyzes the employer sanctions and antidiscrimination provisions of the Simpson-Rodino Act. The article points out ambiguities, gaps, and unanswered questions in the statute and supplementing regulations, and provides practical pointers for attorneys, businesses, and individuals.