Notes
Two different versions of a K and Middle Ground Aff.
Special thank you to Christina and Taya, as well as some later help from Hannah and Michael
Cho.
AFF
Middle Ground -- 1AC
Living in Fear
ICE has targeted its surveillance of immigrant populations through
extending federal authorities to state and local police officers
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, TS)
ICE began raiding homes, the agency also started to focus on worksite
enforcement. Indeed, during the latter half of the 2000s, ICE pursued an aggressive program of policing the nation's
Soon after
workplaces using raids. Between 2006 and 2008, the agency apprehended about 14,000 undocumented migrants through worksite
raids (US ICE 2008c). This compares to only about 2,700 arrests between 2002 and 2005 (ibid.). Although raids have decreased in
more recent years as ICE has shifted to workplace audits (see Bacon and Hing, this volume), they nevertheless continue to be a part
Worksite enforcement is a priority, according to ICE,
because "employment is a primary driving force behind illegal
immigration. By working with employers to ensure a legal workforce, ICE is able to stem the tide of those who cross our
borders illegally or unlawfully remain in our country to work" (US ICE 2009b). ICE deems the hiring of
undocumented immigrants a problem for several reasons. First,
the agency suggests that "illegal aliens often turn to criminal activity: including
document fraud, Social Security fraud or identity theft, in order to get jobs" (ibid.) Such crimes are seen to impact
negatively the lives of the U.S. citizens and legal immigrants whose identities are stolen. Second, the need of
undocumented migrants for fraudulent documents is said to
create thriving criminal markets. Third, there is a perception that
for every job taken by an undocumented immigrant there is one
less job for a lawful U.S. resident. Fourth, employers are believed to
exploit "illegal" workers by ignoring wage laws and safety
standards. Finally, undocumented migrants are seen "as easy
targets for criminals who want to use them to gain access to
sensitive facilities or to move illegal products" (ibid.). Worksite enforcement, then, is
of ICE's arsenal.
deemed necessary in order to stem the tide of illegality purportedly produced by undocumented migrants. The conviction seems to
be that "illegal" immigration generally erodes respect for authority—that the toleration of lawlessness undermines consideration for
law and order. For not only do the undocumented supposedly fail to conduct themselves responsibly, they also compel others to
. Unauthorized immigrants are thus seen to represent a
danger to the social body. Their disregard for the rule of law is
understood to pose a threat to the general welfare of the
population. Another strategy that ICE has employed in policing the interior is to partner with local and
follow suit
state police forces, sometimes using them as proxy immigration officers.19 The idea behind
these partnerships, and the devolution of immigration authority from federal powers to
nonfederal law enforcement agencies, is that they serve as a “force multiplier” for the
DHS, significantly expanding the reach of immigration policing authority (US ICE
2009a). ICE has placed its partnering initiatives under an umbrella program called ICE ACCESS (Agreements of Cooperation
in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security) (US ICE 2008d). The most well known ICE ACCESS initiatives are probably the
Criminal Alien Program (CAP), Secure Communities, and Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) (Gardner II and Kohli
2009; Keaney and Friedland 2009; Kohli and Varma 2011). CAP focuses on identifying “criminal aliens” detained in federal, state,
and local jails and prisons in the United States. Under this program, ICE agents screen inmates for immigration status either in
person, by phone, or by video teleconference, and then, after positive identification, work to secure a final order of removal prior to
the end of an individual's sentence so that she or he will be deported and not released back into the general public. Secure
Communities is
essentially a technologically driven version of CAP. Through this program, local
and state police are able to run the fingerprints of anyone they arrest, regardless
of guilt or eventual prosecution, through DHS immigration and other databases. If
there is a “hit,” the system automatically alerts ICE, which then interviews the individual and decides
whether or not to seek his or her removal. The 287(g) program permits state and local law
enforcement agencies, on the basis of a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with ICE, to function as
immigration agents. By entering into such agreements, ICE can authorize local
police officers to carry out certain immigration enforcement functions, ranging
from arresting people for immigration violations and screening local jails for
"criminal aliens” to working with ICE on immigration investigations. In theory, ICE
ACCESS programs are supposed to prioritize targeting immigrants "who pose a danger to national security or risk to public safety”
(Morton 2010). However, ICE tends
to cast a very wide net. The majority of those apprehended
are not immigrants convicted of serious criminal offenses—for example, murder, kidnapping, or rape (Barry 2009). Rather, they
tend to be individuals who have committed minor transgressions such as speeding, driving without
a license, and jaywalking. Also, in many cases, ICE programs ensnare immigrants who are never
convicted of any crime but merely arrested or stopped by police officers. Importantly,
interior immigration policing at the local level is taking place not just under the auspices of the federal government. Driven by the
belief that federal authorities are not doing enough to secure the border and stop the flow of "illegal” immigrants, states
and
localities have independently taken it upon themselves to become involved in governing
immigration. At the state level, Utah, Alabama, Georgia, and Arizona, to name only a few, have all recently passed tough
immigration laws, while a number of other states have considered or are considering punitive legislation (Lacayo 2011). The bestknown case is that of Arizona. On April 23, 2010, Governor Jan Brewer signed into law SB 1070, widely regarded as a highly punitive
anti-immigrant measure (Sdenz, Menjivar, and Garcia, this volume; Cisneros 2012). This legislation requires
police
officers to determine a persons immigration status during the course of a “lawful stop, detention, or
arrest” when there is “reasonable suspicion that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States" (State of
Arizona Senate 2010).ai Legal
status is generally verified via a phone call to DHS
authorities, and if a person is deemed deportable, the expectation is that he or she will be transferred to the custody of ICE or
CBP. At the local level, since 2006, hundreds of cities and towns across the nation—from Escondido, California, and Farmers
Branch, Texas, to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and Prince William County, Virginia—have passed ordinances or strategically deployed
existing laws to manage the presence of undocumented immigrants in their localities (Gilbert, this volume). Some of these
ordinances are explicitly meant to regulate immigration. In Hazleton, for example, the city council approved a law to penalize
landlords for renting to unauthorized residents and employers for hiring them. Other ordinances are used to police immigrants
“through the back door” (Varsanyi 2008). These ordinances are not outwardly focused on immigration, but they are used tactically
to constrain the life prospects and conduct of undocumented immigrants. In Escondido, for example, city officials have targeted
Latino immigrants, who tend to live in poorer neighborhoods, through a crackdown on dilapidated homes, illegal garage
conversions, graffiti, abandoned vehicles, and other violations of city regulations (Johnson 2009). And the local police department
has set its sights on this population through traffic checkpoints designed to catch unlicensed drivers. Because undocumented
immigrants are ineligible for driver’s licenses in California (as in many other states), they are disproportionately affected.
ICE, through local and state police surveillance, reeks havoc on the
psychological state of immigrant populations, engaging in varying policies
that dehumanize entire communities, in an attempt to control and
securatize
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 20-21)
we find that workplace raids have also had a
severely negative impact on immigrants and their communities.
The most palpable impact of such raids has been their effect on
the families, particularly the children, of the individuals who have
been apprehended and deported. In 2007, the Urban Institute released a report titled Paying the
Shifting to the effects of interior policing,
Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children (Capps et al. 2007). The report focused on the aftermath of largescale ICE raids in three communities: Greeley, Colorado; Grand Island, Nebraska; and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Greeley and
Grand Island were two sites hit as part of a larger raid on Swift & Company meat-processing facilities in six states (Colorado,
Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa, and Minnesota). New Bedford was the location of a raid on Michael Bianco, Inc., a textile product
the children and families of apprehended
immigrants, who were mainly Latinos, experienced significant
hardship, "including difficulty coping with the economic and
psychological stress caused by the arrest and the uncertainty of
not knowing when or if the arrested parent would be released" (ibid.,
company. The authors detail how
3). Moreover, they note that hardship increased over time, as families' meager savings and funds from previous pay-checks were
spent. Privately funded assistance generally lasted for two to three months, but many parents were detained for up to five or six
months, and others were released but waited for several months for a final appearance before an immigration judge—during which
time they could not work. Hardship also increased among extended families and nonfamily networks over time, as they took on
After the arrest or
disappearance of their parents, children experienced feelings of abandonment
and showed symptoms of emotional trauma, psychological duress, and mental
more and more responsibility for taking care of children with arrested parents.
Many lacked stability in child care and supervision.
Families continued hiding and feared arrest if they ventured
outside, increasing social isolation over time. Immigrant communities faced the fear of
health problems.
future raids, backlash from nonimmigrants, and the stigma of being labeled "illegal." The combination of fear, isolation, and
economic hardship induced mental health problems such as depression, separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder,
due to cultural reasons, fear of possible
consequences in asking for assistance, and barriers to accessing
services, few affected immigrants sought mental health care for
themselves or their children. (ibid., 3-4) By removing a parent and
breadwinner from the home, then, worksite operations have significant
consequences for families and children. Not only does the removal of a breadwinner reduce a
and suicidal thoughts. However,
the fear
and stigma produced by a raid can lead to the social isolation of
immigrant families and have an adverse psychological effect on
children. Worksite raids have also helped to erode the rights of immigrant workers. In a number of cases, ICE has
family's income and increase its material hardship, it also creates a rather unstable home environment. Moreover,
conducted raids on workplaces that were in the middle of labor disputes or being
investigated by other government agencies (such as the Department of Labor) for violation of
workers’ rights (Smith, Avendano, and Martinez Ortega 2009). The Postville raid is particularly illustrative here. When the
raid at Agriprocessors took place, at least three state and federal labor agencies were investigating the meatpacking plant for
longstanding safety and workplace violations. Moreover, since 2006, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)
International Union had been waging a campaign to organize workers at the plant. ICE was very well aware of this situation. On May
2,2008, a week before the raid, the UFCW had sent a letter to the ICE special agent in charge of carrying out operations in Iowa,
saying that the
union was in the middle of an organizing campaign, that various local and federal
and that any immigration enforcement action would
have a detrimental impact on labor rights. In the past, unions had achieved positive results with such
labor agencies were investigating the plant,
letters, which alerted immigration officials to ongoing organizing efforts so that they would not interfere and undermine the
enforcement of labor standards. The practice of sending letters was based on an internal ICE policy (put in place in 1996 by the INS)
that cautioned agents about getting involved in labor disputes. The policy, initially known as Operating Instruction 287.3(a) and now
redesignated 33.14(h) of the Special Agent Field Manual, specifies that when information is received concerning the employment of
undocumented or unauthorized aliens, consideration should be given to whether the information is being provided to interfere with
the rights of employees to form, join or assist labor organizations or to exercise their rights not to do so; to be paid minimum wages
and overtime; to have safe work places; to receive compensation for work related injuries; to be free from discrimination based on
race, gender, age, national origin, religion, handicap; or to retaliate against employees for seeking to vindicate these rights. (US INS
1996) In the case of Agriprocessors, ICE appears to have completely disregarded the policy, arresting
hundreds of
undocumented workers and in effect undermining the UFCW’s organizing campaign.
It also appears that ICE carried out the raid without consulting the various agencies investigating safety and other violations at the
plant, thus undermining their work as well (Smith, Avendano, and Martinez Ortega 2009). Although workplace raids have had a
significant impact on immigrant populations,
ICE's ACCESS programs have undoubtedly had an even more profound
effect. This is partly a matter of sheer numbers: more deportations have resulted from initiatives such as 287(g) than from raids.28
have generally helped to disrupt the
everyday lives of immigrants and produce a heightened sense of
insecurity. As we have indicated, ICE's law enforcement partners are
supposed to target dangerous "criminal aliens," but most
immigrants who get caught are actually low-level offenders or
people who simply crossed paths with local police. Clearly, what is happening, at
least in some locations, is that police officers are engaging in the heavy racial
profiling of Latinos, making pretextual stops and arrests of people believed to be immigrants just so that their
information (such as fingerprints) can be checked against DHS databases29 In Irving, Texas, for example, the number
of Latinos arrested for minor offenses' increased two fold following the expansion of
Just as important, however, is that ICE ACCESS programs
the CAP program (Gardner II and Kohli 2009). A typical police tactic is to set up sobriety checkpoints or other traffic operations in
or near immigrant neighborhoods. Once caught in these traps, immigrants without authorization to be in the United States are
it has become common for
police to pull over "immigrant-appearing" drivers for no obvious
reason or for minor traffic violations such as cracked windshields,
broken taillights, improperly tinted windows, and so forth. Not
routinely arrested, often for driving without a license. More generally,
this targeted policing has produced a deep distrust of local
police authorities among Latinos in communities where ICE
ACCESS programs operate. The distrust is such that Latinos, particularly those without
documents, are scared to have any kind of interaction with local
police for fear that they will be punished or end up in deportation
proceedings. In fact, it appears that some immigrants have been prompted to change their behavior patterns in order to
dodge contact with police officers or other authorities. Studies have reported that immigrants are, for
example, failing to report crimes against them, visiting local
businesses with less frequency, curtailing interaction with schools
and other institutions, altering their driving habits, venturing into
public spaces less often, and in some cases leaving particular
communities altogether (Capps et al. 2011, 43). ICE ACCESS programs , then, have
surprisingly,
basically hampered the ability of immigrants to go about their daily lives, making
them afraid to go out in public and have contact with any kind of authorities or
institutions , and
forcing some to look for a better life in more
welcoming communities Altogether, there is no doubt that the effect of current
immigration policing practices has generally been to unsettle immigrant communities
in the United States, Latinos in particular. A survey conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center in 2008 paints a rather
grim picture of the psychological state of U.S. Latinos—legal residents, citizens, and
undocumented immigrants alike (Lopez and Minushkin 2008). Latinos generally reported
feeling anxious and discriminated against amid public immigrant bashing and
enhanced immigration enforcement . Among the survey’s general findings were the following: within the year
prior to the taking of the survey, one in ten Latinos, both citizens and noncitizens, reported being
stopped by the police or other authorities and asked about their immigration status; one in
seven said they had trouble finding or keeping a job because they are Latino; and one in ten
reported difficulties finding or keeping housing. Significantly, the survey also found that a
majority of Latinos worry about deportation. Approximately 40 percent reported being
worried “a lot” that they, a family member, or a close friend would be deported,
while 17 percent said they worried “some.” Not surprisingly, immigrants are particularly concerned about deportation, with 72
percent reporting being worried either “a lot” or “some.” In effect, then, the immigration
enforcement climate
has helped to create a sense of unease among Latinos, immigrants in particular. It has helped
to produce an increased feeling of insecurity. Ultimately, it is clear that the governing of
migrant illegality today is not just about deterrence. It is also about incapacitation
and attrition (Gilbert, this volume). Indeed, the creation of insecurity among immigrants—by
depriving them of the ability to participate meaningfully in quotidian life —appears
to be a willful production designed to isolate this population from society and
render them utterly powerless .30 It is a tactic that seeks to incapacitate immigrants,
Latinos in particular, in order to wear down their will to work and live in the United
States. Immigration policing, particularly in the interior, thus amounts to what has been called a
policy of “attrition through enforcement” (Krikorian 2006). The goal is not so much to actually expel all
unauthorized immigrants as it is to “persuade” a large share of this population to
self-deport.3lAs Mark
Krikorian, executive director of the antiimmigrant Center for Immigration Studies, puts it, the idea is to
“prevent illegals from being able to embed themselves in our society . That would
involve denying them access to jobs, identification, housing, and in general making
it as difficult as possible for an illegal im-migrant to live a normal life here, so as to persuade
a large number of them to give up and self-deport” (ibid.). Attrition through enforcement is not an official
government policy, but it does appear to be the de facto way that undocumented
immigration is being governed (Doty 2009). Current immigration policing practices are undoubtedly making it
more difficult for undocumented immigrants to live normal lives. Such practices serve to dehumanize
immigrants , undermine workers’ rights, break families apart, and generally deny
immigrants human dignity and peace of mind.
These ICE programs act as a form of ‘racial governance’ used to manipulate
populations that pose a risk to mainstream society
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 21-22, TS)
Crucially, the heavy policing of migrant illegality has had a profound and highly
negative impact on immigrants and their communities, with Latinos bearing the
major brunt. In many ways, immigration enforcement functions as a form of racial
governance, that is, as a mechanism for managing the conduct of somatically
different, and putatively “unruly,” populations (see Hing 2009; Provine and Doty 2011).
Indeed, it is quiet evident that the targets of immigration policing are not just any
bodies, but physically and culturally distinct ones. It is thus racializcd migrants,
Latinos in particular, who disproportionately suffer the consequences of
immigration policing. We can illustrate the impact of immigration enforcement as a
form of racial governance using as examples the blockading of the U.S.-Mexico border,
workplace raids, and local police involvement in immigration matters.
ICE institutionalizes racism versus immigrant populations
Hing 09’ (Bill Ong [University of San Francisco-School of Law]
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=331631)
This Article contends that the evolution of immigration laws and the manner in which immigration
laws operate
have institutionalized bias against Latino immigrants—Mexicans in particular—and
Asian immigrants. This has occurred through laws that initially manifested racist intent and/or impact,
amendments that perpetuated that racism, and enforcement strategies and legal interpretations
reinforcing the racism. Racism has been institutionalized in our immigration laws and
enforcement policies. Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokely Carmichael) coined the phrase
“institutional racism” in the 1960s. He recognized it was important to distinguish personal bias from institutional bias,
which is generally long-term and grounded more in inertia than in intent. Institutional racism has come to describe societal patterns
that impose oppressive or otherwise negative conditions against identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity. In the United
States, institutional racism resulted from the social caste system of slavery and racial segregation. Much of its basic structure still
stands to this day. By
understanding the fundamental principles of institutionalized
racism we begin to see the application of the concept beyond the conventional
black-white paradigm. Institutional racism embodies discriminating against
certain groups of people through the use of biased laws or practices. Structures and social
arrangements become accepted, operate, and are manipulated in such a way as to support or acquiesce in acts of racism.
Institutional racism can be subtle and less visible, but is no less destructive than individual acts of
racism. Charles Lawrence’s discussion of unconscious racism also is relevant. Lawrence teaches us that the source of much racism
lies in the unconscious mind. Individuals raised in a racist culture unknowingly absorb attitudes and stereotypes that influence
behavior in subtle, but pernicious ways. “Unconscious
prejudice . . . is not subject to self-
correction within the political process.”70 The forces of racism have become embodied in U.S. immigration
laws.71 As these laws are enforced, they are accepted as common practice, in spite of
their racial effects. We may not like particular laws or enforcement policies because of their harshness or their violations
of human dignity or civil rights, but many of us do not sense the inherent racism because we are
not cognizant of the dominant racial framework. Understanding the evolution of
U.S. immigration laws and enforcement provides us with a better awareness of the
institutional racism that controls those policies. This Part focuses on the evolution of immigration laws
and enforcement policies. The history begins with slavery. Forced African labor migration set the stage for the Mexicans and the
Chinese. This Part reviews the history of Mexican migration, the enforcement of the southwest border, and the sea change to
enforcement through employer sanctions enacted in 1986.
And, ICE profiling criminalizes immigrant LGTBQ communities
Gehi 13 (Pooja Gehi graduated from American University's Washington College (WCL) of Law
in 2004 with a JD/MA in international affairs. At WCL she was the board chair of her National
Lawyers Guild Law School Chapter. "Gendered (In)security: Migration and Criminalization in
the Security State." The Dukeminier Awards Best Sexual Orientation Law Review Articles. 2013.
12 Dukeminier Awares 357. Lexis.)//lb
The United States has a long history of hyper-criminalization, disproportionate imprisonment, and law enforcement profiling of
people of color. n33 As Andrea Ritchie and Joey Mogul explain, "Since the advent of the first state-sponsored police forces in the
United States--slave patrols--racialized policing has been a feature of the American landscape. Indeed, racial profiling and police
brutality have their roots in enforcement of Slave Codes, and later Black Codes and Jim Crow segregation laws." n34 Many scholars
view the
criminal punishment system as it exists today as an extension of slavery as
it existed throughout the history of the United States. n35 [*365] Gender policing has
also been a key part of illegitimate profiling throughout history. n36 While the data on
discrimination and profiling of LGBTQ communities is underdeveloped, n37 several recent reports
have yielded findings of employment discrimination, n38 housing discrimination, n39
and incarceration rates n40 significantly disproportionate to rates within the
general population. This data suggests a prevalence of an unconscious bias, n41 one that
influences law enforcement norms. n42 While "unconscious bias" theory reveals the ways in which people with certain marked
identities such as poverty, race, gender expression, and sexuality are policed in a way [*366] that is not universal, it does not address
the history of policing and punishment that is directly related to power, white supremacy, and maintaining the status quo. In certain
immigration enforcement based on profiling through the devolution of
criminal and immigration law illustrates this insidious underlying agenda of
criminalization more clearly. Although the civil rights movement in America has eradicated
most race-specific discriminatory laws, the devolution of immigrant and police
profiling has allowed profiling based on race (and poverty, gender expression, and
sexuality) to continue . n43 And, while such profiling occurs all the time, the legal system deems itself to be grounded in
equal protection. The ways in which criminal immigration laws disproportionately affect
transgender people of color is a striking example of why equal protection under
the law is not indicative of reality.
ways,
These Institutional Exclusions lead to several systemic harms
A) Domestic and Sexual violence
Foley 4-21-15 (Elise, “Fear Of Deportation May Be Keeping Latino Victims Of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault From Seeking Help”,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/21/latinos-domestic-violence_n_7112130.html)
WASHINGTON -- A new study of the Latino community's views on domestic violence and sexual assault found that, as in surveys of
Latino victims don't come forward because they fear
losing their children or facing more violence. But the study, released Tuesday, found that many
Latinos think victims also may be afraid to go to police for a different reason: concern that it
could lead to them being deported. The study was commissioned by the Avon Foundation on behalf of No More
the population as a whole, many believe
and Casa de Esperanza. It was conducted by Lake Research Partners. The results will be used as the groups shape the No Más
campaign with Verizon this fall, aimed at spreading awareness of domestic violence and sexual assault and encouraging bystanders
to intervene. The poll found that more than half of Latinos, 56
percent, said they knew someone who had
been a victim of domestic violence. Twenty-eight percent said they knew someone
who had been a victim of sexual assault. Asked what might be keeping Latino
victims from coming forward, 41 percent of those polled said the primary reason
was likely fear of deportation. That was the case for Delfina Rojas Ayona, 46, an immigrant from Mexico who
spoke Tuesday at a briefing on the new poll on Capitol Hill. She said through a translator that she was abused by her former husband
for more than two decades before she got help from police. At one point, while she was living in the U.S. without authorization, her
boss noticed the bruises on her neck, and his secretary told her she could go to the police, she said. "I didn't do it because I was
terrified that I would be deported and his family would end up doing something to my children," Ayona said through a translator.
Immigration advocates often cite domestic violence as a key reason to keep police
out of immigration matters. Police sometimes arrest both parties at first and then
charge only the abuser, but simply taking the victim's fingerprints could put the
victim at risk of deportation. Law enforcement in many jurisdictions has resisted working with immigration
authorities in part to encourage victims to feel safe in coming forward.
B) Health Care
Lehman ’14 (Shereen, “Language barriers and fear of police may prevent minority 911 calls, Fri Dec 26, 2014,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/26/us-health-minorities-cpr-idUSKBN0K414U20141226)
In poor, mostly Latino areas of Denver, Colorado, people who suffer cardiac arrest are less
likely to get help in part because distrust of law enforcement and language barriers stop bystanders
from calling 911 or learning CPR, researchers say. “We always sort of take it for granted the people will call
911, and this is the first study to really take a step back and say, gosh there's real barriers that we need to talk about,” said Dr.
Comilla Sasson, who led the new study. People who live in poor and minority neighborhoods are more likely
to suffer cardiac arrest outside of a hospital, and less likely to receive bystander
cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) or to survive, Sasson and her colleagues write in Annals of Emergency Medicine. The results
of the survey point out several misconceptions that need to be addressed in such communities, like the fear that first
responders “aren’t going to help you unless you’re documented or that they’re going to arrest
you,” Sasson, an emergency physician at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, told Reuters Health. “It's something we
spent a lot of time here in Denver really talking to our police officers and talking to our community members to let them know that if
you call 911 we're not going to ask for identification - we're here to help you,” Sasson said. For their study, Sasson and colleagues
recruited residents of five low-income, primarily Latino neighborhoods in Denver to form focus groups and do individual interviews
to find out what might prevent them from calling 911, learning CPR or performing it. A total of 55 people participated in six focus
groups, along with an additional nine individual interviews. The researchers identified six major barriers to calling 911, including the
fear of law enforcement if the bystander was undocumented or had a criminal history. Participants also misunderstood or were not
aware of Good Samaritan laws and worried that law enforcement or the victim’s family would blame them if the person did not
survive. Cultural and language issues were also important. For instance, there was considerable concern about the propriety or
safety of touching another person, especially a stranger, in the chest area or on the mouth. “I don’t know if it’s limited to Hispanic
culture or not, but the hesitancy to touch another person, especially in the chest, and if it’s a woman, oh my goodness . . . Uh, there is
great hesitation on the older people’s part,” said one participant. Many also expressed the fear of not being able to communicate with
an emergency dispatcher. “One of the things we found that’s specific to the Latinos in Denver, and I think it's something that's
important for people to know, is when you do call 911 how to say the right words to get through faster,” Sasson said. It can take 5 to
10 minutes for the dispatcher to communicate with somebody who doesn't speak English while trying to figure out the medical
emergency, Sasson said, so she trains people in the community to say “heart stopped, Spanish interpreter” when they call 911. “It's
not rocket science by any means, but ‘heart stopped’ triggers that this is a medical emergency,” Sasson said, and saying “Spanish
interpreter” immediately lets the operator know they don’t speak English. The main reasons people gave for not learning CPR
included the cost, lack of classes and not being aware of how CPR can save lives. “We know from the research we've done that
Latinos are 30 percent less likely to have CPR performed and what the study really showed it was not that Latinos don't want to do
CPR or that they're afraid of it,” Sasson said. “It's truly, I think, that we haven't gotten the messaging out on how important it is and
how easy it is to do, especially now that you can do it without breathing into somebody’s mouth - you can do hands-only CPR.”
Sasson said the American Heart Association has a Spanish-language website at heart.org/rcp with training materials and a 60second video that people can watch to learn how to do hands-only CPR in Spanish. “Cardiac arrest is a major public health problem
and bystander CPR significantly improves your odds of survival on the order of tripling (them) and there's large disparities in who
receives bystander CPR,” Dr. Ben Bobrow, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Reuters Health. “There’s both economic and racial
disparities in who has access to life-saving therapy like CPR and it’s
unacceptable that people shouldn't
have access to simple life-saving interventions like CPR,” said Bobrow, who is medical director of the
EMS and Trauma System in the Arizona Department of Health Services and the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.
C) Familial Separation and Anxiety
ICE separates family, causing anxiety and damaging mental health
Hing 09’ (Bill Ong [University of San Francisco-School of Law]
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=331631)
Family separation and the special damage to children have been particularly tragic consequences of the ICE
raids.57 Most of the children impacted by raids were U.S. citizens and most were very
young—about two-thirds were under ten and about one-third were under age five.58 In three sites studied by the National
Council of La Raza, researchers found that “families and relatives scramble[d] to rearrange care,
children spent at least one night without a parent, often in the care of a relative or
non-relative babysitter, in some cases neighbors and in some cases even landlords;
some children were cared for by extended families for weeks and months.”59 Families
directly affected by the raid also suffered economic hardship and financial instability that “creates conditions that are detrimental to
children’s development.”60 The National Council of La Raza study also analyzed the emotional and mental side effects upon
children. While the long-term effects of the raids are still unraveling, psychologists have already observed and are concerned about
longterm depression and other mental illness in family members. The report found that younger children translated the temporary
parental absence as abandonment. One parent reported that her child feared that her father “love[s] money more than he loves
me.”61According
to Dr. Amaro Laria, Director of the Lucero Latino Mental Health
Training Program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology and
faculty of the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, “[o]ne of the most
well established facts in mental health is that abrupt separation of children from
their parents, particularly their mothers, are among the most severely traumatic
experiences that a child can undergo.”62 He testified that in the case of the raid, the “traumatic separations
[were] perpetrated and sanctioned by our nation’s law enforcement agencies, ironically in the name of protecting citizens.”63 In his
opinion, ICE had engaged in terrorism against these families and children.
Citizenship
While fear prevents activity, our advocacy points to a different
understanding of what it means to be a citizen—
Criminalizing immigration has created ‘affect’ of difference, where the
performance of immigrant is perceived as less than citizen
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
If the immigrant marches of 2006 can be understood as organizing multiple constituencies in
opposition to restrictive immigration legislation, as argued in the last chapter, then the more
recent mobilizations—from protests in Arizona to student movements for the DREAM Act—are
in many ways extensions or continuations of the immigrant activism of 2006. Just as La Gran
Marcha spurred a nationwide wave of social protests by Latina/os and immigrants (protests
asserting citizenship and rebuffing restrictive bordering practices), demonstrations and boycotts
again spread throughout the country in 2010 involving Latina/os, immigrants, and other stake.
Mobilization was once more ignited in the most immediate sense by the passage of restrictive,
nativist immigration legislation—Arizona’s SB 1070. This now-infamous legislation was signed
by Arizona governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010, after heightened scrutiny and national media
attention. Capitalizing on several federal programs encouraging state and local border
enforcement, the Arizona law created a state crime of illegal immigration with stricter
penalties than equivalent federal crimes, and it escalated the surveillance and
persecution of suspected immigrants by state and local police. In the broadest sense,
SB 1070 made undocumented immigrants doubly illegal and twice prosecuted: not
only under federal law and by federal immigration officers but also at the state and local level.
The most controversial elements of SB 1070 concerned the further criminalization of work,
hiring, and transporting of undocumented immigrants; police power of surveillance and
detention of suspected immigrants; and the power of civil suit to force strict immigration
enforcement. In the area of work, hiring, and transportation, for example, SB 1070
criminalized the “unlawful transporting, moving, concealing, harboring, or
shielding of unlawful aliens,” even by humanitarian organizations or so-called Good
Samaritans. SB 1070 also proposed to expand police power to profile suspected immigrants and
verify their legal status by mandating that “for any lawful stop, detention or arrest . . . where
reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United
States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration
status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.”5 Thus
SB 1070 not only expanded powers of surveillance and prosecution, but it also
targeted “illegal” immigrants in a roundabout way by criminalizing their
livelihood. In the opinion of many legal scholars, such as Kevin R. Johnson, SB 1070
strengthened already unspoken and “crude racial profiles” in immigration
enforcement.6 Its most controversial element, the provision concerning police surveillance,
sanctioned state and local police to judge a subject’s (il)legality (“immigration status”) based on
a “reasonable suspicion” drawn from factors such as the person’s language, dress, demeanor, or
presence in an area “where unlawfully present aliens are known to congregate.”7
These measures, I have argued elsewhere, meant that, under SB 1070 , citizenship became
a “performative affect defined only by difference,” an affect (of difference)
read and judged by state and local police on the bodies and in the
performances of suspected immigrant “others. ”8 In other words, police became
critics of behaviors and demeanors, judging who performed citizenship (who seemed like they
belonged) and whose performance communicated an affect of “alienness.” According to the law,
those suspects who gave police a “reasonable suspicion” they did not belong were presumed to
be undocumented.
Our culture hypocritically embraces race neutrality while promoting
“national security” and “immigration/border enforcement” as justifications
for unleashing racist nativism
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
That bordering has taken on this militaristic and aggressive tone exemplified in attrition
through enforcement is not surprising considering the persistent logics of citizenship and
Latina/o identity discussed throughout this book. That is, when national belonging is wedded to
an exclusionary gendered and racialized identity, and as long as some Latina/os can still be
positioned as “others” by virtue of their difference(s), material and rhetorical bordering of U.S.
citizenship remains the norm. Recent antiimmigrant provisions, of which SB 1070 is just
an early example, demonstrate a persistent conflation of Latinidad with Mexican
illegality, the representation of Latina/os as threats, and persistent fears of a
racialized and gendered citizenship. However, it is also worth emphasizing that a colorblind double bind is evident in the increasingly militant and nativist immigration policies at the
state and local level, including SB 1070. In the contemporary neoliberal moment, ideas of
individualism, federal deregulation, and global free trade have come to structure immigration
and border policy. Monica Varsanyi argues that “neoliberalizing economic policies . . . act as
powerful push and pull factors promoting cross-border labor migration,” and yet heightened
bordering practices, workplace raids, and de-unionization efforts demonstrate that “the
neoliberal ideology of the global free market has not . . . extended to the labor market.” The push
toward state and local immigration policy, the localization of border enforcement, and
increasing focus on the individual immigrant as the locus of immigration policy—all elements of
contemporary immigration policy—stem from the broader neoliberal ideology of federal
deregulation and the focus on individualism.13 In this vein, the nation formally celebrates its
respect for diversity and multiculturalism, its status as a “nation of immigrants,” and purports to
enforce immigration and border policy in a “color-blind” way, all the while escalating the
racialized and gendered policing and denial of full citizenship. The persistent celebration of a
color-blind, post-race culture of individual responsibility masks the enduring significance of
race, racialization, class, and gender in sociopolitical identity struggles including immigration
policy. Thus our culture embraces “race neutrality even as it licenses ‘limited’ racial
profiling for purposes of security maintenance, targeted policing,” and
immigration/border enforcement. Meanwhile, attempts to address racial disparities or
achieve diversity, such as affirmative action or bilingual education, are criticized as
“monocultural,” anti-American, or even as reverse discrimination because they violate the
supposedly color-blind and thus multicultural contours of contemporary society (by injecting
race into the public sphere).14
“Citizenship” is fluid, yet it defines the legal status of minority
groups—discussions about citizenship are the pre-requisite to
approaching issues of immigration
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the
ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the
public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and
immigration. ( Josue David Cisneros “The Border Crossed Us”
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-6.pdf, p. 6 TS)
Perhaps even more than the concept of the border, citizenship is a
fundamentally contested term. It can be understood very narrowly
as a legal status that defines membership in a nation or as a
broader contract of rights and responsibilities with the state. Some
scholars view citizenship as a standard of political engagement (as in, the norm of the engaged
citizen), while others emphasize the cultural and social dimensions of citizenship (as a form of
“belonging”).9 It would be impossible here to provide a full account of the many different
scholarly treatments of citizenship, and more important, such a review would only demonstrate
the extreme variation in thought regarding what citizenship means and how far it extends.
What we should emphasize, however, is that citizenship is one of the
predominant “social imaginaries” by which we understand civic identity and
organize social spaces like the nationstate. As an “imaginary,” citizenship entails
legal and institutional as well as figurative and cultural
dimensions; citizenship indexes legal status and political rights
but also refers to one’s inclusion in a sociocultural and “imagined”
community.10 These legal, political, social, and cultural dimensions of citizenship
are mutually “reinforcing or undermining.” That is, they can work together to strengthen
one’s citizenship status or can stand in contrast to one another, preventing full belonging.11
For example, access to legal status and political rights depends
upon symbolic recognition of one as a member of the “imagined”
community. At the same time, however, minority groups often develop the cultural
competencies of citizens or become members of the sociocultural
community without receiving full recognition.12 With the integration of the
global economy and the greater flow of people across national borders, some scholars even call
for the abandonment of a strictly national paradigm of citizenship, advancing transnational,
flexible, or cosmopolitan models of citizenship that seem to belie its very foundation as a mode
of national membership.13 Because of the extreme variability and reach of the concept of
citizenship, many criticize what they see as its conceptual incoherence. However, as Jeffrey A.
Bennett succinctly explains, the “radical indeterminacy” in the
meanings of
citizenship “does not suggest it has no material or political
capital,” but only that citizenship “is a fluid concept whose meaning
is” contextual and contestable.14 This “radical indeterminacy” and extreme
contestability in the concept of citizenship suggests the intimate connection between borders
and citizenship. Borders are important because they help us define
who is a citizen
and who is not, who belongs and who is “alien,” indeed, what
citizenship is and what it is not.
Our call to legal action as an ally, echo’s the call of
undocumented immigrants, that demand recognition
and an end to the campaign of fear vs local police. It is
this fight for recognition that transforms citizenship
from a juridical to a practical one – This embodies
Foucault’s reversibility of power relations, and is
empirically successful
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 20-21, TS)
Given the preceding discussion, there is no doubt that the
governing of immigration through crime has
had a negative impact on the conduct of undocumented migrants. Indeed, it is clear that one
of the effects of immigration policing has been to incapacitate undocumented migrants—
through expulsion, the induction of fear, and so forth. However, the United States cannot be
reduced to a mere space of policing. It is also most certainly a site of political
struggle . Migrants have not stood idly by and accepted the highly punitive treatment to
which they have been subjected. Rather, they and their allies have actively sought to challenge the
anti-immigrant climate and the governing of immigration through crime. In his College dc
France lectures on security, territory, and population, Michel Foucault (2007,201) suggests
that there is a
strategic reversibility to power relations such that any governmental effort to
shape the conduct of individuals and populations is interwoven with dissenting
counter-conducts, that is, with "struggle[s] against the processes implemented for
conducting others.” This is precisely the case with respect to the government of
immigration through crime. This way of governing immigrants has elicited dissenting
counter-conducts, or what we have called migrant counter-conducts (Inda 2011). These
struggles against the punitive practices employed to direct the conduct of migrants
range from street protests, advocacy for political rights, and sanctuary politics to
legislative interventions, court challenges, labor organizing, and so forth.*2 Here
we highlight public marches and protests, legal challenges to the criminalization of
migrants, and border activism. Such counter-conducts seek to call into question
the criminalization and marginalization of unauthorized migrants. One of the most
visible counter-conducts in which undocumented migrants and their allies have engaged is
public protesting. Across the country, unions, religious institutions, immigrant rights groups, Latino organizations, and
the general public have banded together in varying assemblages to publically protest
immigration policing and its drastic effects on migrants and their communities. Undocumented
migrants themselves have played an active role in these acts of protest . The best known
pro-immigrant public actions occurred in the spring of 2006 (see Wang and Winn 2006; Chavez 2008; Hondagneu-Sotelo and Salas
2008; Cisneros, this volume). The previous December, the
U.S. House of Representatives had passed HR 4437, the
Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. Among other provisions, the law
would have made it a felony to be in the United States illegally, and for anyone to provide aid or assistance, including transportation,
to undocumented immigrants. Prompted by the bill’s harsh nature, Latino
and immigrant communities
across the country mobilized to defeat the legislation (it was still being considered in the Senate),
calling for just immigration reform that included a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Over the
course of the spring, principally from March through May 2006, millions of people—including many who were undocumented—
took to the streets in cities around the country in support of immigrant rights. On March 25, for example, five hundred thousand
protesters—many carrying American flags to signify belonging in American society—filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles
(Chavez 2008, 156). On April 10, a day organizers called “A National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice,” marches and rallies took
place in more than sixty cities—from Phoenix, Houston, and Omaha to Boston, Atlanta, and Washington D.C. (Chavez 2008, 164;
Hondagneu-Sotelo and Salas 2008, 221). On
May 1, more than one million people heeded the call
to demonstrate in support of "A Day Without an Immigrant” (Hondagneu-Sotelo and Salas
2008, 221). The idea was for immigrants to stay home from work in order to show their
importance to the U.S. economy. In a number of cities, including Los Angeles, the loss of workers
who attended the marches and rallies or simply stayed home greatly affected businesses such as
restaurants, markets, trucking, and other service-related enterprises. In the end, although the immigration reform that the spring
marchers called for did not materialize, HR 4437 did fail to make it through the Senate. In addition to the megamarches
of 2006, numerous small-scale protests focused on local immigration policing actions have taken place throughout the country.
Recall, for example, the case of Postville, Iowa, site of the raid on the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant. A couple of months
after the raid, on Sunday, July 27,2008, more than one thousand people marched down the streets of Postville to
protest
against ICE’s actions. The protestors were mainly Latino migrants, local citizens, immigrant rights
advocates, and members of the Jewish, Catholic, and Lutheran communities (Agence France-Presse 2008; Fair Immigration Reform
Movement 2008). They marched in Postville not only to speak out against the raid, which tore apart the local community and
devastated migrant families, but also to call for the just treatment of workers and, like the marchers in the spring of 2006, for
comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would include the right to legal status for unauthorized migrants (Bobo 2008).
They marched carrying signs that said, “An injury to one is an injury to all.
Immigrant Rights Now!”“Born in the USA. Why are you taking our families away?” and “Stop destroying
families.” They chanted, “No more raids!” “No justice, no peace!” and “Yo no soy terrorism, ni criminal. Yningun ser hutnano es
illegal. Basra, basta!”— “Pm neither a terrorist nor a criminal. And no human being is illegal. Enough, enough!" Significantly, among
the marchers were forty-three women who had been apprehended during the raid hut released on humanitarian grounds to take care
of their children (Agence France-Presse 2008). Still under house arrest, these women wore electronic monitoring bracelets around
their ankles. Two of them spoke at a rally. Maria L. Gomez
bore witness to the post-raid suffering of
her family: of her sister’s detention and of the painful trips to visit her in prison.
Cruz Rodriguez asked everyone to “stand together for our families, be a voice for
those who cannot speak, who are detained.... Remain with us through this
process” (Cullen 2009,1). Beyond public protests, migrants have been engaged in legal
challenges to the criminalization of the undocumented. We can take as an example the case of
Ignacio Flores, an undocumented migrant from Mexico (Liptak and Preston 2009). In 2000, he used a false name, birth date, Social
Security number, and alien registration card to secure employment at a steel plant in Illinois. Neither the Social Security number nor
the alien card belonged to real people. A few years later, however, in 2006, Flores informed his employer that he wanted to use his
real name and provided a new Social Security number and alien registration card. When the employer reported this change-of-name
request to ICE, the agency discovered that Flores’s new documents actually belonged to other people. The U.S. government
consequently indicted Flores with, among other things, aggravated identity theft. Flores was charged under federal statute 18 USC
§1028A (a)(1), which imposes a mandatory two-year prison term on any person convicted of certain predicate crimes if during or in
relation to the commission of those other crimes the offender "knowingly... uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification
of another person” (Fernandez 2009). The law was meant to stop credit card thieves and would-be “terrorists,” but the Bush
administration interpreted it broadly and used it to criminally charge migrants caught using a Social Security number or identity
belonging to someone else. They were charged regardless of whether they intended to defraud another individual. Rather than
accept the identity theft charge, Flores fought to be acquitted. He argued that the U.S. government needed to prove that he knew
the numbers on his documents belonged to other people. Flores was initially convicted of the identity theft charge, but he
appealed his case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court determined that it was not OK to
eliminate the element of intent in the law. In other words, it was not enough simply to catch a person with a stolen identity or Social
Security number. The government also had to show that migrants were knowingly (and with the intent to defraud) using someone
else’s identity. As a consequence, Flores
was acquitted of the aggravated identity theft charge, and because
most migrants who use false Social Security numbers are simply looking to
procure a job and are not out to defraud others, ICE is no longer able to charge
undocumented migrants with identity theft indiscriminately. Finally, the U.S.-Mexico
border has also been an important site of political struggle. One tactic used by
immigration rights advocates has been to stage actions critiquing the
militarization of the border. From November 5 to 11, 2007, for example, youth from the United States, Mexico,
and other countries staged a “No Borders” camp along the Southwest border in the cities of
Calexico, California, and Mexicali, Mexico (Burridge 2010). The action, which was modeled on the setting up of No Borders camps in
Australia and the European Union, involved youth congregating on both sides of the fence separating the cities and setting up a
camp underneath the watchful eyes of the U.S. Border Patrol and other law enforcement entities. The idea was to
call
attention to the arbitrary nature of national boundaries and the horrific
consequences of enhanced border policing in the lives of immigrants. From their base
camp, the youth also organized a number of other activities: a “die-in” at the port of entry in downtown Mexicali; a protest at the El
Centro Detention Facility, which on average held between five hundred and six hundred detainees a day; the operation of a pirate
radio station; and a memorial at a cemetery where about four hundred unidentified migrants were buried. Another tactic among
pro-immigrant activists has been to engage in activities to “humanize the border
environment” (Walsh, this volume). Two such activities arc the mobilization of citizen-organized foot patrols to locate and
assist border crossers in distress, and the construction of water stations in the desert. Notably, faith-based organizations have been
centrally involved in these endeavors. For example, Humane Borders, a faith-based humanitarian group committed to “taking death
out of the immigration equation” (Hoover 2008) has been building water stations in the Arizona desert since 2001 (Walsh, this
volume). These stations—each stocked with food, clothing, first-aid kits, and a hundred-gallon water tank—are meant to serve as
lifelines for migrants crossing through the treacherous desert terrain. The placement of the stations is determined with the help of
geographic information systems (G1S) and other locational technologies. Humane Borders uses such technologies to map desertcrossing routes and the spatial distribution of migrant deaths, and then strategically locates the stations in areas with high rates of
fatalities. Another faith-based group, No More Deaths, is dedicated to providing humanitarian aid directly to border crossers. This
group sends out volunteer patrols into the Sonoran desert of Arizona to find migrants in need of medical and humanitarian aid. If
necessary, the patrols transfer migrants to a local medical facility or hand them over to a Border Patrol search and rescue unit. No
More Deaths conceives of its activities as a civil initiative, a
form of nonviolent protest against the unjust
consequences of border policing, a protest that is grounded in the “conviction that people of conscience must
work openly and in community to uphold ... human rights" (ibid.). The counter-conducts in which migrants
and their allies have engaged, particularly as they have involved the participation
of the undocumented, arc significant in various respects. First, they speak to the
political becoming of undocumented migrants. As Peter Nyers (2006) has pointed out, refugees
and the undocumented are expected to be docile. Their lives tend to be represented
in popular and legal discourse as the inverted image of political life. Whereas the citizen is
expected to speak and act politically, the unauthorized migrant is supposed to
remain silent . But in the context of contemporary policing, undocumented migrants have refused
to be quiet. They have spoken out against the dehumanizing effects of such
policing, and they have demanded dignity and recognition, asking to be seen not as
criminals who harm the larger society but as human beings who contribute to it
(Beltran 2009). That undocumented migrants are standing up and speaking is an
important act of symbolic resistance . They are speaking out in a context that does
not recognize migrants—in particular undocumented migrants—as legitimate speaking
subjects. Second, migrant counter-conducts amount to noncitizen “acts of citizenship” or
what we call unauthorized citizenship .n Unauthorized migrants are not simply
speaking out, they are actually claiming and exercising rights. A main message of
the anti-raid public protests , as well as of the legal challenges to the criminalization of migrants, is that
undocumented migrants are legitimate members of U.S. society and deserve the
right to work, to raise families, and to be free from the fear of persecution . In other
words, they are asking to be recognized as legitimate political subjects with social,
civil, and political rights. In making such claims, unauthorized migrants are in effect
enacting citizenship . Indeed, through their engagement in a variety of democratic
processes, from collective protesting and campaigning for rights to court battles,
the undocumented are basically acting as citizens. In the process, citizenship is
transformed from a strictly juridical condition to a practice one can engage in
regardless of legal status.
The shift from Secure Communities to Priority Enforcement has led to no
improvement – Local police entanglement creates illegal detainment, racial
profiling and community distrust – It must end.
Pasquarella 6/27/15 -- J.D. with a Certificate in Refugee and Humanitarian Emergencies from Georgetown University Law Center,
ACLU Southern California (JENNIE “ICE Plays Name Game”, https://www.laprogressive.com/ice-priority-enforcement-program///JC)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
rolled out a new immigration enforcement program
this month that it bills as an improved approach to using city and county police and jails for
immigration enforcement. The new program, known as “Priority Enforcement Program,” or “PEP,” is intended to address many of
the violations that caused ICE to abandon its “Secure Communities” program last November. But PEP
has left in place
many of the same problems that caused federal courts to find that Secure
Communities violated the constitution. Under Secure Communities, federal officials issued “immigration
detainers” – or detention requests – asking city and county jails to detain people after their scheduled release date so ICE could have
extra time to pick them up and investigate whether the individual should be deported. ICE
has not corrected the
fundamental failings of the immigration detainer, which makes compliance with it
unconstitutional. A series of federal court rulings last year made clear that
immigration detainers were voluntary requests and suggested that any local police
agency that complied with them may be violating the Fourth Amendment for making an
unlawful arrest (one that is not supported by probable cause) and can be held liable for damages. Under Secure
Communities, thousands of people were illegally detained for days, weeks, and sometimes
months after their scheduled release dates. In addition to court scrutiny, the program faced criticism for its
dragnet effect, sweeping up anyone who was arrested, regardless of whether or not
they were charged or convicted of any crime, and for tearing families apart and
encouraging racial profiling. In light of these court decisions, and citing harm to
community policing efforts, hundreds of local law enforcement agencies across the country rejected immigration
detainer requests and adopted policies prohibiting compliance with immigration detainers without a judicial warrant or judicial
determination of probable cause. In
response, ICE rebranded Secure Communities,
announcing in November that it was terminating the program and replacing it with PEP. It announced that it would
replace detainers with “notification requests;” that is, instead of asking for extended detention from local
jails, it would now only ask that the jails advise ICE when a person will become eligible for release so that they can pick them up,
but said it would still use detainers in “special circumstances” and only when it had “probable
cause” for the arrest. That’s why we were dismayed when earlier this month ICE released its new forms
for detainer and notification requests under PEP and these limitations on detainer use were not
reflected. Significantly, ICE has not corrected the fundamental failings of the
immigration detainer, which makes compliance with it unconstitutional. The new
detainer forms do not require a judicial warrant, judicial determination of probable
cause, or even an individual, particularized statement of probable cause. Moreover,
nothing in the new detainer form appears to limit immigration detainers to special circumstances. The ACLU and immigrant rights
groups sent a letter to DHS this month in response, urging the agency to discontinue use of detainers entirely, in light of these
continued constitutional problems with their use. PEP, like its predecessor, plainly fails
to satisfy the Fourth
Amendment’s basic protections. Under PEP, immigration agencies and local law
enforcement will continue to face liability for these illegal detentions. Not only is
PEP illegal, it is completely out of step with the national conversation on the need
for policing and criminal justice reform. The ACLU questions why DHS is continuing to
entangle local police in immigration enforcement when the president’s own Task Force on 21st
Century Policing recommended that DHS “decouple” federal immigration enforcement
from routine local policing. The Secure Communities program led to an erosion of
police-community trust. PEP appears to be no different.
New changes in policy mean no link uniqueness, but are wrought with
loopholes – Only complete disentanglement solves
IRLC ’15 (“Life After “PEP-Comm” - Immigrant Legal Resource Center”, http://www.ilrc.org/files/documents/ilrc_organizers_advisory-201501_06.pdf.//JC)
On November 20, 2014, Presid”ent Obama announced executive reforms to the
immigration system, including: (i) changes to immigration enforcement policy; (ii) deferred action expansion; and (iii) other
changes to procedures in the legal immigration system.1 This alert focuses on changes to how the Department of Homeland
Security will enforce immigration laws, with a particular focus on interior enforcement.2 While the President’s
announcement has the potential to change the landscape of immigration enforcement, advocates need to understand these changes in order to
safeguard the gains we have worked so hard to achieve, and continue gaining more ground. What has changed? ICE Holds: Perhaps the biggest
change, ICE states that it will
stop using ICE holds due to constitutional concerns except in
“special circumstances.” This means that jails in most cases will not be asked to hold individuals for ICE past the time they
should otherwise be released (either because the judge released them with no bail, they post bail money, or complete their sentence). Previously,
when ICE issued holds, it asked local law enforcement to hold an individual extra time beyond their criminal release so that ICE could have extra
time to pick them up. According to ICE’s planned changes, ICE says that they will stop issuing ICE holds except in special circumstances. So far,
no one knows how “special circumstances” will be defined. Advocates should be
vigilant about monitoring this and holding ICE accountable. ICE states that hold requests will be
replaced with requests for notification of release dates. This means that ICE wants notice of when an individual will be released from jail, so that
ICE agents can be ready to pick up the person as they walk out of jail. This practice had already begun to happen in many locations where jails
have stopped responding to ICE holds. While these notification requests have always been a part of ICE holds, this shift further solidifies
communication between federal and local and state law enforcement officials. ICE further claims that these requests for notification will only be
for those who fall within certain priorities. These priorities will include those who have been convicted of one “significant” misdemeanor
(including DUIs and DV assaults), three or more misdemeanors, any felony or “aggravated felony,” and any person who poses a “risk to national
security” including those with convictions for gang- related crimes. In other words, most people in local jails will likely still be targeted. One
of the outstanding challenges from these new directives is that ICE should not be
targeting people until they fall into the enforcement priorities – that is, not until after
they have a conviction making them a priority. But ICE will continue to be getting
information from local law enforcement immediately upon arrest and thereafter because of its’
relationships with jails and probation departments, in addition to cooperation through CAP and 287(g).
Requiring ICE to follow the directions in the enforcement priorities and preventing them from issuing notification or
hold requests on people who have not been convicted will require close monitoring. TIP→ Advocates should stay alert as
to how and when these requests for notification will occur. So far, we don’t know if ICE has developed instructions or protocols. It is unclear how
ICE will monitor cases to find out when people have been convicted, or what community pressure will be needed to force them to follow that part
of the enforcement priorities directive. We do not know if they will use a form, or whether these notifications happen orally. We don’t know
whether communication will happen through an ICE Call center (LESC) or from the local ICE offices. There is a lot that we don’t know so it is
important for advocates on the ground to remain vigilant and to record what they are seeing. Attempt to Address Biased Policing: Biased
policing is when law enforcement uses an individual’s race or ethnicity as a key
factor in enforcement. ICE claims that it will address biased policing in its enforcement
practices. To do this, ICE states it will monitor its new activities, including analyzing data, to detect for
biased policing and then will “establish effective remedial measures” in response to any evidence of biased policing. Many organizations have
made similar recommendations in the past and DHS has recognized the need to address biased policing in immigration enforcement.3 We
must now hold ICE accountable for further exacerbating racial profiling and biased
policing practices. ICE’s practices have facilitated local law enforcement’s efforts
to further target immigrant communities. We must continue pushing for a complete
disentanglement between local law enforcement and ICE.
Post plan, the raids of immigrants will end – ICE doesn’t have the resources
Golash-Boza 12’ (Tanya [Associate Professor at UC Merced] Racial Profiling and Mass Deportation of Black and Latino
Men,http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2012/05/15/racial-profiling-and-mass-deportation-of-black-and-latino-men/)
Immigration law enforcement agents generally do not have license to walk up and
down the streets of U.S. cities and demand proof of U.S. citizenship from
pedestrians. The Border Patrol is only authorized to work in U.S. border areas. And, ICE, only has
20,000 employees overall, only a fraction of whom are officers engaged in raiding
homes and worksites arresting illegally present immigrants. ICE does not have the
staff or resources to patrol the county. Instead, ICE works closely with criminal
law enforcement agencies to apprehend immigrants.
Plan
As an act of challenging the convention of what it means to be a citizen:
We demand that Immigration and Customs Enforcement cease its
surveillance of immigrants through local law enforcement
Framing the Debate
The way in which we define borders and citizenship shapes how we view
our own ontology in the context of the world
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
dominant logics of
citizenship as restricting the possibilities of belonging for all. For Latina/o citizens and other
documented immigrants, the fear seemed that stricter immigration laws would result in more racial profiling and
persecution. In a climate of anti-immigrant and anti-Latina/o nativism, the mobilizations
Not only unauthorized immigrants but also citizens, labor unions, and other progressives identified
were able to reclaim at least provisionally the performative affect of hybridity and affirm a more expansive, hybrid citizenship. For other activists, the
nativism and racism of SB 1070 represented broader forces of neoliberalism that foreclosed the possibility of full belonging —social,
economic, and cultural—for all . Thus the contemporary activism against SB 1070 and other antiimmigrant legislation bespeaks the potential of a complex movement that can involve
political economy, national belonging, and cultural/identity politics. Even in the world of
globalization of culture, capital flow, and neoliberal political economy, the civic imaginary can
expand or evolve to take into account new challenges and experiences. If the border involves
us in an ontological question, then contemporary immigrant and Latina/o
movements, by expanding the very meanings of citizenship and borders, forge
new visions of the type of world we can inhabit . They move beyond what kind of
world we are in to imagine what kind of world we can create. In this vein, it is to questions of
citizenship and identity, borders and belonging that I return in the conclusion. What are the consequences and challenges, the lessons and possibilities
that Latina/o vernaculars of citizenship and civic identity provide for the politics of belonging, for conceptions of U.S. American identity, and for the
growing Latina/o community in the United States?
The border has come to not only define the
physical boundaries between one space and
another, but also to define the figurative space
that is crossed between communities
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. ( Josue David Cisneros “The Border Crossed Us”
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-6.pdf, TS)
In conventional terms, borders are understood in a limited way as
the strict territorial boundaries defining a nation-state. Though we tend
to understand borders exclusively as physical places, border studies scholars remind
us that borders are also figurative spaces of identity, culture, and
community.5 The border should be thought of more broadly than as a
territorial or juridical boundary—not only as physical but also as figurative
or ideological. Here we are interested not only in the territorial borders of a nation-state
but also in the boundaries of political and cultural community. This notion of the border as a
psychical and figurative zone of division and contact is articulated most paradigmatically in
Gloria Anzaldúa’s germinal Borderlands/La Frontera. Anzaldúa
makes clear that
the border is both a physical place, “una herida abierta [an open wound]
where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds,” and
also a figural space “wherever two or more cultures edge each
other, where people of different races occupy the same territory,
where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space
between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.”6 Borders involve the process of
dividing and constituting community and take shape through
both material and ideological practices. As José David Saldívar explains,
borders describe “what happens when different social worlds
confront one another, or when boundaries between worlds are
crossed.”7 In this sense, both the physical and the “figural border”
serve multiple functions, drawing lines between “citizen” and
“alien or “us” and “them” (whether in the form of territorial borders or ideological
divisions), creating a space for community and for border zone contact. We should take care not
to collapse the physical and figurative registers of borders as there are important differences, but
connecting these two senses of the border illuminates the
contestability of borders. As Kent A. Ono writes, “Borders go beyond borders,
and so does their function.”8
The securitization of the border has criminalized
immigration to be a source of unease
Securitization of immigration is a flawed approach, which recreates the
harms of the affirmative
Bigo ‘02- Professor at King's College London Department of War studies and MCU Research Professor at Sciences-Po Paris (Didier Bigo
“Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease” https://www.questia.com/li ingly interpreted as a security problem.
The prism of security analysis is especially important for politicians, for national and local police organizations, the military police, customs officers,
border patrols, secret services, armies, judges, some social services (health care, hospitals, schools), private brary/journal/1G1-84338226/security-andimmigration-toward-a-critique-of-the , TS)
Migration is increasingly interpreted as a security problem. The
prism of security analysis is especially important for
politicians, for national and local police organizations, the military police, customs officers, border patrols, secret services,
armies, judges, some social services (health care, hospitals, schools), private corporations (bank analysts, providers of technology surveillance, private
policing), many journalists (especially from television and the more sensationalist newspapers), and a significant fraction of general public opinion,
especially but not only among those attracted to "law and order." The popularity of this security prism is not an expression of traditional responses to a rise
of insecurity, crime, terrorism, and the negative effects of globalization; it is
the result of the creation of a continuum of
threats and general unease in which many different actors exchange their fears and beliefs in
the process of making a risky and dangerous society. The professionals in charge of the
management of risk and fear especially transfer the legitimacy they gain from struggles
against terrorists, criminals, spies, and counterfeiters toward other targets, most notably transnational political activists,
people crossing borders, or people born in the country but with foreign parents. This expansion of what security is
taken to include effectively results in a convergence between the meaning of international and
internal security. The convergence is particularly important in relation to the issue of
migration, and specifically in relation to questions about who gets to be defined as an
immigrant. The security professionals themselves, along with some academics, tend to claim that they are only responding to new threats requiring
exceptional measures beyond the normal demands of everyday politics. In practice, however, the transformation of security and
the consequent focus on immigrants is directly related to their own immediate interests
(competition for budgets and missions) and to the transformation of technologies they use (computerized databanks, profiling and morphing, electronic
phone tapping). The
Europeanization and the Westernization of the logics of control and
surveillance of people beyond national polices is driven by the creation of a transnational
field of professionals in the management of unease. This field is larger than that of police organizations in that it includes,
on one hand private corporations and organizations dealing with the control of access to the welfare state, and, on the other hand, intelligence services and
some military people seeking a new role after the end of the Cold War. These professionals in the management of unease, however, are only a node
connecting many competing networks responding to many groups of people who are identified as risk or just as a source of unease. (1)
K - 1AC
First is the Alien Status
The border has come to not only define the
physical boundaries between one space and
another, but also to define the figurative space
that is crossed between communities
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. ( Josue David Cisneros “The Border Crossed Us”
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-6.pdf, TS)
In conventional terms, borders are understood in a limited way as
the strict territorial boundaries defining a nation-state. Though we tend
to understand borders exclusively as physical places, border studies scholars remind
us that borders are also figurative spaces of identity, culture, and
community.5 The border should be thought of more broadly than as a
territorial or juridical boundary—not only as physical but also as figurative
or ideological. Here we are interested not only in the territorial borders of a nation-state
but also in the boundaries of political and cultural community. This notion of the border as a
psychical and figurative zone of division and contact is articulated most paradigmatically in
Gloria Anzaldúa’s germinal Borderlands/La Frontera. Anzaldúa
makes clear that
the border is both a physical place, “una herida abierta [an open wound]
where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds,” and
also a figural space “wherever two or more cultures edge each
other, where people of different races occupy the same territory,
where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space
between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.”6 Borders involve the process of
dividing and constituting community and take shape through
both material and ideological practices. As José David Saldívar explains,
borders describe “what happens when different social worlds
confront one another, or when boundaries between worlds are
crossed.”7 In this sense, both the physical and the “figural border”
serve multiple functions, drawing lines between “citizen” and
“alien or “us” and “them” (whether in the form of territorial borders or ideological
divisions), creating a space for community and for border zone contact. We should take care not
to collapse the physical and figurative registers of borders as there are important differences, but
connecting these two senses of the border illuminates the
contestability of borders. As Kent A. Ono writes, “Borders go beyond borders,
and so does their function.”8
Law is used as a tool to reify and perpetuate hyperbolic racial profiling
inducing a state where the dichotomy between “citizen” and “alien,” rather
than legality, determines one’s being and status within the state
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
If the immigrant marches of 2006 can be understood as organizing multiple constituencies in
opposition to restrictive immigration legislation, as argued in the last chapter, then the more
recent mobilizations—from protests in Arizona to student movements for the DREAM Act—are
in many ways extensions or continuations of the immigrant activism of 2006. Just as La Gran
Marcha spurred a nationwide wave of social protests by Latina/os and immigrants (protests
asserting citizenship and rebuffing restrictive bordering practices), demonstrations and boycotts
again spread throughout the country in 2010 involving Latina/os, immigrants, and other stake.
Mobilization was once more ignited in the most immediate sense by the passage of restrictive,
nativist immigration legislation—Arizona’s SB 1070. This now-infamous legislation was signed
by Arizona governor Jan Brewer on April 23, 2010, after heightened scrutiny and national media
attention. Capitalizing on several federal programs encouraging state and local border
enforcement, the Arizona law created a state crime of illegal immigration with stricter
penalties than equivalent federal crimes, and it escalated the surveillance and
persecution of suspected immigrants by state and local police. In the broadest sense,
SB 1070 made undocumented immigrants doubly illegal and twice prosecuted: not
only under federal law and by federal immigration officers but also at the state and local level.
The most controversial elements of SB 1070 concerned the further criminalization of work,
hiring, and transporting of undocumented immigrants; police power of surveillance and
detention of suspected immigrants; and the power of civil suit to force strict immigration
enforcement. In the area of work, hiring, and transportation, for example, SB 1070
criminalized the “unlawful transporting, moving, concealing, harboring, or
shielding of unlawful aliens,” even by humanitarian organizations or so-called Good
Samaritans. SB 1070 also proposed to expand police power to profile suspected immigrants and
verify their legal status by mandating that “for any lawful stop, detention or arrest . . . where
reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United
States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration
status of the person, except if the determination may hinder or obstruct an investigation.”5 Thus
SB 1070 not only expanded powers of surveillance and prosecution, but it also
targeted “illegal” immigrants in a roundabout way by criminalizing their
livelihood. In the opinion of many legal scholars, such as Kevin R. Johnson, SB 1070
strengthened already unspoken and “crude racial profiles” in immigration
enforcement.6 Its most controversial element, the provision concerning police surveillance,
sanctioned state and local police to judge a subject’s (il)legality (“immigration status”) based on
a “reasonable suspicion” drawn from factors such as the person’s language, dress, demeanor, or
presence in an area “where unlawfully present aliens are known to congregate.”7
These measures, I have argued elsewhere, meant that, under SB 1070 , citizenship became
a “performative affect defined only by difference,” an affect (of difference)
read and judged by state and local police on the bodies and in the
performances of suspected immigrant “others. ”8 In other words, police became
critics of behaviors and demeanors, judging who performed citizenship (who seemed like they
belonged) and whose performance communicated an affect of “alienness.” According to the law,
those suspects who gave police a “reasonable suspicion” they did not belong were presumed to
be undocumented.
Those accepted by the state are deemed “normal citizens”, who are
encouraged to take on a role of an undercover immigration agent in their
everyday lives, solidifying the link between “different” and “illegal
immigrant”—this creates a forceful divide between them and the Other
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
In addition to heightened surveillance of suspected undocumented immigrants, Beyond
Borders? SB 1070 also created controversy through a “citizen suit” provision. This measure
authorized any “legal resident” of Arizona to bring a civil suit against a government agent who
failed to enforce immigration laws to their strictest extent (See Senate Bill 1070, §2[G]). SB
1070, therefore, authorized residents themselves to become immigration agents
implicated in the surveillance of suspected immigrants and the enforcement of the
border. If Arizona residents believed that police or other state officials failed to adequately
scrutinize and prosecute suspected immigrants, the legislation provided avenues for
citizens to compel enforcement. In effect, citizens were encouraged to do their civic
duty by helping to ferret out “illegal immigrants,” or at the very least to surveil the
government in its acts of surveillance. Because the legislation included measures for
citizen enforcement of immigration laws, it implicated all residents in the practice of securing
the border, converting border vigilantism into a mode of civic engagement, of doing one’s
citizenly duty. The justification for the legislation went something like this. In the persistent
absence of federal attention to the “problem” of immigration, state governments such as Arizona
were forced to take action to secure their own borders. Governor Brewer emphasized this point
during the signing ceremony for the legislation, stating, “We in Arizona have been more than
patient waiting for Washington to act. But decades of federal inaction and misguided policy have
created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.” Brewer’s stated desperation in the face of
danger represented a broader sentiment of border anxiety. SB 1070 quickly became a rallying
point for proponents of nativist immigration policy as well as a lightning rod for pro-immigrant
activists. As a result, SB 1070 became one of the first and certainly the most publicized piece of a
whole patchwork of state and local anti-immigrant measures to pass in 2010 that aimed to
address immigration and border security in the absence of federal involvement. These
anti-immigrant measures have since spread throughout the country and now include
unprecedented levels of deportations and detentions, provisions preventing the
aiding of undocumented immigrants, and efforts to block access to work, housing,
or public schools.
Our culture hypocritically embraces race neutrality while promoting
“national security” and “immigration/border enforcement” as justifications
for unleashing racist nativism
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
That bordering has taken on this militaristic and aggressive tone exemplified in attrition
through enforcement is not surprising considering the persistent logics of citizenship and
Latina/o identity discussed throughout this book. That is, when national belonging is wedded to
an exclusionary gendered and racialized identity, and as long as some Latina/os can still be
positioned as “others” by virtue of their difference(s), material and rhetorical bordering of U.S.
citizenship remains the norm. Recent antiimmigrant provisions, of which SB 1070 is just
an early example, demonstrate a persistent conflation of Latinidad with Mexican
illegality, the representation of Latina/os as threats, and persistent fears of a
racialized and gendered citizenship. However, it is also worth emphasizing that a colorblind double bind is evident in the increasingly militant and nativist immigration policies at the
state and local level, including SB 1070. In the contemporary neoliberal moment, ideas of
individualism, federal deregulation, and global free trade have come to structure immigration
and border policy. Monica Varsanyi argues that “neoliberalizing economic policies . . . act as
powerful push and pull factors promoting cross-border labor migration,” and yet heightened
bordering practices, workplace raids, and de-unionization efforts demonstrate that “the
neoliberal ideology of the global free market has not . . . extended to the labor market.” The push
toward state and local immigration policy, the localization of border enforcement, and
increasing focus on the individual immigrant as the locus of immigration policy—all elements of
contemporary immigration policy—stem from the broader neoliberal ideology of federal
deregulation and the focus on individualism.13 In this vein, the nation formally celebrates its
respect for diversity and multiculturalism, its status as a “nation of immigrants,” and purports to
enforce immigration and border policy in a “color-blind” way, all the while escalating the
racialized and gendered policing and denial of full citizenship. The persistent celebration of a
color-blind, post-race culture of individual responsibility masks the enduring significance of
race, racialization, class, and gender in sociopolitical identity struggles including immigration
policy. Thus our culture embraces “race neutrality even as it licenses ‘limited’ racial
profiling for purposes of security maintenance, targeted policing,” and
immigration/border enforcement. Meanwhile, attempts to address racial disparities or
achieve diversity, such as affirmative action or bilingual education, are criticized as
“monocultural,” anti-American, or even as reverse discrimination because they violate the
supposedly color-blind and thus multicultural contours of contemporary society (by injecting
race into the public sphere).14
Alienation and status is no longer based off of the norm, leaving us all
vulnerable
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
Other protests in the spring and summer of 2010 provide similar themes. Though SB 1070
conflated illegality with a certain performative affect of not belonging, the popular slogan of
many of these protests—“Do I look illegal?”33—highlighted the arbitrariness of determinants of
legality/illegality and refuted the presumption that judgments of belonging could or should be
based on performative affect. If language use, dress, demeanor, or even presence in an area
“where unlawfully present aliens are known to congregate” could provide justification for a
“reasonable suspicion” of someone’s illegal status (as per SB 1070), then perhaps even those
protestors (like myself ) who were legal citizens but were “congregating” with undocumented
immigrants were also reasonably suspicious. Would marching for immigrant rights and
recognition constitute justification for suspicion? Perhaps all Latina/os, because of their
language or affects of “foreignness,” should be presumed to be “illegal,” despite Governor
Brewer’s assurances to the contrary. Following the affective economy of SB 1070, all of these
performances would imply a potentially foreign and suspicious identity. To borrow from Muñoz,
the logics of performativity, affect, and citizenship exemplified in SB 1070 illuminated “a phobic
majoritarian public sphere that continuously elides or punishes the existence of subjects who do
not conform to the phantasm of normative citizenship.” Thus the discourses of “I could be
illegal,” “Do I look illegal?” and “Reasonably Suspicious” represented a process of
“disidentification” with and from SB 1070, a working “on, with, and against [this] cultural
form” to “transform” affects of citizenship and enact “structural change” in immigration
policy.34 Put simply, these slogans (such as “Do I Look Illegal?”) implicitly asked what it meant
to look legal and/or illegal. By asking whether or not they too looked suspicious, it seemed that
these discourses ultimately questioned what it truly meant to look (il)legal. Rather
than presuming performances of the national affect (of legality) to be the norm
and criminalizing any deviations from it, we all could be immigrants; we all could
be “reasonably suspicious.” This rhetoric made clear that performances of citizenship were
only marked by their relationship to difference and could never be defined in a universal way so
as to include all citizens. Presumptions of legality and illegality were arbitrary and politicized
judgments, and there was, in fact, no pure affect of the U.S. American. If citizenship was
performative, if what police and citizens judge is an individuals’ performative affect of
(non)belonging, then anyone could perform “reasonable suspicion.” Determinations of
citizenship and belonging were ultimately demonstrated to be undecidable.
The “alien status” has indicated both a legal exclusion and a social stigma,
where they are pushed to the bottom both literally and figuratively—the
impact is the elimination of all value to life
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of
immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the
anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the United States. Dr. Inda is currently
Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive Theory. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 234-235)//cl
In this chapter, I analyze how the transnational conjuncture of immigration and criminal justice
policies constitutes "criminal aliens" or emigres as expendable and indeed exiles them not
only from particular legal territories but also from the social domains that make
life itself viable. In the United States, removal—the legal term for deportation—has emerged
as a seemingly benign technique for extricating seemingly problematic ("illegal," "criminal")
noncitizens from U.S. territory. The neutrality of the term hides the violence that removal
wreaks on individuals, families, communities, and the law itself. Through removal, individuals
are legally stripped of their de facto or de jure (i.e., legal permanent residency) membership in
the United States and are constituted as fully alien. They are then "returned" to countries where
they are de jure citizens, but where, as long-term emigres who were convicted of crimes, many
lack social connections or clearly recognized legal rights. In fact, antigang policies in their
countries of origin may drive them out—and back to the United States—once more. Such
departures are akin to a de facto or unofficial deportation, in that law
enforcement policies, lack of economic opportunity, and social stigmatization lead
them to leave their "home" countries (Zilberg 2007a). By constituting "criminal aliens" as
so-called enemies whose right to exist is in question, nations claim to have bolstered public
security. In fact, however, such policies contribute to insecurity by rendering law itself unstable.'
To analyze the ways that criminal justice and immigration policies constitute certain noncitizens
as expendable others, I interweave accounts of Alex Sanchez's experiences with analy¬ses of
U.S. and Salvadoran government policies. I have chosen to focus on Alex Sanchez both because
of the variety of his experiences—he was deported to El Salvador in 1994, he returned to the
United States in 1996, and he was placed in removal proceedings again in 2000—and because
his immigration case draws attention to the violence and persecution experienced by former
gang members. I also draw on fieldwork conducted in El Salvador and Los Angeles between
2000 and 2004, consisting primarily of interviews with Salvadoran immigrants in the United
States, immigrant rights advocates and government officials in the United States and El
Salvador, and deportees affiliated with Homies Unidos in El Salvador. This fieldwork sug¬gests
that noncitizens who have been convicted of crimes are facing a transnational injunction of
sorts, such that they are not permitted to exist anywhere. Their lives are rendered inviable
as they are pushed underground either figuratively, in that they must live as
fugitives, or literally, in that they are subjected to violence that can lead to their
deaths.
Second is the Role of Deportation
Social constructs have projected the alien status onto people of all legal
statuses within the Mexican community, expanding the fear of deportability
and removal
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of
immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the
anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the United States. Dr. Inda is currently
Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive Theory. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 219-220)//cl
Over the past decades, deportations of foreign nationals from the United States have been on the
rise (U.S. DHS 2008: 95). Mexican nationals make up the largest number of individuals
identified as "deportable." For example, Mexican nationals were 854,261 of the 960,756
"deportable aliens" located by the DHS in 2007 (2008: 92). The DHS distinguishes between
"removals" and "returns." A removal is what is commonly understood as deportation, a legal
process with "administrative or criminal consequences placed on subsequent reentry owing to
the fact of removal," while return is "not based on an order of removal" (2008: 95). According to
the DHS, the majority of these "voluntary returns" are of Mexican nationals who are
apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents and then returned to Mexico (2008: 95). Notably,
these ostensibly "voluntary" returns have declined since a peak of 1,675,876 in 2000
to 891,390 in 2007, while "removals" or formal deportations were at a record high
of 319,382 in 2007 (2008: 95). In other words, "returns" are decreasing while deportations or
"removals," with their accompanying legal ramifications, are on the rise. The context of such
deportation statistics (a story that is much more difficult to tell through statistical data) is the
population of Mexican nationals who are undocumented or unauthorized (im)migrants living in
the United States. The number of unauthorized immigrants living in the United States is
estimated to be 11.9 million (Passel and Cohn 2008), 7 million of whom are from Mexico (Passel
and Cohn 2009: i). However, as Nicholas De Genova posits, "there are no hermetically sealed
communities of undocumented migrants" (2002: 422), further complicating demographic
portraits of unauthorized migration. Indeed, undocumented migration, deportability, and
removal by the U.S. state must be considered within a frame that recognizes the
permeability and shifting character of the supposedly rigid categories that delineate
documented and undocumented migrants. Of course, not all transnational Mexicans
are undocumented, but within binational families and communities, all migrants,
regardless of status, are impacted by deportability and processes of removal,
albeit in diverse ways and to varying degrees. The familial and community relationships
within which one is embedded—groupings of individuals with mixed statuses vis-a-vis the U.S.
state—mean that "deportability" has a broad effect in transnational Mexican lives. Essentially
every family from San Marcos is a mixed-status family, made up of individuals with different
legal immigrant statuses within the United States. Through social relations, deportability
can be transferred to those who are "legally" in the United States, including U.S.
permanent residents and even U.S. citizens . Those who are documented, such as the
U.S. citizen children of unauthorized migrants, may be constructed as "alien" by
association (Boehm 2011), precisely through social and familial relations, by state agents, and
within public discourse. Similarly, the presumed "permanence" and security of U.S. permanent
residency held by foreign nationals can also be undermined by deportability and deportation.
The process of deportation is complex and unstandardized, making it easy
for law enforcement agents to circumvent the law and seize almost anyone
without granting them their rights
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of
immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the
anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the United States. Dr. Inda is currently
Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive Theory. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 226)//cl
In this section, I examine detention and deportation itself, focusing on several cases in which
deportation was actualized. Detention in local jails, transport to and detention in federal
immigration facilities, and the process of "removal" are described as harrowing and shameful.
Whether it is time at a county jail, solitary confinement in federal detention, or even one's
"release" while awaiting trial, migrants' narratives emphasize the temporal aspects of removal, a
sense of im/permanence that accompanies forced return. Migrants speak of being "caught,"
both when they are arrested and as they imagine limited future trajectories, though discourses
describing deportation also focus on its contradictory elements. Transnational Mexicans tell of
both the enduring and temporary aspects of removal: they express the finality of deportation but
also its fleeting, less certain dimensions. As with deportability, migrants' temporal
understandings of removal are framed by un-certainty and confusion. Is deportation a
permanent or a temporary state? Through processes of removal, there is a presentation of
certainty or permanence on the part of immigration officials, and yet for migrants,
deportation is defined by obscurity and confusion. Virtually every conversation I have
had with deportees about the process of "removal" includes bewilderment or perplexity about
what precisely happened, the process through which they were removed, how they ended up
back in Mexico, and the permanence of removal. Of course, there is no preparing for deportation
and its paradoxical effects: even as one fears its imminence it is difficult to imagine in concrete
terms; if deportation is actualized, it has unreal, murky dimensions as well as tangible
consequences. Expelled from the United States, deportees describe finality, a dead-end of
return, and yet, deportation can be a temporary state. The experience of Felipe, whom I
discussed above, captures the un/certainty and im/permanence of removal. When
Felipe was arrested at the DMV, it was a confusing process that directly threatened his family's
security. First, the family was unable to locate him. Scared to contact ICE officials because
they themselves were undocumented, family members asked friends who were U.S.
permanent residents or U.S. citizens to call and inquire about his whereabouts. These
calls resulted in further confusion, when administrators of the county jail did not have
Felipe on their records and calls to ICE went directly to voice-mail. Felipe was essentially
erased from the community (see Coutin 2000: 35): one day he was registering his vehicle, the
next he had been taken from his daily life, unable to contact family and/or be located by family
and friends. Although he was clearly rooted in the United States (he had spent the majority of
his life in the country, 19 years after arriving at age 14), he was instantly taken away. Soon after
his arrest, family members put together the funds to retain an attorney, though the lawyer was
not hopeful about Felipe's chances of staying in the United States. Deportation was likely,
and as the attorneys had explained at the information session earlier in the year,
given the current laws it was essentially permanent. There was little that could be done
to prevent Felipe's removal and there were few chances for his "legal" return to the United States
anytime in the future
Despite the fact that few are actually removed, the threat of deportation
creates a “space of nonexistence” as a form of discipline and surveillance
towards individuals unreasonably deemed illegal
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of
immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the
anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the United States. Dr. Inda is currently
Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive Theory. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 224)//cl
The bind is clear: while the likelihood of being among the relatively small number of those
deported is slim, deportation is actualized in communities, and all unauthorized migrants,
whether or not they themselves have experienced deportation, have certainly witnessed it: the
deportation of a family member, a community member, a child's friend, a coworker, a parent
from their children's school. Similarly, documented transnational Mexicans feel the effects of
"deportability." For example, U.S. citizen children experience fear that a parent will be
deported while U.S. permanent residents can feel the insecurity that accompanies
the threat of a partner's deportation. So, while deportation does not effectively reduce
undocumented migration, it is very effective at controlling migrants, their families, and broader
communities: "Some are deported in order that most may remain (un-deported)---- as workers,
whose particular migrant status may thus be rendered 'illegal"' (De Genova 2002: 439). This is a
form of disciplining on the part of the state, "generalized punishment" (Foucault 1977: 73) to
monitor individuals, and by extension, the social body. But as Susan Bibler Coutin describes, in
these "spaces of nonexistence" (2000: 27), one takes precautions, yet also goes on with life.
For example, a man who had lived in the United States for nearly two decades without papers,
Felipe, needed to renew his vehicle registration, but feared going to the DMV because of rumors
that ICE agents were arresting undocumented migrants when they came in to apply for a
driver's license or register their automobile. Felipe considered not registering his vehicle, but
thought it important to follow the laws in the United States and went ahead with it. Concerned
that his undocumented status might be discovered, Felipe decided to have a friend, a U.S.
permanent resident, register the vehicle in her name. He accompanied her to the DMV, and
when the DMV representative suggested they include both names, Felipe agreed. After waiting
several hours (Felipe and his friend thought that this was the standard wait time) five ICE
agents appeared and arrested Felipe. Here, Felipe's fears were actualized through his experience
of the everyday; the seemingly mundane act of registering his vehicle and, poignantly, what he
understood to be his duty as a responsible community member, resulted in this event that
changed his life course.
Undocumented migrants have been forced into the “nonexistent space”
between the process of citizenship and deportation, unable to ever find a
safe space and are thus permanently thrust into the underclass
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of
immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the
anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the United States. Dr. Inda is currently
Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive Theory. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 229-230)//cl
Their sentiments were similar to that of Jose, an undocumented migrant contemplating the
possibility of deportation. "Where do we go from here?" he had asked, a question that ended our
interview and to which there was no adequate response. Deportation presents a void, a vacuum,
and yet it is an uncertainty that is concrete and palpable. Deportees are not alone in assuming
futures with limited options; nearly all undocumented migrants present an
understandably narrow view of future individual and collective transnational
lives. While hope for comprehensive immigration reform and a possible amnesty
remains, it is overshadowed by the immediacy of increasing deportations and the
multiple factors that continue to drive migration from Mexico to the United States.
Undocumented migrants and deportees, caught between processes of migration and forced
return, articulate the ways they are slotted into an underclass. As Lucia declared, "You
[Americans] want us in your country, but then you throw us out!" Paradoxically, while the future
trajectories of deportees and migrants are vague and unclear, removal—forced return to
Mexico—is likely to result in migrants' "return" migration to the United States. One aspect
seems certain for Lucia and Pedro, indeed all migrants impacted by deportation: future
trajectories will be linked to ongoing transnational migration, a "chronic, contradictory
transnationalism" (Rouse 1992: 46). At the very least, deportees will depend on the
remittances of family members living in the United States. Agricultural hardship in home
communities, a global economic crisis, increasing violence throughout Mexico, and significantly,
a demand for unauthorized labor in the United States (as one woman stated, "We Mexicans are
the mules of your country") drive such future migrations and "returns" north. For example,
Enrique told me that, regardless of the formalities of his removal, "I'll go back. I have to go
back." Rodrigo explained that he would probably return to the United States sometime in the
future, above all because "many of my children and grandchildren are there." And while Pedro
was adamant that he would stay in Mexico, his wife Lucia was willing to go if needed or, she
said, perhaps their 13–year-old son would leave in a couple of years as an undocumented labor
migrant like his father. Pedro and Lucia also expect that their four-year-old son, a U.S. citizen,
will someday return to "his country?' After describing in an interview the gravity and sense of
permanence in being returned, one man wished me well on the day of my departure from the
rancho to the United States: "Safe travels. . . . I might even see you there!"
Basic human rights are eradicated in the process of deportation—shackles
and deprivation of necessities paint migrants into brutalized animals
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of
immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the
anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the United States. Dr. Inda is currently
Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive Theory. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 240-241)//cl
The process of removal officially transforms de facto community members into aliens with no right to remain in the United States.
Noncitizens who are subjected to deportation may find this transformation shocking. A Homies Unidos member who was
interviewed for this project after having been deported to El Salvador could not imagine that he could never return legally to the
United States: "You can't just say, 'You're expelled for life. You're deported for life.' I mean, I hope not!" Of course, deportation is not
supposed to transform individuals. Rather, it is supposed to be a consequence of already being both alien and unauthorized. Note
that in Alex Sanchez's case his only legal option when faced with deportation was to demonstrate that he could not safely return to El
Salvador, and therefore he had to remain in the United States. Despite having lived in this country for more than two decades and
having U.S. citizen relatives (including a wife and son), his criminal convictions, prior deportation, and unauthorized reentry were
presumed to define him as alien and his presence as illicit. Nonetheless,
there is a sense in which the
process of deportation produces the very "alienage" and "illegality" from which it is
supposed to flow. The transformative nature of deportation is demonstrated by the experiences of King (a pseudonym), whom
I interviewed in El Salvador in 2001. King came to the United States in the early 1980s at age four or five and became a legal
permanent resident in the late 1980s, when he was approximately nine or ten. As a teenager, he began to have trouble with the law
and served time in juvenile hall, but he was not concerned about immigration consequences. Because
I had the
residency, I figured, oh, shssh, I got it made, you know, a resident." King was incarcerated in 1993,
and then in 1996 he learned about the passage of AEDPA and IIRIRA: "I always watched the news in prison.... And then after that
Timothy McVeigh blew up that building? They passed a law, . . . instead of, you know, going after the guys that did that, they decided
to wash their hands and throw it out from all the [immigrants] and residents, uh-huh. They called 'em, uh, 'a terrorist threat.' To
them, we're a terrorist threat. Just because of what Timothy, Timothy McVeigh did." An immigration hold was placed on King, and
when he completed his prison sentence, he was transferred to an immigration detention center, where he unsuccessfully fought his
deportation case for six months. Although King had projected a future in the United States, he was ordered deported. Before
being deported, King was transferred to a holding cell, where conditions were difficult: "We
were there all night, and we were cold." From the holding cell, he and others were bused to
Arizona, where, in shackles, they were flown to Houston, Texas. In Texas, they were processed
for deportation and then taken to a county jail, which King described as "messed up.... They
wouldn't let us buy nothing at the store or nothing, so we didn't have no deodorant, no razor, no
toothbrush. And they wouldn't, uh, give us any, because they were treating us like lower, you
know what I mean? Like, you're getting deported anyways, you don't need none of that." Being
treated as "lower" continued as King was placed in another holding cell: "And it was like hot,
moisture. Like everything starts sweating, you know, with the body heat. And the water was no
good. There was no drinking water. Only a shower to shower. The toilets were messed up, there
was no pressure." King was in the holding cell for four or five days. King found these conditions
dehumanizing, telling one of the sergeants, "Look, Sergeant, man, what's going on? We don't get
rec, yard, nothing. You know? You're treating us like animals, man!" Finally, King and other
deportees were shackled and placed on one of the oldest planes that King had ever seen: "And
we took off. Fshshshsh0000000000! All shackled up. And then, like, they give us, like, a tore-up
sandwich and stuff? To eat up there? You know, I wasn't hungry, I didn't eat nothing. That's the
least thing I had on my mind was food after leaving, you know, the country you were raised in."
King found the shackles particularly debasing: "They think they can treat you like you
don't know your rights, you know what I mean? Even if you're deportable, you still
got rights, human rights." King's account of deportation is replete with references to
humiliating experiences, to being treated as an animal, as debased, as lacking rights. The
shackles—which King reported were removed before landing, after flying out of U.S.
airspace—were a particularly vivid marker of criminalized "illegality" and alienage. King
experienced deportation not as a return, but rather as a departure, "leaving, you know, the
country you were raised in." Deportation officially transformed King in ways that he experienced
bodily (heat, cold, shackles, and deprivation). Officially he was not only a noncitizen of the
United States but also a citizen of El Salvador. Unofficially, however, deportees' membership in
their countries of origin can also be questioned.
Third is the Family
The securitization of the border has criminalized
immigration to be a source of unease
Bigo no date- Professor at King's College London Department of War studies and MCU Research Professor at
Sciences-Po Paris (Didier Bigo “Security and Immigration: Toward a Critique of the Governmentality of Unease”
https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-84338226/security-and-immigration-toward-a-critique-of-the , TS)
Migration is increasingly interpreted as a security problem. The
prism of security analysis is especially important for politicians, for national and local police
organizations, the military police, customs officers, border patrols, secret services, armies,
judges, some social services (health care, hospitals, schools), private corporations (bank
analysts, providers of technology surveillance, private policing), many journalists (especially
from television and the more sensationalist newspapers), and a significant fraction of general
public opinion, especially but not only among those attracted to "law and order." The
popularity of this security prism is not an expression of traditional
responses to a rise of insecurity, crime, terrorism, and the
negative effects of globalization; it is the result of the creation of a
continuum of threats and general unease in which many different
actors exchange their fears and beliefs in the process of making a
risky and dangerous society. The professionals in charge of the
management of risk and fear especially transfer the legitimacy they gain from struggles
against terrorists, criminals, spies, and counterfeiters toward
other targets, most notably transnational political activists, people
crossing borders, or people born in the country but with foreign
parents. This expansion of what security is taken to include effectively results in a
convergence between the meaning of international and internal security. The
convergence is particularly important in relation to the issue of migration, and
specifically in relation to questions about who gets to be defined as an
immigrant. The security professionals themselves, along with some academics, tend to
claim that they are only responding to new threats requiring exceptional measures beyond the
normal demands of everyday politics. In practice, however, the transformation of security and
the consequent focus on immigrants is directly related to their own immediate interests
(competition for budgets and missions) and to the transformation of technologies they use
(computerized databanks, profiling and morphing, electronic phone tapping). The
Europeanization and the Westernization of the logics of control
and surveillance of people beyond national polices is driven by the
creation of a transnational field of professionals in the
management of unease. This field is larger than that of police organizations in that it
includes, on one hand private corporations and organizations dealing with the control of access
to the welfare state, and, on the other hand, intelligence services and some military people
seeking a new role after the end of the Cold War. These
professionals in the
management of unease, however, are only a node connecting many competing
networks responding to many groups of people who are identified as risk
or just as a source of unease. (1)
Undocumented immigrants are pushed to trek
through dangerous rural areas due to the
regulations of immigration enforcement – making
the voyage an exhibit of death
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 19, TS)
the U.S.-Mexico border has always been a place of
danger for those trying to cross it illegally (Nevins 2002). Immigrants
have had to traverse the Rio Grande and other fast-moving
waterways under the cover of darkness, to travel in sealed and
inadequately ventilated freight compartments of trains or trucks,
to trek through the desert terrain of the American Southwest, and
to climb fences and other steel barriers erected by the U.S.
government to secure the border (Eschbach et al. 1999). Given such danger,
clandestine border crossings have sometimes had tragic consequences. Over the years, more than
a few migrants—it is hard to say exactly how many—have lost their lives trying to
reach the United States. Today, crossing the border has become considerably more difficult and
dangerous (Nevins 2002; Inda 2006b; Doty, this volume). As the Border Patrol has
closed off traditional illicit routes into the United States—namely
In some ways,
urban locations such as San Diego and El Paso—the migrant traffic has been
channeled through remote and less policed mountain and desert
locations. These out-of-the-way places through which most unauthorized immigrants are
currently crossing the border—the deserts of Arizona, for example—are less than ideal entry points.
First, the fact that they are apt to be far removed from urban centers means that the undocumented
now have to walk long distances, often for days, before reaching areas where they can
be picked up and transported elsewhere. Second, there is the rugged terrain of the
new crossing places. Because they tend to be barren deserts or mountains, anyone entering
through them potentially has to contend with freezing temperatures at night and torrid
weather during the day. What having to walk long distances though hostile landscape
means, basically, is a rather perilous border crossing experience. The peril is so great that
border-crossing-related deaths have become routine events . In 1994, prior to the full
implementation of the Border Patrol's strategy of prevention through deterrence, there were only 24
recorded migrant deaths (Jimenez 2009, 17). By contrast, in 2007, the peak year for migrant fatalities, an
estimated 827 border crossers lost their lives (ibid.). The American Civil Liberties Union calculates that,
altogether, between 1994 and 2008 an estimated 5,607 migrants, mainly Mexicans, died attempting to
enter the United States without authorization—that's an average of about 374 migrant deaths per year
(ibid.). All indications are, then, that enhanced boundary policing has made illicit border crossing a more
there is little doubt that as the traffic of illicit
bodies has moved from urban areas to rural locations, the risk of
death has become greater and the border has become an exhibit of
death. Significantly, the fact that large numbers of border-crossers are dying has not escaped the
hazardous venture. Indeed,
Border Patrol's attention. The agency actually seems quite concerned about this development. In 1998, for
example, it created the Border Patrol Search, Trauma, and Rescue Unit (BORSTAR) to focus on the search
although the Border Patrol
may have acknowledged that immigrants are dying and taken some steps
to remedy the situation, the agency has not conceded that its operations
brought about the problem in the first place. Indeed, the agency has failed to
and rescue of migrants in distress (US CBP 2009b). However,
take any responsibility for the rise in migrant deaths. As one Border Patrol officer put it, "Death on the
border is unfortunate, but it's nothing new. It's not caused by the Border Patrol. It's not caused by
[Operation] Gatekeeper" (Ellingwood 1999, A28). The logic behind this refusal to accept any blame is
The Border Patrol contends that it is simply doing its duty of
safeguarding the nation's borders when it closes off busy urban crossing points. If immigrants
consequently choose to cross through rural terrains, the
responsibility for any unfortunate incidents that may occur is
deemed to lie not with the Border Patrol but with the immigrants
themselves and the smugglers who guide them. The reality is,
however, that as long as urban crossing points stay virtually
rather straightforward.
closed and immigrants are steered to seek passage through risky
mountain and desert locations, border crossers will continue to
die. So, although the Border Patrol may not, strictly speaking, be liable for the fatalities at the border, it
does bear a certain amount of responsibility for them because
these deaths are an effect of the strict policing of the border. Indeed,
immigrants are dying, and they are dying as a consequence of a stringent policy that
propels them to cross the border through dangerous terrain.
Parents live with the constant fear of being
separated from their children – forcing them to
remain isolated from the rest of society leading to
a social death
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 20-21, TS)
we find that workplace raids have also
had a severely negative impact on immigrants and their
communities. The most palpable impact of such raids has been
their effect on the families, particularly the children, of the
individuals who have been apprehended and deported. In 2007, the
Shifting to the effects of interior policing,
Urban Institute released a report titled Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's
Children (Capps et al. 2007). The report focused on the aftermath of large-scale ICE raids in three
communities: Greeley, Colorado; Grand Island, Nebraska; and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Greeley and
Grand Island were two sites hit as part of a larger raid on Swift & Company meat-processing facilities in
six states (Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa, and Minnesota). New Bedford was the location of a
the children
and families of apprehended immigrants, who were mainly
Latinos, experienced significant hardship, "including difficulty
coping with the economic and psychological stress caused by the
arrest and the uncertainty of not knowing when or if the arrested
parent would be released" (ibid., 3). Moreover, they note that hardship increased over
raid on Michael Bianco, Inc., a textile product company. The authors detail how
time, as families' meager savings and funds from previous pay-checks were spent. Privately funded
assistance generally lasted for two to three months, but many parents were detained for up to five or six
months, and others were released but waited for several months for a final appearance before an
immigration judge—during which time they could not work. Hardship also increased among extended
families and nonfamily networks over time, as they took on more and more responsibility for taking care
of children with arrested parents. After the arrest or disappearance of their parents,
children experienced feelings of abandonment and showed symptoms of
Many
lacked stability in child care and supervision. Families continued
hiding and feared arrest if they ventured outside, increasing social
isolation over time. Immigrant communities faced the fear of future raids, backlash from
emotional trauma, psychological duress, and mental health problems.
nonimmigrants, and the stigma of being labeled "illegal." The combination of fear, isolation, and
economic hardship induced mental health problems such as depression, separation anxiety disorder,
due to cultural reasons,
fear of possible consequences in asking for assistance, and
barriers to accessing services, few affected immigrants sought
mental health care for themselves or their children. (ibid., 3-4) By
removing a parent and breadwinner from the home, then, worksite
operations have significant consequences for families and children . Not
post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal thoughts. However,
only does the removal of a breadwinner reduce a family's income and increase its material hardship, it
the fear and stigma
produced by a raid can lead to the social isolation of immigrant
families and have an adverse psychological effect on children.
also creates a rather unstable home environment. Moreover,
ICE ACCESS programs make undocumented
immigrants afraid to live their lives. These
programs take away their pursuit of happiness
and deter them from going to the authorities for
help.
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 21-22, TS)
ICE's
ACCESS programs have undoubtedly had an even more profound
effect. This is partly a matter of sheer numbers: more deportations have resulted from initiatives such
as 287(g) than from raids.28 Just as important, however, is that ICE ACCESS programs
have generally helped to disrupt the everyday lives of immigrants
and produce a heightened sense of insecurity. As we have indicated, ICE's
law enforcement partners are supposed to target dangerous
"criminal aliens," but most immigrants who get caught are
actually low-level offenders or people who simply crossed paths
with local police. Clearly, what is happening, at least in some locations, is that police
officers are engaging in the heavy racial profiling of Latinos, making
Although workplace raids have had a significant impact on immigrant populations,
pretextual stops and arrests of people believed to be immigrants just so that their information (such as
fingerprints) can be checked against DHS databases29 In Irving, Texas, for example,
the number
of Latinos arrested for minor offenses' increased two fold following the
expansion of the CAP program (Gardner II and Kohli 2009). A typical police tactic is to set up sobriety
checkpoints or other traffic operations in or near immigrant neighborhoods. Once caught in these traps,
immigrants without authorization to be in the United States are routinely arrested, often for driving
it has become common for police to pull over
"immigrant-appearing" drivers for no obvious reason or for minor
traffic violations such as cracked windshields, broken taillights,
improperly tinted windows, and so forth. Not surprisingly, this targeted
policing has produced a deep distrust of local police authorities
among Latinos in communities where ICE ACCESS programs
operate. The distrust is such that Latinos, particularly those without documents,
are scared to have any kind of interaction with local police for fear
that they will be punished or end up in deportation proceedings. In
without a license. More generally,
fact, it appears that some immigrants have been prompted to change their behavior patterns in order to
immigrants
are, for example, failing to report crimes against them, visiting
local businesses with less frequency, curtailing interaction with
schools and other institutions, altering their driving habits,
venturing into public spaces less often, and in some cases leaving
particular communities altogether (Capps et al. 2011, 43). ICE ACCESS
dodge contact with police officers or other authorities. Studies have reported that
programs , then, have basically hampered the ability of immigrants to go about their
daily lives, making them afraid to go out in public and have contact with any kind
of authorities or institutions , and
forcing some to look for a better life in
more welcoming communities
ICE raids separate families from their source of
income leaving an empty void in the communities
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 1-2, TS)
(ICE)
raided the Agriprocessors kosher
meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa
Three-hundred and eighty-nine suspected undocumented
immigrants,' mainly of Guatemalan and Mexican origins, were taken into custody
On May 12, 2008, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
, in a massive action involving
more than nine hundred agents,
(Rhodes 2008; Camayd-Freixas 2009).
that day. Normally these workers would have "simply" faced deportation for being present in the United
States without authorization. However,
of the George W. Bush administration, the vast majority(US ICE 2008a). They were
under the aggressive immigration
enforcement regime
305
people—were detained on criminal charges
accused of using fraudulent Social Security documents and false
or stolen identities. Ulti-mately, most of these individuals pleaded
guilty to Social Security fraud and were sentenced to five months
in prison. Following their jail sentences, they were to be deported.
The arrestees were not the only ones affected by the raid. There was plenty of "collateral damage." The
immigrants' families were particularly hard hit. Many lost their
primary breadwinner. Husbands were separated from wives, parents from children, and
siblings from each other. The community of Postville also suffered. In the immediate
aftermath of the raid, the town (pop. 2,273) lost about a third of its
inhabitants. Not only were the arrestees gone, but many other immigrants also fled the area in fear.
Some left to pursue life in other states; others undoubtedly returned to their home countries. As a
consequence, businesses in Postville were virtually empty, schools were
littered with unfilled seats, and those still in town were asking themselves, "What happened?" A whole
community was in shambles. As one observer put it, "The
humanitarian impact of this raid is obvious to anyone in Postville.
The economic impact will soon be evident" (quoted in Camayd-Freixas 2009,
216).
Hiring undocumented immigrants is a problem
because of the criminalization from ICE
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, TS)
ICE began raiding homes, the agency also started to focus on worksite
enforcement. Indeed, during the latter half of the 2000s, ICE pursued an aggressive program of
Soon after
policing the nation's workplaces using raids. Between 2006 and 2008, the agency apprehended about
14,000 undocumented migrants through worksite raids (US ICE 2008c). This compares to only about
2,700 arrests between 2002 and 2005 (ibid.). Although raids have decreased in more recent years as ICE
has shifted to workplace audits (see Bacon and Hing, this volume), they nevertheless continue to be a part
Worksite enforcement is a priority, according to ICE,
because "employment is a primary driving force behind illegal
immigration. By working with employers to ensure a legal workforce, ICE is able to stem the tide
of ICE's arsenal.
of those who cross our borders illegally or unlawfully remain in our country to work" (US ICE 2009b).
ICE deems the hiring of undocumented immigrants a problem for
several reasons. First, the agency suggests that "illegal aliens often turn to
criminal activity: including document fraud, Social Security fraud or identity theft, in order
to get jobs" (ibid.) Such crimes are seen to impact negatively the lives of the U.S. citizens and legal
immigrants whose identities are stolen. Second, the need of undocumented
migrants for fraudulent documents is said to create thriving
criminal markets. Third, there is a perception that for every job
taken by an undocumented immigrant there is one less job for a
lawful U.S. resident. Fourth, employers are believed to exploit "illegal"
workers by ignoring wage laws and safety standards. Finally,
undocumented migrants are seen "as easy targets for criminals
who want to use them to gain access to sensitive facilities or to
move illegal products" (ibid.). Worksite enforcement, then, is deemed necessary in order to
stem the tide of illegality purportedly produced by undocumented migrants. The conviction seems to be
that "illegal" immigration generally erodes respect for authority—that the toleration of lawlessness
undermines consideration for law and order. For not only do the undocumented supposedly fail to
. Unauthorized
immigrants are thus seen to represent a danger to the social body.
Their disregard for the rule of law is understood to pose a threat
to the general welfare of the population.
conduct themselves responsibly, they also compel others to follow suit
Solvency
Thus the advocacy statement: ______ and I affirm the direction of the
resolution, beginning with an interrogation and criticism of our usage of
the border in our policies. Borders have served as both metaphorical and
physical divisions, resulting in an isolated space of nonexistence for
migrants.
Discourse shapes reality—the way in which we define borders and
citizenship shapes how we view our own ontology in the context of the
world
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
Not only unauthorized immigrants but also citizens, labor unions, and other progressives
identified dominant logics of citizenship as restricting the possibilities of belonging
for all. For Latina/o citizens and other documented immigrants, the fear seemed that stricter
immigration laws would result in more racial profiling and persecution. In a
climate of anti-immigrant and anti-Latina/o nativism, the mobilizations were able to reclaim at
least provisionally the performative affect of hybridity and affirm a more expansive, hybrid
citizenship. For other activists, the nativism and racism of SB 1070 represented broader
forces of neoliberalism that foreclosed the possibility of full belonging—social,
economic, and cultural—for all. Thus the contemporary activism against SB 1070 and
other anti-immigrant legislation bespeaks the potential of a complex movement that can involve
political economy, national belonging, and cultural/identity politics. Even in the world of
globalization of culture, capital flow, and neoliberal political economy, the civic imaginary can
expand or evolve to take into account new challenges and experiences. If the border involves
us in an ontological question, then contemporary immigrant and Latina/o
movements, by expanding the very meanings of citizenship and borders, forge
new visions of the type of world we can inhabit. They move beyond what kind of world
we are in to imagine what kind of world we can create. In this vein, it is to questions of
citizenship and identity, borders and belonging that I return in the conclusion. What are the
consequences and challenges, the lessons and possibilities that Latina/o vernaculars of
citizenship and civic identity provide for the politics of belonging, for conceptions of U.S.
American identity, and for the growing Latina/o community in the United States?
“Citizenship” is fluid, yet it defines the legal status of minority
groups—discussions about citizenship are the pre-requisite to
approaching issues of immigration
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the
ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the
public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and
immigration. ( Josue David Cisneros “The Border Crossed Us”
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-6.pdf, p. 6 TS)
Perhaps even more than the concept of the border, citizenship is a
fundamentally contested term. It can be understood very narrowly
as a legal status that defines membership in a nation or as a
broader contract of rights and responsibilities with the state. Some
scholars view citizenship as a standard of political engagement (as in, the norm of the engaged
citizen), while others emphasize the cultural and social dimensions of citizenship (as a form of
“belonging”).9 It would be impossible here to provide a full account of the many different
scholarly treatments of citizenship, and more important, such a review would only demonstrate
the extreme variation in thought regarding what citizenship means and how far it extends.
What we should emphasize, however, is that citizenship is one of the
predominant “social imaginaries” by which we understand civic identity and
organize social spaces like the nationstate. As an “imaginary,” citizenship entails
legal and institutional as well as figurative and cultural
dimensions; citizenship indexes legal status and political rights
but also refers to one’s inclusion in a sociocultural and “imagined”
community.10 These legal, political, social, and cultural dimensions of citizenship
are mutually “reinforcing or undermining.” That is, they can work together to strengthen
one’s citizenship status or can stand in contrast to one another, preventing full belonging.11
For example, access to legal status and political rights depends
upon symbolic recognition of one as a member of the “imagined”
community. At the same time, however, minority groups often develop the cultural
competencies of citizens or become members of the sociocultural
community without receiving full recognition.12 With the integration of the
global economy and the greater flow of people across national borders, some scholars even call
for the abandonment of a strictly national paradigm of citizenship, advancing transnational,
flexible, or cosmopolitan models of citizenship that seem to belie its very foundation as a mode
of national membership.13 Because of the extreme variability and reach of the concept of
citizenship, many criticize what they see as its conceptual incoherence. However, as Jeffrey A.
Bennett succinctly explains, the “radical indeterminacy” in the
meanings of
citizenship “does not suggest it has no material or political
capital,” but only that citizenship “is a fluid concept whose meaning
is” contextual and contestable.14 This “radical indeterminacy” and extreme
contestability in the concept of citizenship suggests the intimate connection between borders
and citizenship. Borders are important because they help us define
who is a citizen
and who is not, who belongs and who is “alien,” indeed, what
citizenship is and what it is not.
2AC Framework
(go to the generic framework file as well)
ROB/Frontline
ROB: You are an academic. The role of the ballot is to vote for the team that
engages the best with the academy to create the most change in our
discourse
FIAT is illusory- obviously their policy is implemented and we aren’t going
to become policy makers, the only thing we can take away from this debate
is becoming better people
Assuming the role of the legislator lets us off the hook for our own
responsibility in shaping social change and reinforces powerlessness—
independent reason to reject the aff
Kappeler, 95
(Susanne, The Will to Violence, p. 10-11)
`We are the war' does not mean that the responsibility for a war is shared collectively and
diffusely by an entire society - which would be equivalent to exonerating warlords and
politicians and profiteers or, as Ulrich Beck says, upholding the notion of `collective
irresponsibility', where people are no longer held responsible for their actions, and where the
conception of universal responsibility becomes the equivalent of a universal acquittal.' On the
contrary, the object is precisely to analyse the specific and differential responsibility of everyone
in their diverse situations. Decisions to unleash a war are indeed taken at particular levels of
power by those in a position to make them and to command such collective action. We need to
hold them clearly responsible for their decisions and actions without lessening theirs by any
collective `assumption' of responsibility. Yet our habit of focusing on the stage where
the major dramas of power take place tends to obscure our sight in relation to our own sphere of
competence, our own power and our own responsibility - leading to the well-known illusion of
our apparent `powerlessness’ and its accompanying phenomenon, our so-called political
disillusionment. Single citizens - even more so those of other nations - have come to feel secure
in their obvious non-responsibility for such large-scale political events as, say, the wars in
Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina or Somalia - since the decisions for such events are always
made elsewhere. Yet our insight that indeed we are not responsible for the decisions of a Serbian
general or a Croatian president tends to mislead us into thinking that therefore we have no
responsibility at all, not even for forming our own judgement, and thus into underrating the
responsibility we do have within our own sphere of action. In particular, it seems to absolve us
from having to try to see any relation between our own actions and those events, or to recognize
the connections between those political decisions and our own personal decisions. It not only
shows that we participate in what Beck calls `organized irresponsibility', upholding the apparent
lack of connection between bureaucratically, institutionally, nationally and also individually organized separate competences. It also proves the phenomenal and unquestioned alliance of our
personal thinking with the thinking of the major powermongers: For we tend to think that we
cannot `do' anything, say, about a war, because we deem ourselves to be in the wrong situation;
because we are not where the major decisions are made. Which is why many of those not yet
entirely disillusioned with politics tend to engage in a form of mental deputy politics, in the style
of `What would I do if I were the general, the prime minister, the president, the foreign minister
or the minister of defence?' Since we seem to regard their mega spheres of action as the
only worthwhile and truly effective ones, and since our political analyses tend to dwell there first
of all, any question of what I would do if I were indeed myself tends to peter out in the
comparative insignificance of having what is perceived as `virtually no possibilities': what I
could do seems petty and futile. For my own action I obviously desire the range of action of a
general, a prime minister, or a General Secretary of the UN - finding expression in ever more
prevalent formulations like `I want to stop this war', `I want military intervention', `I want to
stop this backlash', or `I want a moral revolution." 'We are this war', however, even if we do not
command the troops or participate in so-called peace talks, namely as Drakulic says, in our
`non-comprehension’: our willed refusal to feel responsible for our own thinking and for
working out our own understanding, preferring innocently to drift along the ideological current
of prefabricated arguments or less than innocently taking advantage of the advantages these
offer. And we `are' the war in our `unconscious cruelty towards you', our tolerance of the `fact
that you have a yellow form for refugees and I don't' - our readiness, in other words, to build
identities, one for ourselves and one for refugees, one of our own and one for the `others'. We
share in the responsibility for this war and its violence in the way we let them grow inside us,
that is, in the way we shape `our feelings, our relationships, our values' according to the
structures and the values of war and violence.
Sequencing DA- Our understanding of those outside the border matter –
shifting the way we think and speak about Latin America is a prerequisite to
formulating effective policies—this also serves as a subject object link
Bertucci, 2013 (Mariano, Political Science and International Relations Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southern
California, “Latin America Has Moved On: U.S. Scholarship Hasn’t”, Americas Quarterly, Vol. 7 No. 2, Spring)
The bias in U.S. research on U.S. foreign policy in Latin America not only skews analysis and
understanding of the region, it also sidesteps today's greatest challenges. The study of what
scholars focus on and debate helps to shape how policy is understood and discussed in
the public realm and, sometimes, even made. However, a close look at the past three decades of scholarly
publications on U.S.-Latin American relations, covering 174 peer-reviewed articles and 167 non-edited books, reveals a disconnect
with many of the themes and realities in the region today. International relations or other fields of inquiry related to global studies,
such as international political economy or security, are severely underrepresented in scholarship on the Western Hemisphere.
Instead, most of the research in the field is based on the study of foreign policy. Over 94 percent of the scholarly publications noted
above that are dedicated to the region could be qualified as foreign policy analyses rather than the more current or trendy themes of
international relations theory or international political economy. And within foreign policy studies, it is essentially the study of the
U.S. foreign policy-making process. Virtually
all (89 percent) scholarly works offering foreign policy analyses
of U.S.-Latin American relations make U.S. foreign policy a central focus in their understanding
of U.S.-Latin American affairs. Roughly half of the articles and books (51 percent) focus on foreign policy initiatives
and reactions of the U.S. and Latin American countries toward one another; and almost 40 percent of published works only analyze
U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. As a direct consequence of this approach, there is almost no attention paid to international
political economy or security. And that, in turn, has led to a neglect of some of the most central and challenging issues in today's
policy agenda: narcotics trafficking, migration, the environment, and energy cooperation. Alongside the
U.S.-centic
understanding of Latin America , there are relatively few policy articles and books on foreign policies of
Caribbean countries, on South American countries-including, most notably, Brazil- and even on Mexico's policies toward the United
States. As
a result, there are serious gaps in our understanding of how much latitude nation-states
in the Americas have to set their own policy, especially in a region in which U.S. influence is becoming more diffuse.
Other gaps concern the migration, drug-related, and energy security issues and threats faced by the United States. These problems
are likely to be solved only through sustained cooperative efforts with countries such as Mexico and Brazil. But these countries'
foreign policies toward the U.S. are under studied. Only 12.9 percent of all articles and books focus on U.S.-Mexico relations and less
than 3 percent focus on Mexico's foreign policy toward the United States. Similarly, less than 5 percent of articles and books analyze
U.S.-Brazil relations and no more than 2 percent examine Brazil's foreign policy toward the "Colossus of the North." These
are
critical gaps. Any informed foreign policy must be based on an understanding of both sides.
Differences in Understanding The deficiencies-even biases-of current research on U.S.-Latin American
relations become even more apparent when peer-reviewed publications of U.S.-based scholars are compared to those
of scholars based in Latin America. U.S.- based scholars address the foreign policies of Latin American countries in just 3.1 percent
of their publications, but 87 percent of their works put the U.S. at the center of the analysis. Meanwhile, U.S.-Latin American foreign
policy interactions are addressed in only one-third of their publications. The implication of this pattern is clear: the
literature
leaves one with the impression that "U.S.-Latin American relations" is synonymous with "U.S.
policy." This distortion in research and the literature can have practical and policy impacts.
Most significantly, it has contributed to the conventional wisdom that the best way to make sense of
U.S.-Latin American relations is to understand, first and foremost, the U.S. foreign policymaking process. That, however, only delivers truncated pictures of the factors shaping the
hemisphere historically and, especially, today. To be sure, policy doesn't automatically follow from scholarly publications. Still,
research-based ideas do trickle down through the work of think tanks, op-eds, policy journals, and other venues. Scholars do
participate in government-either as consultants or as appointees- and policymakers have been exposed to research at some point in
their professional development. Almost
three decades of a U.S.-centered perspective on Latin America is
likely to shape a very particular worldview on the policy issues at hand. From there, it's a short
step to hegemonic conceptions of U.S.-Latin American relations, particularly when
combined with the predominance in policy circles of an untested theoretical model in which the
U.S. is the actor and Latin American countries the dependent and defenseless
objects. Research by scholars based in Latin America appears somewhat more balanced but no less parochial than that of their
U.S. colleagues. In their studies of U.S.-Latin American relations, Latin American scholars put their own countries' foreign policies
center stage in 71 percent of publications. They address U.S.-Latin American foreign interactions in roughly half of their work, but
consider U.S. foreign policy toward the region to be the more salient focus of their analyses in 16 percent of their articles. Similar
patterns appear when you compare scholarship in the U.S. to scholarship from Latin America in matters of international political
economy. Economic integration and regionalism are only addressed in less than 10 percent of journal publications by U.S.-based
scholars; however, these same issues are the focus of almost 40 percent of the journal articles published by Latin American scholars.
As a result, integration efforts (e.g. ,the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Mercosur, ftaa- Mercosur interactions, and nafta) that have
been front and center in shaping Latin American policy are given short shriftin U.S.-based research and scholarship. The differenceand its implications for how scholars and policymakers on both sides of the Rio Grande view the world and the region-will only
become more stark as the trend toward sub-regional integration through institutions like celac and unasur increases. Moreover,
where much of the Latin American policy debates since the early 1990s focused on convergence, typical international relations (IR)
specialists would have tended to look at individual interests of countries and the trend toward divergence unless there were common
interests at stake. Even though developments in migration, energy security and drug-related violence confirm the intermestic nature
(i.e., the interplay of international and domestic politics) of the current U.S.-Latin American relationship, research patterns show
that the stock of knowledge available to policymakers working on any such issues is marginal. Only
16 percent of articles and books on U.S.-Latin American relations focus on the environment, migration and narcotics. Furthermore,
some intermestic issues, such as remittances, energy supply and public health, are almost completely ignored. A similar pattern is
evident in relation to exploring the role of non-state actors in U.S.-Latin American relations. Multinational enterprises, religious and
guerrilla organizations, among others, have all presumably had a significant impact on hemispheric affairs. Yet only 6 percent of the
scholarly work published on U.S.- Latin American relations over the past quarter century has paid attention to such non-state actors,
rendering their role in hemispheric affairs a matter of speculation. Moreover, the recent literature almost completely disregards
more traditional security issues, such as deterrence of extra-hemispheric powers and risks of nuclear proliferation and war. Getting
Over Our Yanqui Foreign Policy Obsession Apart from the regional differences in terms of research perspectives, research patterns
in U.S.-Latin American affairs more generally diverge from trends in the broader field of international relations, in which foreign
policy analysis is marginal compared to the attention devoted to international political economy, security issues and international
relations theory. The differences demonstrate that little intellectual dialogue and sharing is taking place among international
relations scholars and U.S.-Latin American relations specialists. Rectifying this situation would require IR scholars to explain, test
and, when necessary, develop new theories on the causes and interests surrounding the pressing policy issues in the hemisphere.
Many of these issues also lend themselves to quantitative analyses now dominant in IR. Statistical measures can help assess levels,
degrees and dimensions of asymmetries between countries on both sides of the Rio Grande. Game theory can specify the terms,
conditions and extent of compliance with (or defection from) multilateral schemes. And Bayesian algebra can help identify the
conditions promoting cooperation or defection. But all this is easier said than done. As of 2013, the Latin American Studies
Association (LASA)-the largest professional association for individuals and institutions studying Latin America-does not have a
section on international relations (although, as of 2011, it does offer an award for the best book published on the region's foreign
policy and international affairs). Funding opportunities for researching the hemisphere's international politics are relatively scarce,
particularly for young IR scholars. Also, the current reputational pecking order in the field of international relations hardly rewards
regional expertise. This is particularly true in the U.S. and increasingly so in other countries. Even if some scholars are willing to do
some soulsearching of their own and embrace the mindset, tools and research goals of IR in their analyses of U.S.-Latin American
relations, such efforts are not likely to be enough to systematically yield more balanced, practical and IR-minded approaches to
inter-American affairs. Governments, think tanks, university-based research centers, and foundations throughout the hemisphere
also need to be involved by helping to redefine and build new institutional supports for producing research that is both peerreviewed and policy-relevant. More foundations, think tanks and research grants need to also place a higher priority on producing
peerreviewed IR research on the pressing issues in the hemisphere. As the leading professional association, LASA needs to
encourage and support the creation of a section on international relations that could bring together the work of both senior and
young IR scholars around a U.S.-Latin American relations policy-driven research agenda. Governments should also help fund
training and research on those same policy issues in top IR research programs. The creation of a peer-reviewed outlet with the
mission of publishing theory-based and methodologically rigorous research on the intermestic dimensions of narcotrafficking,
energy security and organized crime, to name just a few hot policy examples, would be an important addition to the relatively limited
number of outlets available to publish research on inter-American politics and economics. Only
from such platforms can
innovative new research contribute sustainably to the shaping of common solutions to the
shared problems in the hemisphere.
AT: Predictability
Predictable and Fair - they choice their impacts and evidence should be
forced to defend it more predictable than multiple consult counterplans
We are predictable, we just test a different part of the aff then they’re used
to, they should be ready to defend all the parts of their 1AC,
Our framework allows debate on the resolution, this is a better check on
predictability because it allows our offense
Get in line- your framework moots our K- we preserve the best middle
ground by allowing you to justify your neg as opposed to your over limiting
interpretation that only gives us some arbitrary DA you picked out
Turn: Our framework increases focus on the 1AC by bringing the entire
thing into focus: once their impacts are the only issue at hand, all eight
minutes of the 1AC become strategically viable for both teams.
Predictability loss is inevitable- you could just read a 1000 DA’s that are
based in the resolution but you’ve never heard of
Institutions
Crowd out DA- The hegemony of western knowledge means that its
inclusion pushes our knowledge to the margin and changes the nature of
the dialogue
Lander, Central University of Venezuela Professor, 2k
(Edgardo, Sociologist, Venezuelan, professor at the Central University of Venezuela and a Fellow
of the Transnational Institute, 2000, Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 1, Issue 3,
“Eurocentrism and Colonialism in Latin American Social Thought”, jstor, accessed 7/7/13, sbl,
p. 528-29)
It is not the same to assume that the historical patrimony of the social sciences is merely
parochial as to conclude that it is also colonial. The implications arc drastically different. If our
social-science heritage were just parochial, knowledge related to Western societies would not
need any questioning. It would be enough to expand the reach of the experiences and realities to
be studied in other parts of the world. We could complete theories and methods of knowledge
which thus far have been adequate for some determined places and times, but less adequate for
others. The problem is a different one when we conclude that our knowledge has a colonial
character and is based upon assumptions that imply and "naturalize" a systematic process of
exclusion and subordination of people based on criteria of class, gender, race, ethnicity, and
culture. This perspective introduces crude distortions not only in knowing others, but also in the
self-understanding of European and northern societies.
To recognize the colonial character of the hegemonic forms of knowledge in the contemporary
world would imply more difficult and complex challenges than those identified in The
Gtdbenlfian Report. This knowledge is intertwined in complex and inseparable manners in the
articulations of power of contemporary societies. Only a timid and partial dialogue with other
subjects and cultures would be achieved by incorporating into the social sciences representatives
of those subjects and cultures that were once excluded. As is acknowledged in the report, this
requires long learning and socializing processes in certain truth-systems, at the end of which
one could well expect that only internal criticisms of the discipline would be likely. Given, for
example, the current demarcations of economics, there are limited possibilities for the
formulation, from within that discipline, of radically different alternatives to mainstream liberal
economics. Liberal cosmology (a conception of human nature, of wealth, of the relationship of
man to nature, of progress) is incorporated as a fundamental metatheoretical premise in the
disciplinary constitution of that field of knowledge.
The achievement of effective intercultural, horizontal democratic communications, noncolonial
and thus free of domination, subordination, and exclusion, requires a debate beyond the limits
of the official disciplines of modern sciences, open to dialogues with other cultures and other
forms of knowledge. Apart from epistemological rigidities and the overwhelming burden of
institutional and academic inertia, the main obstacles are political. The possibilities for
democratic communications are severely limited by the profound differences of power that exist
today between different cultures and between different peoples.
Modernized citizenship is a concept that props up racial hierarchies—only
new discussions can generate a new starting point to challenge coloniality
Mignolo 6 [Walter, William H. Wannamaker Professor of Literature and Romance Studies at
Duke University, “Citizenship, Knowledge, and the Limits of Humanity” American Literary
History 18.2 (2006) 312-331] //
When the idea of "citizenship" came into view—and was linked to the materialization and
formation of the nation-state in secular north Europe—it enforced the formation of communities
of birth instead of communities of faith. But at that time, the imperial and colonial differences
were already in place, and both were recast in the new face of Western empires. The figure of the
"citizen" presupposed an idea of the "human" that had already been formed during the
Renaissance and was one of the constitutive elements of the colonial matrix of power.
Henceforth, there was a close link between the concept of Man (standing for Human Being) and
the idea of "humanities" as the major branch of higher learning both in European universities
and in their branches in the colonies (the universities of Mexico and Peru were founded in the
1550s, Harvard in 1636).1 If man stood for human being (at the expense of women, nonChristians, people of color, and homosexuals), the humanities as high branch of learning was
modeled on the concept and assumptions of the humanity which, at its turn, was modeled on
the example of man. My goal in this article is, therefore, to explore the hidden connections
between the figure of the citizen, the coloniality of being, and the coloniality of knowledge. I will
describe the veiled connections as the logic of coloniality, and the surface that covers it I will
describe as the rhetoric of modernity. The rhetoric of modernity is that of salvation, whereas the
logic of coloniality is a logic of imperial oppression. They go hand in hand, and you cannot have
modernity without coloniality; the unfinished project of modernity carries over its shoulders the
unfinished project of coloniality. I will conclude by suggesting the need to decolonize
"knowledge" and "being" and advocating that the (decolonial) "humanities" shall have a
fundamental role to play in this process. Truly, "global citizenship" implies overcoming the
imperial and colonial differences that have mapped and continue to map global racism and
global patriarchy. Changing the law and public policies won't be of much help in this process.
What is needed is that those who change the law and public policy change themselves. The
problem is how that may take place if we would like to avoid the missionary zeal for conversion;
the liberal and neoliberal belief in the triumphal march of Western civilization and of market
democracy; and the moral imperatives and forced behavior imposed by socialism. As I do not
believe in a new abstract universal that will be good for the entire world, the question is how
people can change their belief that the world today is like it is and that it will be only through the
"honest" projects of Christians, liberals, and Marxist-socialists that the world could be better for
all, and citizenship will be a benediction for all. The changes I am thinking about are radical
transformations in the naturalized assumptions of the world order. The naturalized assumptions
I am thinking about are imperial–colonial, and they have shaped the world in which we live in
the past five hundred years when Christianity and capitalism came together and created the
conditions for the self-fashioned narrative of "modernity." Hence, the transformations I am
thinking about require an epistemic decolonial shift. Not a "new," a "post," or a "neo,"
which are all changes within the same modern colonial epistemology, but a
decolonial (and not either a "deconstruction"), which means a delinking from the rules of the
game (e.g., the decolonization of the mind, in Ngugi Wa Th'iongo's vocabulary) in which
deconstruction itself and all the "posts-" for sure are caught. Delinking doesn't mean to be
"outside" of either modernity or Christian, Liberal, Capitalist, and Marxist hegemony but to
disengage from the naturalized assumptions that make of these four macronarratives "une
pensee unique," to use Ignacio Ramonet's expression.2 The decolonial shift begins by unveiling
the imperial presuppositions that maintain a universal idea of humanity and of human being
that serves as a model and point of arrival and by constantly underscoring the fact that
oppressed and racialized subjects do not care and are not fighting for "human rights" (based on
an imperial idea of humanity) but to regain the "human dignity" (based on a decolonial idea of
humanity) that has and continues to be taken away from them by the imperial rhetoric of
modernity (e.g., white, Eurocentered, heterosexual, and Christian/secular). The conditions for
citizenship are still tied to a racialized hierarchy of human beings that depends on universal
categories of thought created and enacted from the identitarian perspectives of European
Christianity and by white males. In the Afro-Caribbean intellectual tradition—from C. L. R.
James to Frantz Fanon, Sylvia Wynter, and Lewis Gordon—the very concepts of the human and
humanity are constantly under fire.3 Would indeed a black person agree with the idea that what
"we" all have in common is our "humanity" and that we are "all equal" in being "different"? I
would suspect that the formula would rather be of the type advanced by the Zapatistas:
"[B]ecause we are all equal we have the right to be different."4 The universal idea of humanity,
believe me, is not the same from the perspective of black history, Indian memories, or the
memories of the population of Central Asia. The humanities, as a branch of knowledge in the
history of the university since the European Renaissance, have always been complicitous with
imperial–colonial designs celebrating a universal idea of the human model. The moment has
arrived to put the humanities at the service of decolonial projects in their ethical, political, and
epistemic dimensions; to recast the reinscription of human dignity as a decolonial project in the
hands of the damnes rather than given to them through managerial designs of NGOs and
Human Rights Watch that seldom if ever are led by actors whose human dignity is at stake.
Decolonial projects imply downsizing human rights to its real dimension: an ethical imperative
internal to imperial abuses but not really a project that empowers racialized subjects and helps
them to regain the human dignity that racism and imperial projects (from the right, the left, and
the center) took away from them.
Hegemony has leads to cultural homogenization and genocide
Dussel, UAM ethics professor, 2 (Enrique, is professor of ethics at the Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. “World-System and “Trans”-Modernity”, Pg. 235-236,
Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2002, muse, JB)
If it is true that European–North American modernity has had economic and military hegemony
over other cultures (Chinese, Southeast Asian, Hindustani, Islamic, Bantu, Latin American
[mestizo, Aymara, Quechua, Maya], etc.) for only the last two hundred years—and over Africa
for only a little more than one hundred years, since 1885—then this is not [End Page 235]
enough time to penetrate the “ethico-mythical nucleus” (to borrow Paul Ricoeur's term) of the
intentional cultural millenary structures. It is therefore no miracle that the consciousness of
these ignored and excluded cultures is on the rise, along with the discovery of their disparaged
identities. The same thing is happening with the regional cultures dominated and silenced by
European modernity, such as the Galician, Catalan, Basque, and Andalusian cultures in Spain;
the diverse regions and cultural nations in Italy (especially the Mezzogiorno), Germany
(especially Bavaria and the five Länder of the East), France, and even the United Kingdom
(where the Scottish, Irish, and other groups, like the Québécois in Canada, struggle for the
recognition of their identities); and the minorities in the United States (especially AfroAmericans and Hispanics). All of this outlines a multipolar twenty-first century world, where
cultural difference is increasingly affirmed, beyond the homogenizing pretensions of the present
capitalist globalization and its supposedly universal culture, and even beyond the postmodern
affirmation of difference that finds it difficult to imagine cultural universalities from a millenary
tradition outside of Europe and the United States. This “trans”-modernity should adopt the best
that the modern technological revolution has to offer—discarding antiecological and exclusively
Western aspects—and put it at the service of differentiated valorized worlds, ancient and
actualized, with their own traditions and ignored creativity. This will allow the emergence of the
enormous cultural and human richness that the transnational capitalist market now attempts to
suppress under the empire of “universal” commodities that materially subsume food (one of the
most difficult things to universalize) into capital. The future “trans”-modernity will be
multicultural, versatile, hybrid, postcolonial, pluralist, tolerant, and democratic (but beyond the
modern liberal democracy of the European state). It will have splendid millenary traditions25
and be respectful of exteriority and heterogeneous identities. The majority of humanity retains,
reorganizes (renovating and including elements of globality),26 and creatively develops cultures
in its everyday, enlightened horizon. The cultures of this majority deepen the valorative
“common sense” of their participants' real and particular existences, countering the exclusionary
process of globalization, which precisely because of this process inadvertently “pushes” toward a
“trans”-modernity. It is a return to the consciousness of the great majorities of humanity, of
their excluded historical unconscious!
Samuel Huntington, an ideologue of U.S. hegemony, sees as a “clash,” as a “war” between
civilizations,27 what is simply and positively [End Page 236] the irreversible uprising of
universal cultures excluded by modernity (and postmodernity). These cultures, in their full
creative potential and together with a redefined Western culture (European and North American
culture without its reductive claim to universality), constitute a more human and complex
world, more passionate and diverse, a manifestation of the fecundity that the human species has
shown for millennia, a “trans-modern” world. A humanity that only spoke in English and
that could only refer to “its” past as an Occidental past would testify to the
extinction of the majority of historical human cultural creativity. It would be the
greatest castration imaginable and irreversible in humanity's world history!
Discourse Key
The material world only acquires meaning through mediation by language
and discourse.
Anand 2007 (Dibyesh, PhD (Bristol), MA (Hull), BA Honours (St Stephen’s College, Delhi)
Reader in International Relations
Centre for the Study of Democracy, Westminster University, London, Geopolitical exotica: Tibet in western imagination p. 12-16
2007, MT)
Theorizing Representation Constructionist theories (Hall 1997b, 15-74) are best suited for a contextualized understanding of social
and political concepts like representation and identity. They
do not argue that the material world does not exist
but that it acquires meaning only through the mediation of language and discursive systems.
Though such a discursive approach characterizes the work of many scholars, no one has been more prominent than Foucault (1970,
1971, 1980, 1984, 1986) in shaping it. Foucault is concerned with the production of knowledge and meaning not through language
but through discourse. Discursive practices have their own inclusionary and exclusionary aspects. Discursive
practices are
characterised by the delimitation of a field of objects, the definition of a legitimate perspective
for the agent of knowledge, and the fixing of norms for the elaboration of concepts and theories.
Thus, each discursive practice implies a play of prescriptions that designate its exclusions and
choices. (Foucault 19X6, 199) Foucault's reformulation of discourse also calls for recognition of the explicit linkage between
knowledge, truth, and power. Identification of the knowledge-power (pouvoir/savoir) nexus reveals the linkage of truth claims with
systems of power: Truth isn't outside power, or lacking of power: contrary to a myth whose history and functions would repay
further study, truth isn't the reward of free spirits, the child of protracted solitude, nor the privilege of those who have succeeded in
liberating themselves. Truth is a thing of the world: it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. {Foucault 1980,
Z91) The
recognition of the constructed character of truth facilitates a critical political
positioning. Nothing is sacrosanct. However, this docs not undermine the impact of truth claims on the
lives of people. All knowledge, once applied in the "real" world, has real effects and in that sense becomes true.1' This
Foucauldian identification and exploration of the link between power, knowledge, and truth is
radical in its implication. It shifts the terrain of inquiry from the question "What is truth?'' to the
question How do discursive practices constitute truth claims?" In terms of representation, we may see
the implication as a shift in the focus from some core reality beneath/behind representations to
the modalities of their functioning. The question is no longer whether a representation is true or
false but what discursive practices operate to render it true or false. It is not about how
representations reflect some subjects but, more crucially, how subjectivity itself is constructed
within discursive practices, how representational regimes are productive of subjectivity.
Discourses then are "practices which form the objects of which they speak" (Foucault J972., 49).
Adopting this approach to Tibetan identity, the pertinent question shifts from "How far do representations (both Western and self-)
of Tibetans reflect their identity?" to "How do representational regimes affect the discursive production of Tibetanness?" This helps
us look at Tibctanness as a politicized identification process, instead of some pregiven, essentialzed, fixed object.
Representations must precede policy discussion.
Crawford 2002 (Neta, PhD MA MIT, BA Brown, Prof. of poli sci at boston univ.
Argument and Change in World Politics,
2002 p. 19-21, MT)
Coherent arguments are unlikely to take place unless and until actors, at least on some level, agree on what they are arguing about.
The at least temporary resolution of meta-arguments-
regarding the nature of the good (the content of prescriptive
norms); what is out there, the way we know the world, how we decide between competing beliefs (ontology and
epistemology); and the nature of the situation at hand( the proper frame or representation)- must occur
before specific arguments that could lead to decision and action may take place. Meta-arguments over
epistemology and ontology, relatively rare, occur in instances where there is a fundamental clash between belief systems and not
simply a debate within a belief system. Such arguments
over the nature of the world and how we come to
know it are particularly rare in politics though they are more frequent in religion and science. Meta-arguments
over the “good” are contests over what it is good and right to do, and even how we know the
good and the right. They are about the nature of the good, specifically, defining the qualities of “good” so that we know good
when we see it and do it. Ethical arguments are about how to do good in a particular situation. More
common are metaarguments over representations or frames- about how we out to understand a particular situation.
Sometimes actors agree on how they see a situation. More often there are different possible interpretations. Thomas Homer-Dixon
and Roger karapin suggest, “Argument
and debate occur when people try to gain acceptance for their
interpretation of the world”. For example, “is the war defensive or aggressive?”. Defining and controlling
representations and images, or the frame, affects whether one thinks there is an issue at stake and
whether a particular argument applies to the case. An actor fighting a defensive war is within international law; an
aggressor may legitimately be subject to sanctions. Framing and reframing involve mimesis or putting forward representations of
what is going on. In mimetic meta-arguments, actors who are struggling to characterize or frame
the situation
accomplish their ends by drawing vivid pictures of the “reality” through exaggeration, analogy,
or differentiation. Representations of a situation do not re-produce accurately so much as they
creatively re-present situations in a way that makes sense. “mimesis is a metaphoric or ‘iconic argumentation
of the real.’ Imitating not the effectivity of events but their logical structure and meaning.” Certain
features are emphasized and others de-emphasized or completely ignored as their situation is
recharacterized or reframed. Representation thus becomes a “constraint on reasoning in that it limits
understanding to a specific organization of conceptual knowledge.” The dominant
representation delimits which arguments will be considered legitimate, framing how actors see
possibities. As Roxanne Doty argues, “the possibility of practices presupposes the ability of an agent to
imagine certain courses of action. Certain background meanings, kinds of social actors and relationships, must already
be in place.” If, as Donald Sylvan and Stuart Thorson argue, “politics involves the selective privileging of
representations, “it may not matter whether one representation or another is true or not.
Emphasizing whether frames articulate accurate or inaccurate perceptions misses the rhetorical
importof representation- how frames affect what is seen or not seen, and subsequent choices.
Meta-arguments over representation are thus crucial elements of political argument because an
actor’s arguments about what to do will be more persuasive if their characterization or framing
of the situation holds sway. But, as Rodger Payne suggests, “No frame is an omnipotent persuasive tool that can be
decisively wielded by norm entrepreneurs without serious political wrangling.” Hence framing is a meta-argument.
Political reality only comes into being after we describe the world. Thus we
have to deal with how the Affirmative represents the world before we can
move on to any other question
Blieker 2000 (Roland, Professor of IR at University of Queensland, “Contending Images of World Politics”, p. 227-228, MT)
While the conceptual contours of the postmodern will always remain elusive, the substantial issues that this image of world politics
has brought to the forefront have clear and important implications. Critical engagements with modernity have
emerged from a dissatisfaction with what Lyotard famously described as a long modern
tendency to ground and legitimize knowledge in reference to a grand narrative, that is, a
universalizing framework which seeks to emancipate the individual by mastering the
conditions of life (Lyotard, 1979, pp. 7-9). Even when such a master narrative seems unquestionably
desirable, it inevitably legitimizes and objectivizes certain interpretations and political
agendas, thereby excluding everything that does not fit into its corresponding view of life. Authors
who are said to represent a postmodern image of the world politics grapple with the implications that emerge from the prevalence of
master narratives in world politics. They challenge the way in which scientific discourses that have emerged from the Cartesian
separation of the object and subject mask the constituted dimensions of life. They engage prevalent thinking patterns so that we can
see the world from more that one perspective, and that marginalized voices can be brought into the realm of dialogue. This
search for epistemological tolerance and inclusion is as much political as it is philosophical. Ant
its practical applicability is – needless to say – virtually unlimited. It is in this sense that, for instance, all feminisms
can be thought of as a postmodern’ (Sylvester, 1994, p. 16). The purpose of this essay is not to summarize the great variety of
postmodern approaches to the world politics. Several authors have already done so (see for instance, Brown, 1994; Devetak, 1996).
The main effort of this essay thus revolves around demonstrating how something termed postmodernism may work. From such a
perspective the ‘how’ is as important as the ‘is’. In fact, the ‘how’ becomes the ‘is’ insofar as the nature of something is identified
primarily as the process through which it works. The
prime task of such an approach consists not of looking at
understanding – and acting upon – the
more fundamental recognition that all forms of thought are metaphorical in nature. They cannot be
anything else, for language itself is a series of metaphors through which we make sense of the world
that surrounds us. And since we need language not only to communicate, but also to form our opinions of social phenomena,
we inevitably think, live and politicize through a series of metaphors – that is, through forms of conceptualizing that
contain inevitable gaps between a representation of an event and the event itself. Various
modernity or postmodernity as metaphors of contemporary world politics, but of
implications follow from an approach that acknowledges the metaphorical nature of our understanding of world politics. At the
beginning is perhaps the simple recognition that representation is an essential aspect of the political process. Political reality,
F.R. Ankersmit stresses, ‘is’
not first given to us and subsequently represented; political reality only
comes into being after and due to representations’ (1996, pg. 47). What this means for an
analysis of world politics is that before being able to move to any other question, one has to
deal with how the representation has structured the object it seeks to represent.
Reps first and shape policy.
Dauber 2001 (Cori E., Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina, ‘Rhetoric & Public
Affairs 4.4, “The Shots Seen 'Round the World”, MT)
The impact the Mogadishu images have had on American foreign policy is clear. But their
impact is not inescapable or inevitable. It is based on the incorrect assumption that people can
only read images unidirectionally. No matter how similar, no matter how powerfully one text
evokes another, every image is unique. Each comes from a different historical situation, is placed within a
different story, and offers an ambiguous text that can be exploited by astute commentators.
Images matter profoundly, but so do their contexts and the words that accompany them. The
implications of this shift in interpretation are potentially profound. Mogadishu, or the mention of a potential parallel with
Mogadishu, need not be a straightjacket or a deterrent to the use of American power. Rhetoric,
whether discursive or
visual, has real power in the way events play out. What this article makes clear is that rhetoric (and
therefore rhetorical analysis) also has power in the way policy is shaped and defined. In a recent
book on the conflict in Kosovo, the authors note that when the president spoke to the nation on the night
the air war began, he immediately ruled out the use of ground forces. This was done, they argue,
due to fears that leaving open the possibility of ground force participation would sacrifice
domestic public and congressional (and allied) support for the air war. But "publicly ruling out
their use only helped to reduce Milosevic's uncertainty regarding the likely scope of NATO's
military actions," 109 and possibly to lengthen the air war as a result. Yet, they report, National Security Advisor
Sandy Berger, "who authored the critical passage in the president's speech, maintains that 'we
would not have won the war without this sentence.'" 110 It would be difficult to find more direct
evidence for the profound impact and influence public rhetoric and debate have--and are
understood to have--on policy, policymaking, and policymakers at the highest level. That means
that rhetorical analysis can have a role to play and a voice at the table before policies are
determined. Academic rhetoricians, through their choice of projects and the formats in which
they publish, can stake a claim to having an important voice at the table--and they should do so.
And specifically changing security assumptions radically alters policy and
how it is interpreted in the context of political debates - prove’s we’re
competitive.
Dalby 2002 (Simon, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University. “Critical
Security Studies: Concepts and Cases” edited by Michael and Keith. Copywrited in 1997, this edition was published in 2002. p. 11-12,
MT)
It is interesting to note that, like many other contributions, Edward Kolodziej’s meditations on the end of the Cold War occlude this
whole theme of shifting Soviet priorities by simply arguing
that the Soviet Union was a political and security
failure.38 The significance of not paying attention to the changing social constitution of Soviet security policy
is that it supports Western triumphalist scriptings of the end of the Cold War. This in turn suggests that “we won”
because of the superiority of “our” social institutions and the appropriateness of “our” security
policy. This script of the end of the Cold War, as a Western triumph rather than as a result of the
Soviet decision to end the military confrontation, adds to the ideological support for
maintaining the institutions of the Cold War and modeling future policies on this apparently
successful formulation. Read as a consequence of changing security priorities by a superpower,
the events of the end of the Cold War suggest very different interpretations, ones that
undermine the self-confidence in Western institutions and call into question the
presuppositions of security premised on geopolitics and technological violence. This point about
changing official assumptions about security having dramatic political implications is unavoidable
for any serious attempt to rethink the security problematique. It is precisely what makes the
political and policy debates about how to reformulate security (in what Ronald Steel so pointedly calls the
“doctrine gap”) after the Cold War so important.39
Individuals must be regarded as potential agents not just dreamers - our
critique creates concrete hope to break down authoritarianism.
Giroux 2006 (Henry, Professor of Cultural Studies at McMaster University, “Higher Education Under Siege”,
http://www.nea.org/assets/img/PubThoughtAndAction/TAA_06_08.pdf, MT)
Individuals and collectivities have to be regarded as potential agents and not simply as victims or
ineffectual dreamers. It is this legacy of critique and possibility, and of resistance that infuses
intellectual work with concrete hope and offers a wealth of resources to people within the
academy and other public spheres who struggle on multiple fronts against the rising forces of
authoritarianism. Hannah Arendt recognized that any viable democratic politics must address the totality of public life and
refuse to withdraw from such a challenge in the face of totalitarian violence that legitimates itself through appeals to safety, fear, and
the threat of terrorism. 42 Against this stripped
down legitimation of authority is the promise of public
spheres that in their diverse forms, sites, and content offer pedagogical and political possibilities for
strengthening the social bonds of democracy and for cultivating both critical modes of individual and
social agency and crucial opportunities to form alliances in the collective struggle for a
biopolitics that affirms life, hopeful vision, the operations of democracy, and a range of democratic
institutions—that is, a biopolitics that fights against the terror of totalitarianism. In a complex and rapidly changing global
world, public intellectuals have the important task of taking back control over the conditions of
intellectual production in a variety of venues in which the educational force of the culture takes root and holds a powerful
grip over the stories, images, and sounds that shape people’s lives around the globe. Such sites constitute what I call “new
spheres of public pedagogy” and represent crucial locations for a cultural politics designed to wrest the
arena of public debate within the field of global power away from those dangerous forces that
endlessly commodify intellectual autonomy and critical thought while appropriating or
undercutting any viable work done through the collective action of critical intellectuals . Such
spheres are about more than legal rights guaranteeing freedom of speech; they are also sites that demand a certain kind of citizen
whose education provides the essential conditions for democratic public spheres to flourish. Cornelius Castoriadis, the great
philosopher of democracy, argues that if public space is not to be experienced as a private affair but instead as a vibrant sphere in
which people experience and learn how to participate in and shape public life, then it must be shaped through an education that
provides the decisive traits of courage, responsibility, and shame, all of which connect the fate of each individual to the fate of others,
the planet, and global democracy.43 Artists, cultural workers, youth, and educators
need to create new discourses of
understanding and criticism and offer up a vision of hope that fosters the conditions for multiple
global struggles that refuse to use politics as an act of war or markets as the measure of
democracy. The challenge posed by the current regime of religious extremism, market fundamentalism, statesponsored terrorism, and the incursion of corporate power into higher education presents difficult problems for
educators and demands a profoundly committed sense of individual and collective resistance if all
of those who believe in a vibrant democracy are going to fight for a future that does not endlessly
repeat the present. At the current moment, higher education faces a legitimation crisis—one that opens a political and
theoretical space for educators to redefine the relationship between higher education, the public good, and democracy. Higher
education represents one of the most important sites over which the battle for democracy is
being waged. It is the site where the promise of a better future emerges out of those visions and pedagogical practices that
combine hope and moral responsibility as part of a broader emancipatory discourse. Far from hopelessly utopian, such
a task echoes an insight by the French philosopher Alain Badiou that famously captures a starting point for reclaiming
higher education as a democratic public sphere: “In fact, it’s an immense task to try to propose a few
possibilities, in the plural—a few possibilities other than what we are told is possible. It is a matter of
showing how the space of the possible is larger than the one assigned—that something else is
possible, but not that everything is possible.”44
Our argument subsumes their argument, even if there is a material reality
with objective social structures that produce policy - it is only through
mediation by discourse.
Grondin 2004 (David, master of pol sci and PHD of political studies @ U of Ottowa “(Re)Writing the
“National Security State”: How and Why Realists (Re)Built the(ir) Cold War,”
http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/ieim/IMG/pdf/rewriting_national_security_state.pdf, MT)
In this light, poststructural
practices are used critically to investigate how the subject of
international relations is constituted in and through the discourses and texts of global politics.
Treating theory as discourse opens up the possibility of historicizing it. It is a myth that theory can be abstracted
from its socio-historical context, from reality, so to speak, as neorealists and neoclassical realists believe. It is a
political practice which needs to be contextualized and stripped of its purportedly neutral status. It must be understood
with respect to its role in preserving and reproducing the structures and power relations present
in all language forms. Dominant theories are, in this view, dominant discourses that shape our
view of the world (the “subject”) and our ways of understanding it. Given my poststructuralist inclinations,
I do not subscribe to the positivistic social scientific enterprise which aspires to test hypotheses against the “real world”. I therefore
reject epistemological empiricism. Since epistemology is closely intertwined with methodology, especially with positivism, I eschew
naturalism as a methodology. I study discourses and discursive practices that take shape in texts. This
does not mean that there is no material world as such, only that it must be understood
as mediated by language, which in the end means that it is always interpreted once framed
by discourse (through the spoken word or in written form).2 “A discourse, then, is not a way of
learning ‘about’ something out there in the ‘real world’; it is rather a way of
producing that some- thing as real, as identifiable, classifiable, knowable, and therefore,
meaningful. Discourse creates the conditions of knowing” (Klein quoted in George, 1994: 30). We
consider “real” what we consider significant: a discourse is always an interpretation, a narrative of multiple realities inscribed in a
specific social or symbolic order. Discursive representation is therefore not neutral; individuals in power
are those who are “authorized” to produce “reality”, and therefore, knowledge. In this context, power is
knowledge and the ability to produce that which is considered “true”. A realist discourse will produce the
socio- linguistic conditions that will allow it to correspond, in theory as in practice, to “reality”. Evidently, this “reality” will be
nothing but the “realist discourse” that one has constituted oneself. This is why, from a poststructuralist perspective, discourse
may be considered as ontology.
Debate Key
This round is key- our role as historical students gives us an opportunity to
end the colonial practices of the US
TROFANENKO 2005 (Brenda, Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois, The
Social Studies, Sept/Oct)
The debates about the overwhelming problems, limitations, and disadvantages of social studies education noted in the Fordham
report attempt to reconcile and advance the idea of nation through a collective history. Our more pressing
role as
educators, in light of the Fordham report, is to discuss a more nuanced understanding of the U.S. history.
This would advance, as noted in La Pietra Report, an understanding about “the complexity and the
contexts of relations and interactions, including the ways in which they are infused with a
variety of forms of power that define and result from the interconnections of distinct but related
histories” (OAH 2000, 1). Taking the U.S. nation as only one example of social analysis involves recognizing the meanings and
conditions out of which nations are formed. There is no one experience of belonging to a nation, no single
understanding or enactment of sovereignty, and certainly no one meaning or experience of
colonization or being colonized. There is, then, a need for these issues to be realized and to be a
part of the questioning occurring within our classrooms. That would allow for the substantial
reframing of the basic narrative of U.S. history (OAH 2000, 2). Toward a More Global Sense of the Nation
Knowing how history is a site of political struggle, how we engage with social studies education
means emphasizing how power, processes, and practices bear tangible effects on forging a
national (and common) history by reproducing and vindicating inclusions and exclusions. Such a
critique requires questioning how a singular, fixed, and static history celebrates the U.S. nation
and its place in the world as that “common base of factual information about the American
historical and contemporary experience” (27) argues for in the Fordham report. Our world history courses are central
to defining, understanding, and knowing not only other nations but also the position of each nation in relation to the United States.
The centrality that the west holds (notably the United States as an imperial power) is ingrained
and willful in framing specific representations of the west that normalize the imperial practices
that established this nation. The role that the United States holds on the world stage frequently remains unquestioned in
social studies classrooms. Certainly, we engage with various images and tropes to continue to advance
how the colonialist past continues to remain present in our historical sensibilities. Moreover, the
increasing number and choices of archival sources function as a complement to further understanding the nation. If students
are left to rely on the variety of historical resources rather than question the use of such
resources, then the most likely outcome of their learning will be the reflection on the past with
nostalgia that continues to celebrate myths and colonial sensibility. To evaluate the history
narrative now is to reconsider what it means and to develop a historical consciousness in our
students that goes beyond archival and nostalgic impulses associated with the formation of the
nation and U.S. nation building. We need to insist that the nation, and the past that has
contributed to its present day understanding, is simultaneously material and symbolic. The nation
as advanced in our histories cannot be taken as the foundational grounds. The means by which the nation is fashioned calls for
examining the history through which nations are made and unmade. To
admit the participatory nature of
knowledge and to invite an active and critical engagement with the world so that students can
come to question the authority of historical texts will, I hope, result in students’ realizing that the
classroom is not solely a place to learn about the nation and being a national, but rather a place
to develop a common understanding of how a nation is often formed through sameness. We need to
continue to question how a particular national history is necessary as an educational function,
but especially how that element has been, and remains, useful at specific times. My hope is to extend
the current critique of history within social studies, to move toward understanding why history and nation still needs a place in
social studies education. In
understanding how the historicity of nation serves as “the ideological alibi
of the territorial state” (Appadurai 1996, 159) offers us a starting point. The challenge facing social studies
educators is how we can succeed in questioning nation, not by displacing it from center stage
but by considering how it is central. That means understanding how powerfully engrained the
history of a nation is within education and how a significant amount of learning is centered
around the nation and its history. History is a forum for assessing and understanding the study
of change over time, which shapes the possibilities of knowledge itself. We need to reconsider the
mechanisms used in our own teaching, which need to be more than considering history as a nostalgic reminiscence of the time when
the nation was formed. We
need to be questioning the contexts for learning that can no longer be
normalized through history’s constituted purpose. The changing political and social contexts of
public history have brought new opportunities for educators to work through the tensions facing
social studies education and its educational value to teachers and students. Increasing concerns
with issues of racism, equality, and the plurality of identities and histories mean that there is no
unified knowledge as the result of history, only contested subjects whose multilayered and often
contradictory voices and experiences intermingle with partial histories that are presented as
unified. This does not represent a problem, but rather an opportunity for genuine productive
study, discussion, and learning.
In round actions are the best to evaluate
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 3, p. 104-105)
Discourses of multiculturalism not only pressured targeted immigrant groups to demonstrate that
they were U.S. patriots but also managed dissent among racially and religiously profiled U.S.
citizens and loyal legal residents. In her ethnography of South Asian Muslim youth, Sunaina Maira contends that
multiculturalism enables youth to criticize state policies without criticizing the state. Calling this
practice “dissenting citizenship,” Maira argues that it betrays an investment in the state rather than a radical departure from it:
“Dissenting
citizenship is harnessed to multicultural citizenship by the state, for
multiculturalism was one of the political and rhetorical strategies used after 9/11, as well as
before, to absorb Arab, South Asian, and Muslim Americans into a discourse of difference and
belonging to the ‘pluralistic’ and tolerant nation-state.”30 Noncitizen groups racially profiled as
“suspected terrorists,” on the other hand, are required and thus recruited to represent themselves as “docile patriots.”
Analyzing Sikh organizing post 9/11, Puar and Amit Rai explain that to construct themselves as misrecognized or
falsely profiled, Sikh communities were called upon not only to “educate” Americans about religious and
ethnic differences but to perform the “banal pluralism of docile patriotism,” emphasizing “Sikh
commitments to American life” by validating heteronormativity and middle-class domesticity.31
Under the guise of multiculturalism, citizenship can manage dissent while docile patriotism works to
transform racial profiling into misrecognition, making Arabs, Muslims, and/or South Asians
responsible for alleviating the statesanctioned and vigilante violences of racial profiling. But U.S.
multiculturalism could not incorporate those whose bodies were the real world referents for the ontologized figure
of the terrorist.32 The National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, established in June 2002, specifically targeted
men from mostly “friendly” nations in the Middle East for special registration. Unlike “docile patriots,”
men targeted for “special registration” were not misrecognized by law because special registration targeted them. This gendered
racial profiling program claimed to enable the Department of Homeland Security to monitor
where foreign nationals lived and what they did; people selected for interviews needed to reregister at least
annually and faced the possibility of endless detention.33 Bayoumi argues that the program is particularly troubling because insofar
as special registration is based on geography, “it
makes descent or inheritability of Islam (and gender) the
defining criterion.”34 The legal production of racialized suspicion, Bayoumi asserts, demands
that noncitizens prove their U.S. loyalty by actively disavowing the legally constructed and
popularly imagined “Muslimas-terrorist-figure.”35 As he notes, “special registration” treated people “as if they were guilty of
a crime and had to prove their innocence.”36 Because terrorism in the United States was associated with
Islam and signified by both Arab/Muslim bodies and nations in the Middle East following as
well as predating 9/11, being suspected of terrorism because of one’s race, ethnicity, and/ or
religion became a de facto status crime that could be enforced through immigration law and justified
through the ascription of illegality. The passive act of being recognized as a potential terrorist rendered one rightless because it was
not only criminal to look suspiciously Arab and/or Muslim; it
was also criminal not to actively, emphatically,
publicly, repeatedly, and insistently reiterate that one was not a terrorist.
Epistemology
Must embrace subaltern epistemologies outside a statist framework
Grosfoguel 5 [Ramon, associate professor in the department of ethnic studies at the university of California at Berkeley, Critical
Globalization Studies, edited by Richard Appelbaum and William Robinson 291]
The perspective articulated here is not a defense of "identity politics." Subaltern identities could
serve as an epistemic point of departure for a radical critique of Eurocentric paradigms and
ways of thinking. However, identity politics is not equivalent to epistemological alterity. The scope
of "identity politics" is limited and cannot achieve a radical transformation of the system and its
colonial power matrix. Because most modern identities are a construction of the coloniality of
power in the modern—colonial world, their defense is not as subversive as it might seem at first sight.
Black, Indian, African, or national identities such as Colombian, Kenyan, or French are colonial
constructions. Defending these identities could serve some progressive purposes depending on what is at stake in certain
contexts. For example, in the struggles against an imperialist invasion or antiracist struggles against white supremacy. But such a
politics only addresses the goals of a single group or demands equality within the system rather
than developing a radical anticapitalist struggle against the system. The system of exploitation is
a crucial space of intervention that requires broader alliances along not only racial, gender, and
class lines but also among a diversity of oppressed groups around the notion of social equality.
But instead of Eurocentric modernity's limited and formal notion of equality, the idea here is to
extend the notion of equality to every relation of oppression such as racial, class, sexual, or
gender. The new universe of meaning or new imaginary of liberation needs a common language
despite the diversity of cultures and forms of oppression. This common language could be
provided by radicalizing the liberatory notions arising from the old colonial pattern of power,
such as freedom (press, religion, and speech), individual liberties or social equality, and linking these to
the radical democratization of the political and economic power hierarchies. Quijano's (2000)
proposal for a socialization of power as opposed to a statist nationalization of production is
crucial here. Instead of state socialist or state capitalist projects centered in the administration of
the state and in hierarchical power structures, the strategy of socialization of power in all
spheres of social existence privileges global and local struggles for collective forms of public
authority.
Util is NOT a moral framework – people value some lives over others – its
ingrained into politics
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 3, p. 99-100)
Because the national demand for so much death risks citizens’ lives when invoking the right to
kill others, the demand must be rationalized as more than political, more than economic, and more than social
and cultural. Not many will answer a call to likely death unless those othered politics, religions, or economies appear to
jeopardize life itself. For states that govern through biopower, that threat to human existence is
manufactured to manage and be managed in everyday life. Unlike disciplinary power, Michel Foucault
explains, biopower is a “power of regularization,” a power that is about “making live and letting
die.”4 In these instances, racism is the “basic mechanism,” the technology of biopower that justifies and
naturalizes why the state makes some live and leaves others to die.5 Race, region, and religion, in
contemporary discourses of terrorism, interchangeably stand in for the “other” that threatens human life itself, functioning as the
“more than” subtext that legitimates the call to arms. These
othered threats become fundamental, immutable,
and biological through appearing to establish, in Moustafa Bayoumi’s words, a “blood
relationship to Islam.”6 Hypostatizing the threat of another way of life, racism transforms the
threatening politics of another worldview into the world’s always threatening other . Violent and
unforgiving in its means and intentions, the war on terror far exceeded the biopolitical day-to-day objectives of regulating
and regularizing populations in the United States by not only seeking control over life but also
demanding domination through death. Beyond letting die and making live, the war on terror
insisted that it was the United States’ right to determine who may survive and who must die, to
exert the power to let live and make die. For a state that regulates its population through biopower, racism is “the
precondition that makes killing acceptable,” but when a state secures its sovereignty through
necropower, killing does not need to be justified because what a population finds acceptable is
irrelevant.7 “Necropower” and “necropolitics,” postcolonial theorist Achille Mbembe explains, “account for
the various ways in which, in our contemporary world, weapons are deployed in the interest of
maximum destruction of persons and the creation of death-worlds, new and unique forms of social
existence in which vast populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead.”8 Justifying
the creation of death-worlds, the
Bush administration constructed the Middle East as an area where “the
condition” of “evildoing” was hidden and latent, posing permanent and unpredictable threats to
civilization. Afghanistan and Iraq were constructed as terrorist “hideouts” or places with “hidden” weapons of mass destruction,
and this presumption of guilt assumed the existence of unseen evidence that may not, in fact, have existed. In other words,
Iraq and Afghanistan would be presumed guilty even if proven innocent because the
requirements for exoneration were also the terms of indictment: How does one provide tangible
proof that terrorists are not hidden? How can one provide concrete evidence of the nonexistence of weapons of mass
destruction? If such threats are assumed to be concealed, then the absence of evidence can also be
proof of concealment.
The utility of a society only has value when its individuals are treated with
dignity. A free society that sacrifices some of its own individuals to prevent
human extinction is morally corrupt.
Shue 89 – Professor of Ethics and Public Life, Princeton University (Henry, “Nuclear
Deterrence and Moral Restraint, pp. 141-2)
Given the philosophical obstacles to resolving moral disputes, there are at least two approaches
one can take in dealing with the issue of the morality of nuclear strategy. One approach is to stick
doggedly with one of the established moral theories constructed by philosophers to “rationalize” or “make sense of” everyday moral
intuitions, and to accept the verdict of the theory, whatever it might be, on the morality of nuclear weapons use. A
more
pragmatic alternative approach assumes that trade-offs in moral values and principles are
inevitable in response to constantly changing threats, and that the emergence of novel, unforeseen
challenges may impel citizens of Western societies to adjust the way they rank their values and
principles to ensure that the moral order survives. Nuclear weapons are putting just such a strain on our moral
beliefs. Before the emergence of a nuclear-armed communist state capable of threatening the existence of Western civilization, the
slaughter of millions of innocent human beings to preserve Western values may have appeared wholly unjustifiable under any
possible circumstances. Today,
however, it may be that Western democracies, if they are to survive as
guardians of individual freedom, can no longer afford to provide innocent life the full protection
demanded by Just War morality. It might be objected that the freedoms of Western society have value
only on the assumption that human beings are treated with the full dignity and respect assumed by
Just War theory. Innocent human life is not just another value to be balanced side by side with others in moral calculations. It is the
raison d’etre of Western political, economic, and social institutions. A
free society based on individual rights that
sanctioned mass slaughter of innocent human beings to save itself from extinction would be
“morally corrupt,” no better than soviet society, and not worth defending. The only morally right and
respectable policy for such a society would be to accept destruction at the hands of tyranny, if need
be. This objection is partly right in that a society based on individual rights that casually sacrifices innocent human lives for the sake
of common social goods is a contradiction in terms. On the other hand, even Just War doctrine allows for the unintentional sacrifice
of some innocent human life under certain hard-pressing circumstances. It is essentially a consequentialist moral doctrine that
ascribes extremely high – but not absolute – value to innocent human life. The problem for any nonabsolute moral theory, of course,
is where to draw the line.
The worldview of the Aff compromises their epistemology because it is a
hegemonic and dominating lens. It precludes the possibility of rational
analysis.
Quijano, Peruvian Sociologist, 2k
(Anibal, Peruvian sociologist and humanist thinker, known for having developed the concept of
"coloniality of power". His body of work has been influential in the fields of post-colonial studies
and critical theory, 2000, Duke University Press, “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin
America”, http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/wan/wanquijano.pdf, Accessed 7/5/13, JB)
The intellectual conceptualization of the process of modernity produced a perspective of
knowledge and a mode of producing knowledge that gives a very tight account of the character
of the global model of power: colonial/modern, capitalist, and Eurocentered. This perspective
and concrete mode of producing knowledge is Eurocentrism.19 Eurocentrism is, as used here,
the name of a perspective of knowledge whose systematic formation began in Western Europe
before the middle of the seventeenth century, although some of its roots are, without doubt,
much older. In the following centuries this perspective was made globally hegemonic, traveling
the same course as the dominion of the European bourgeois class. Its constitution was
associated with the specific bourgeois secularization of European thought and with the
experiences and necessities of the global model of capitalist (colonial/modern) and
Eurocentered power established since the colonization of America. This category of
Eurocentrism does not involve all of the knowledge of history of all of Europe or Western
Europe in particular. It does not refer to all the modes of knowledge of all Europeans and all
epochs. It is instead a specific rationality or perspective of knowledge that was made globally
hegemonic, colonizing and overcoming other previous or different72 conceptual formations and
their respective concrete knowledges, as much in Europe as in the rest of the world. In the
framework of this essay I propose to discuss some of these issues more directly related to the
experience of Latin America, but, obviously, they do not refer only to Latin America.
A2: Research Skills
Research allows western researchers to own ways of knowing on all people
Smith, University of Waikato indigenous education professor, 7 (Linda Tuhiwai,
2007, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, pg. 1-2, JZ)
From the vantage point of the colonized, a position from which I write, and choose to privilege,
the term 'research' is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism. The word
itself, 'research', is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world's vocabulary.
When mentioned in many indigenous contexts, it stirs up silence, it conjures up bad memories,
it raises a smile that is knowing and distrustful. It is so powerful that indigenous people even
write poetry about research. The ways in which scientific research is implicated in the worst
excesses of colonialism remains a powerful remembered history for many of the world's
colonized peoples. It is a history that still offends the deepest sense of our humanity. Just
knowing that someone measured our 'faculties' by filling the skulls of our ancestors with millet
seeds and compared the amount of millet seed to the capacity for mental thought offends our
sense of who and what we are.1 It galls us that Western researchers and intellectuals can assume
to know all that it is possible to know of us, on the basis of their brief encounters with some of
us. It appalls us that the West can desire, extract and claim ownership of our ways of knowing,
our imagery, the things we create and produce, and then simultaneously reject the people who
created and developed those ideas and seek to deny them further opportunities to be creators of
their own culture and-own nations. It angers us when-practices linked to the last century, and
the centuries before that, are still employed to deny the validity of indigenous peoples claim to
existence, to land and territories, to the right of self-determination, to the survival of our
languages and forms of cultural knowledge, to our natural resources and systems for living
within our environments.
This collective memory of imperialism has been perpetuated through the ways in which
knowledge about indigenous peoples was collected, classified and then represented in various
ways back to the West, and then, through the eyes of the West, back to those who have been
colonized. Edward Said refers to this process as a Western discourse about the Other which is
supported by 'institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial
bureaucracies and colonial styles'.2 According to Said, this process has worked partly because of
the constant interchange between the scholarly and the imaginative construction of ideas about
the Orient. The scholarly construction, he argues, is supported by a corporate institution which
'makes statements about it [the Orient], authorising views of it, describing it, by teaching about
it, settling it, ruling over it'.3 In these acts both the formal scholarly pursuits of knowledge and
the informal, imaginative, anecdotal constructions of the Other are intertwined with each other
and with the activity of research. This book identifies research as a significant site of struggle
between the interests and ways of knowing of the West and the interests and ways of resisting of
the Other. In this example, the Other has been constituted with a name, a face, a particular
identity, namely indigenous peoples. While it is more typical (with the exception of feminist
research) to write about research within the framing of a specific scientific or disciplinary
approach, it is surely difficult to discuss research methodology and indigenous peoples together,
in the same breath, without having an analysis of imperialism, without understanding the
complex ways in which the pursuit of knowledge is deeply embedded in the multiple layers of
imperial and colonial practices.
Research is imbued with an assumption that European research should be
preferred
Smith, University of Waikato indigenous education professor, 7 (Linda Tuhiwai,
2007, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, pg. 56, JZ)
Research 'through imperial eyes' describes an approach which assumes that Western ideas
about the most fundamental things are the only ideas possible to hold, certainly the only rational
ideas, and the only ideas which can make sense of the world, of reality, of social life and of
human beings. It is an approach to indigenous peoples which still conveys a sense of innate
superiority and an overabundance of desire to bring progress into the lives of indigenous
peoples - spiritually, intellectually, socially and economically. It is research which from
indigenous perspectives 'steals' knowledge from others and then uses it to benefit the people
who 'stole' it. Some indigenous and minority group researchers would call this approach simply
racist. It is research which is imbued with an 'attitude' and a 'spirit' which assumes a certain
ownership of the entire world, and which has established systems and forms of governance
which embed that attitude in institutional practices. These practices determine what counts as
legitimate research and who count as legitimate researchers. Before assuming that such an
attitude has long since disappeared, it is often worth reflecting on who would make such a claim,
researchers or indigenous peoples? A recent attempt (fortunately unsuccessful) to patent an
indigenous person in the New Guinea Highlands might suggest that there are many groups of
indigenous peoples who are still without protection when it comes to the activities of
research.24 Although in this particular case the attempt was unsuccessful, what it demonstrated
yet again is that there are people out there who in the name of science and progress still consider
indigenous peoples as specimens, not as humans.
A2: Link of Omission
Silence can be more important than what is said, it functions as a suppression of alternatives and endorsement of
certain specific types of practices.
Jackson 2008 (Richard, IR, Aberystwyth U. PhD, U Canterbury “The Ghosts of State Terror”,
http://users.aber.ac.uk/mys/csrv/ghost%20of%20state%20terror-richard%205.pdf, MT)
Employing a ‘grounded theory’ approach, the analysis was considered complete when the addition of new texts did not yield any
new insights or categories. The second stage of the research involved subjecting the findings of the textual analysis to both a first and
second order critique. A first order or immanent critique uses a discourse’s internal contradictions, mistakes, misconceptions, and
omissions to criticise it on its own terms and expose the events and perspectives that the discourse fails to acknowledge or address.
The point of this form of internal critique is not necessarily to establish the ‘correct’ or ‘real truth’ of the subject beyond doubt, but
rather to destabilise
dominant interpretations and demonstrate the inherently contested and political
nature of the discourse. A second order critique entails reflecting on the broader political and ethical
consequences – the ideological effects – of the representations and more importantly in this case, the silences,
enabled by the discourse. Specifically, it involves an exploration of the ways in which the discourse
functions as a ‘symbolic technology’8 that can be wielded by particular elites and institutions, to:
structure the primary subject positions, accepted knowledge, commonsense and legitimate policy responses
to the actors and events being described; exclude and de‐legitimise alternative knowledge and practice; naturalise
a particular political and social order; and construct and sustain a hegemonic regime of truth. A range of
specific discourse analytic techniques are useful in second order critique: genealogical analysis, predicate analysis, narrative
analysis, and deconstructive analysis.9 It is crucial to recognise that discourses are significant not just for what they say but also for
what they do not say; the silences in a discourse can
be as important, or even more important at times, than what is
openly stated. This is because silence can function ideologically in any number of ways. For example, silence can be a
deliberate means of distraction or misdirection from uncomfortable subjects or contrasting viewpoints, the suppression or de‐
legitimisation of alternative forms of knowledge or values, the tacit endorsement of particular kinds of
practices, setting the boundaries of legitimate knowledge, or as a kind of disciplining process
directed against certain actors – among others. In other words, the silences within a text often function as an exercise in
power; revealing and interrogating those silences therefore, is an important part of first and second order
critique. Lastly, it is important to note that when we examine a discourse as a broad form of knowledge and
practice, it is never completely uniform, coherent, or consistent; it always has porous borders and often contains multiple
exceptions, inconsistencies, and contradictions by different speakers and texts. Many of the terrorism scholars discussed in this
paper for example, upon a close reading of their individual texts, often express more nuanced arguments than are necessarily
presented here. The important point is not that each text or scholar can be characterised in the same uniform way, or even that these
scholars agree on a broad set of knowledge claims. It is rather, that taken together as a broader discourse and a body of work that has
political and cultural currency, the narratives and forms of the discourse function to construct and maintain a specific understanding
of, and approach to, ‘terrorism’ and ‘state terrorism’ and that this knowledge has certain political and social effects.
A2: Mexico not Key
Including Latin American societies into the global historical narrative must
come before engagement
Besse, CUNY City College Professor, 4 (Susan K., Professor in the City College division of
the CUNY agency, 2004, Hispanic American Historical Review 84.3 (2004) 411-422, “Placing
Latin America in Modern World History Textbooks”,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hispanic_american_historical_review/summary/v084/84.3bess
e.html, Accessed 7/5/13, NC)
The recent trend in world history to prioritize the theme of technology and environment is not
one that will give us tools to integrate better the history of Latin American societies into the
global narrative. Nor will “big history.” I find it interesting and stimulating to ask the sorts of
questions that underlie “big history,” but these should not be the ones that frame world history
curricula. The search by two of the leading proponents—Fred Spier and Jared Diamond— for a
single, all-encompassing theoretical framework that can unify all knowledge is illusory and
dangerous. Moreover, the answers to the big questions they pose—which falsely claim greater
scientific merit by drawing on hard data and subordinating culture to the realm of the
epiphenomenal—are not ones that can help us in the contemporary world to explain such shortterm phenomenon as racism, sexism, religious fundamentalism, rapidly shifting patterns of
imperial power, and so on. In short, these frameworks of analysis do not contribute to our
understanding of our near and distant neighbors nor to imagining how to build stable and just
societies.22 We need to ask questions that will make inquiry into the histories and cultures of all
the world’s peoples— including Latin Americans—relevant. The historical experience of Latin
America since 1492 mirrors the global present, in which the multiple pasts of Native Americans,
Europeans, Africans, and Asians have collided and intertwined, producing increasingly
integrated, yet heterogeneous, modern societies. That Latin America cannot be neatly defined as
either Western or non-Western should not be seen as a “problem.” Rather, the problem lies in
paradigms that naturalize and universalize the experiences of Europe and that rank the societies
of the world according to the degree to which they achieved the technological advancement and
social and political modernity of Europe. Only when we frame new questions that move beyond
strongly materialist and developmentalist measures of historical influence and significance will
Latin America seem relevant. No amount of pressure for equal attention can substitute for a
paradigm shift that charts intellectually compelling paths for how to write a culturally sensitive,
socially inclusive world history: one that asks how major global transformations have been
experienced by people whose impact has been deemed insignificant and that gives priority to
analyzing gender, race, racial mixture, and cultural syncretism. As we move in this direction,
Latin American voices will begin to count for more than a few distracting passages.
2AC Ext. Neolib
The intersectionality of transnationality and globalization reflect the
overall growing inequality and exclusion of discriminated groups in the
context of migrations from deportations
Boehm 13 – Associate Professor, Anthropology and Women's Studies and Ph.D. University of
New Mexico. Her research focuses on how gender and family are affected by migration and
deportation among transnational Mexican borders. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 221)//cl
Significantly, this project also engages a growing literature that incorporates and revisits
previous work on transnationality and globalization, situating the study of
deportation within interdisciplinary migration studies. The "removal" of
undocumented Mexican migrants is entwined with international migration and must be
considered within a trans-national frame (Coutin 2007; Zilberg 2004). While much of the
research about Mexican migration has considered movement from a transnational perspective
(e.g., Kearney 2004; Rouse 1991; Stephen 2007), including my own (Boehm 2012), there has not
been comparable ethnographic, binational study of deportation and forced return, largely
because these are processes-in-the-making. Previous studies of transnationalism have been
criticized for an overemphasis on the weakening of the state (see Aretxaga 2003), although as
Begona Aretxaga argues, globalization "is not only compatible with statehood; it has actually
fueled the desire for it" (2003: 393). In response to such critique, recent scholarship theorizes
transnational encounters as "friction" (Tsing 2005), laden with "growing inequality" and
"exclusion" (Appadurai 2006: x). Reconsiderations of state power capture the erosion of state
power as well as reformulations of state control (e.g., Rosas 2007). This chapter, then, draws on
this shift in research foci, situating an understudied aspect of U.S.-Mexico migration—
deportation or forced north-south movement—within the context of "transmigration" (Glick
Schiller et al. 1995). The research also captures the unstable, durable, and
developing character of state power in transnational context, underscoring how
deportation and removal are always intertwined with past and future transnational flows.
The intersectionality of the immigrant movement and neoliberalism—the
neoliberalist foundation of the state has allowed it to exploit labor
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
In light of contemporary neoliberal immigration policy, immigrant activists in the Boston
protests—and the larger demonstrations of 2010—expanded the movement beyond the politics
of belonging to re-create linkages between struggles and broaden the immigrant movement.
One of the clearest connections struck during the protest was between the
immigrant rights struggle and movements against transnational capitalism,
globalization, and neoliberal economic policy. The very same promotional flyer from
ANSWER mentioned above, which featured Brewer, SB 1070 and other anti-immigrant
legislation as exigencies of the protest, also included “the wave of budget cuts and mass
unemployment,” racial profiling, and border enforcement as mobilizing causes. In a list of
demands, the flyer included repeal of Arizona’s SB 1070 and Arizona HB 2281 (a bill banning
ethnic studies programs in public K-12 schools) as well as a number of other goals relating to
budget cuts and unemployment. Furthermore, speakers challenged neoliberal economic policies
by connecting anti-immigrant sentiment to a broader regime of labor exploitation.
Reconstituting this coalition between immigrant rights and the workers’ struggle, one speaker
stated that immigrant activists had “ignited a movement on our [that is, Socialists’] side,” had
“ignited a conversation” about economic exploitation. This statement stressed the
importance of a broader movement, a movement against economic exploitation
and against borders on laborers. Other speakers similarly connected exploitation of
undocumented immigrants to transnational capitalism and the stripping of workers’ rights in
neoliberal economic policies. A member of the ANSWER Coalition perhaps put it most bluntly:
“They steal our country, steal our resources, force us to migrate, then criminalize us.”
Neoliberal rhetoric has served as a whitewashed cover of racial profiling
and alienation
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
As evidence of this neoliberal rhetoric, Arizona governor Brewer steadfastly denied traces of
racial profiling or discrimination in SB 1070, despite criticisms to the contrary, asserting the
law’s racial neutrality and respect for diversity. During her signing statement, Brewer repeatedly
rejected the assertion of critics that SB 1070 encouraged police profiling of Latina/os as
“suspected” immigrants (because of language, race, and culture). Instead, Brewer assured that
the law would be administered in a color-blind fashion: “While protecting our citizens is
paramount, it cannot come at the expense of the diversity that has made Arizona so great. Nor
can safety mean a compromise of freedom for some, while we, the many, turn a blind eye.”
Brewer’s statement explained SB 1070 as an immigration policy fully in concert with the
vaunted precepts of (neo)liberalism and cultural diversity. Brewer promised that in spite of
provisions about the surveillance and “suspicion” of certain populations, SB 1070 would respect
the color-blind ideology of contemporary racial neoliberalism. The law, after all, stated that
officials could “not solely consider race, color or national origin” in determining someone’s legal
status (later, the word “solely” was dropped after sustained public criticism). Also, in response to
concerns over racial profiling, Governor Brewer directed the Arizona Peace Officer Standards
and Training Board (AZ POST) to clarify the standards for police surveillance and questioning of
suspected immigrants. The promulgated guidelines stated that a number of factors taken in the
“totality of the circumstances” (including “dress, demeanor . . . [or] significant difficulty
communicating in English,” “flight,” the “attempt to hide or avoid detection,” “possession of
foreign identification,” and presence “in [the] company of other unlawfully present aliens”)
could provide law enforcement a “reasonable suspicion” that a suspect was undocumented and
that further inquiry—from questioning to detention—was justified. For proponents, the efforts
to clarify and hone the law’s application provided evidence that SB 1070 was aimed at enforcing
immigration laws in a color-blind way. The enforcement standards provided by AZ POST,
however, undermined Berewer’s claim that the legislation was racially neutral and respected
“the diversity that has made Arizona so great.” In fact, the details of SB 1070 belie the neoliberal
and colorblind ideology that surrounds it. The enforcement provisions by AZ POST link or
“stick” together a number of behaviors or performances, such as language use, dress, copresence with other suspected “illegals,” and “flight” or nefarious intent, into an overall affect of
alienness or Mexican illegality. The result is that police judge the performances of citizenship of
those whom they suspect of not belonging. SB 1070 in one sense codified a performative
dimension of citizenship by making one’s performative affect (a “feeling” of belonging that one
communicated) the warrant for a judgment of one’s legal status. What Sara McKinnon terms
“proper performances of citizenship” became avenues for “credibility” and markers of the
suspected immigrants’ “potential as a citizen-subject,” just as performances of “alienness “ or
nonbelonging (equated by AZ POST with foreignness, Mexicanness, or criminality) became
evidence that one was an undocumented immigrant. The assumption that a government official
could arrive at a “reasonable suspicion” of the legal status of a person by observing these various
performances and behaviors demonstrates that lying at the heart of immigration enforcement
were evaluations of racialized and gendered belonging. In the end, the officer would judge the
potential of a surveilled subject to “come off ” or pass as someone who “belongs.” The fact that
this same approach was emulated by other states and localities and embraced as color-blind, at
least provisionally, by the U.S. Supreme Court, demonstrates its purchase in contemporary
discourses of borders and citizenship.16 Thus the “affective economies” of SB 1070 undermined
the neoliberal notion of respect for diversity that proponents of “attrition through enforcement”
tried to attach to these measures. The ideology of racial neoliberalism, which holds that laws can
be applied in a color-blind way and that discrimination has been all but eliminated, stands in
stark contrast to the very real presence of discrimination and persecution of threatening
“others,” such as Latin American or Arab immigrants. Despite claims of respect and tolerance
for difference within an inclusive American identity, and despite Brewer’s claim that the law
would be applied neutrally, SB 1070 demonstrates that it is still ethnic, cultural, religious, and
linguistic differences of immigrants that are the basis for judgments of their nonbelonging. In
fact, the idea of a color-blind or neoliberal SB 1070 (one focused on criminal individuals rather
than race or ethnicity) fit in nicely with practices of racial profiling and suspicion (such as those
promulgated by AZ POST). The law explicitly prohibited a focus on race while the practices of
police and citizens circumvented those prohibitions. An increasingly militarized and nativist
approach to immigration and border enforcement was rhetorically framed through a language of
multiculturalism and color-blindness that helped it authorize the continued exclusion of those
perceived as not belonging.
The continuation of criminalization against immigrants fuel neoliberal
ideals
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Intro, p. 18-19)
A comparative analytic that centers and denaturalizes the space and the state of social death can
help us to reframe familiar narratives about race relations. In many black-Latina/o conflict narratives, for
instance, there are unspoken juxtapositions that run the risk of reifying figures of criminality.
When rejecting or recontextualizing criminal activity, the disavowal is displaced, directly or indirectly, onto
the other. For example, the claim that “law-abiding” undocumented immigrants reside in the United
States without authorization is implicitly juxtaposed against the claim that African American
citizens engage in criminal activities only because “illegal aliens” steal American jobs. But if we
suspend the impulse to recuperate either of these demonized groups, we might find that the debate itself is a loselose story — that the official narrative of black-Latina/o conflict and competition works to pathologize both groups,
regardless of which side we take. Both claims obscure the ways in which neoliberal ideologies and
values ontologize figures of criminality by treating them as if they were real examples of poor
people’s (ir)rational choices for making a living. According to Lisa Duggan, neoliberalism scripts disempowered
and unprotected people as primarily responsible for their vulnerabilities to state exclusion and
capital exploitation: “Neoliberals have promoted ‘private’ competition, self-esteem, and independence as the roots of personal
responsibility, and excoriated ‘public’ entitlement, dependency, and irresponsibility as the sources of social ills.”48 The
values
neoliberalism publicizes, naturalizes, and universalizes also make indigent groups of color unable to
prove they experience discrimination. Even when one possesses ample evidence of employer fraud and worker abuse,
neoliberalism makes it difficult to substantiate such claims because in some ways neoliberalism
renders capital exploitation conceptually impossible. Neoliberal values of private competition, self-esteem, and
independence benefit corporations: If everyone is an “entrepreneur” of him or herself, then individuals cannot
be exploited by capital. As “entrepreneurs” of themselves, individuals exploit themselves and should take
“personal responsibility” for doing so.49 Interpreted through a neoliberal value system, “illegal” status is a
choice made by rational individuals who are ultimately resigned to being underpaid, cheated, and
abused because after “calculating” the risks or “gambling” against the odds, each person
presumably decided that undocumented status would still be “worth” it. In the era of American
neoliberalism, social value and moral behavior are interpreted through and evaluated on economic terms, and, as a result,
capitalist logic and ethics prevail in the social sphere as well as the economic and political realms. As put simply
by Michel Foucault, American neoliberalism demands an “economic analysis of the non-economic.”50 We can see how this
logic permeates narratives of black-Latina/o competition. When allies of undocumented
immigrants describe certain occupations as jobs that “no one wants,” they are decriminalizing
unauthorized workers by describing them as valuable laborers who help rather than harm U.S.
citizens and legal residents. This appeal, however, constructs poorly paid jobs as a privilege and poor U.S.
citizens as the “no-one-who-wants” unskilled labor-intensive jobs. This appeal also naturalizes the
notion that arduous jobs should not only be underpaid and exploitable but also that the poorest
people, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, should feel lucky to be exploited if they are paid at all. The human value of
undocumented laborers is measured only in terms of their economic value for the American middle class, whereas the human value
of unemployed citizens of color is negated altogether. In this attempt to revalue undocumented workers, the
middle-class
and socially privileged consumer assumes the position of America’s valued population.
2AC Ext. Intersectionality
The appropriation of identity embodies the problematic assumption that
performative affect is the basis for determining legal status
Cisneros ’14 – Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in
the Department of Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research
focuses on the ways in which social and political identities are rhetorically constructed and
contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@
identity, and immigration. (Josue David Cisneros, “The Border Crossed Us: Rhetorics of
Borders, Citizenship, and Latina/o Identity”, University of Alabama Press,
http://muse.jhu.edu.proxy.lib.umich.edu/books/9780817387235/9780817387235-10.pdf)//cl
Another example of this hybrid performativity can be found in the intersections of the Boston
protest’s embodied and verbal rhetoric. On one side, there were the Mexican and Central
American immigrants wearing shirts from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
stating “Brown & Proud.” On the other side were the white college students who carried Mexican
flags, bells and drums to pound out “ethnic” beats, and some of whom even wore comical
sombreros. In the former case, individuals who might be presumed “reasonably suspicious”
because of their skin color, but most of whom were legal residents, affirmed their “affective
excess” as part of their performances of political subjectivity. In the latter case, cultural
stereotypes were appropriated with the effect of extending the status of
“reasonable suspicion” to those who were otherwise within the bounds of the
political community. In both cases, the rhetoric of racial and cultural identity was potentially
problematic, in the former case because of the deployment of racially essentialist elements of
“brownness”; in the latter case, strategic reappropriations of Mexican stereotypes also subtly
reaffirmed some sort of essential “Mexican” identity. Nonetheless, both performances seemed to
aim in the same direction, challenging the logic that one’s performative affect—
including the feelings drawn from one’s language, culture, demeanor, and dress—
could be the basis for judgments of one’s legal status. Using the hybrid positionality of
migrants and minorities, protests subverted the conflation of citizenship with certain affects and
performances. To be “brown and proud” and also enacting one’s citizenship
illuminated the racialization of antiimmigrant policy and embraced the possibility
of performing a hybrid citizenship that held in tension multiple nationalities and
racial/cultural difference. Unlike the neoliberal and multicultural logics of a “color-blind”
U.S. identity, the protests affirmed the necessity of identity and difference within the parameters
of national belonging. If legal citizens, documented immigrants, and those who would normally
be considered “good citizens” could perform reasonable suspicion and affects of illegality, then it
undermined the very premise that belonging could be restricted based on factors such as race,
language, and performative affect. It meant citizenship and illegality could be performed, thus
undercutting the naturalization of civic identity.
2AC Ext. Racial Profiling
Racial Profiling in minority communities
illegitimate and ineffective
Simmons 11- Director of the Criminal Justice Program Professor of Law at Wake Forest University (Kami
Chavis Simmons, “Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice, Volume 18, Issue 1, Article 6,
http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1329&context=crsj, p. 20-21 TS)
the perception that certain groups are
treated unfairly undermines the legitimacy of the law enforcement
agency, and thus has a deleterious effect on crime control and prevention.94 Many
members of minority communities are also disproportionately
victims of crime and may live in areas that experience higher rates
of crime.95 For example, in many large urban areas, a disproportionate number of crime
Finally, and perhaps most importantly,
victims are African American, and thus partnerships between citizens and police are essential to
crime prevention.96 As one scholar noted, “[T]here
is a causal link between the
perception of the law and levels of compliance. Unfortunately, the
perception in many poor and minority communities is that the
law, as exemplified by the police, is illegitimate, a perception that
encourages non-compliance.”97 It follows that areas in need of the
greatest amount of law enforcement protection are also likely to have a
large proportion of residents who distrust law enforcement. Racial
profiling also exacerbates tensions between racial minorities and law enforcement, and
undermines the rationale for community policing. Thus, efforts
to engage these
citizens in crime prevention partnerships with law enforcement
face challenges that may not be present in other communities. David
Harris also notes that racial profiling can have a negative impact on the way in which minority
groups view law enforcement. Harris writes, “Racially targeted traffic stops cause deep cynicism
among blacks about the fairness and legitimacy of law enforcement and courts . . . . Thus it is no
wonder that Blacks view the criminal justice system in totally different terms than whites do.”98
For example, San Diego Police Chief Jerome Sanders and the San Diego Police Department
voiced concerned that the “growing public perception that police target minority drivers [] was
‘eroding public trust and need[ed] to be addressed if community policing . . . [was] [] to be
successful.’”99 Not
only is racial profiling harmful to individuals and
communities, but, as previously discussed, there is evidence
demonstrating that racial profiling is an ineffective lawenforcement tool. Despite the disproportionate number of stops and searches of African-
Americans and Latinos, studies show that when searched, these groups were less likely than
Whites to have contraband.100 Together, these
facts confirm not only the
existence of racial profiling, but that racial profiling is an
ineffective tool for law enforcement whose costs outweigh any
negligible benefit. Given these societal costs, innovative solutions are
required to address racial profiling.
Even those who abide by the law are unreasonably subject to harsh
treatment by law enforcement authorities, allowing the state to manipulate
unknowing citizens
Boehm 13 – Associate Professor, Anthropology and Women's Studies and Ph.D. University of
New Mexico. Her research focuses on how gender and family are affected by migration and
deportation among transnational Mexican borders. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 227-228)//cl
Consider, finally, the experiences of Rodrigo, a migrant whose parents and adult siblings are
U.S. residents. In the 1980s, Rodrigo had been living in the United States, though he returned to
Mexico because of health problems, and therefore he did not receive amnesty as several of his
family members did. Years later, however, he was able to obtain a tourist visa, which allowed
him to visit his parents and siblings (who are U.S. permanent residents), adult children (who are
undocumented migrants), and grandchildren (with mixed statuses) in New Mexico. Prior to his
"removal" from the United States in 2006, Rodrigo and his wife had traveled twice using the
tourist visa without difficulties, each time careful to return to Mexico within the six-month
period for which they were granted permission to be in the United States. Rodrigo explained to
me that he did not want to break any U.S. laws, and so he always came back to Mexico
within the allotted timeframe. On his third trip north, in 2006, Rodrigo's experience was quite
different than during previous border crossings. When he arrived at the U.S. port of entry at
El Paso, he and his wife were taken aside, each questioned for several hours separately
because, as outlined in the "Notice to Alien Ordered Removed/Departure Verification"
he was later given, Rodrigo was " suspected of being an intended immigrant." Like the
everyday lives of undocumented migrants in the United States, this was a process filled with fear
for both Rodrigo and his wife, Tina. Ironically, he experienced "deportability" and was deported
without having actually entered the borders of the nation. His Mexican passport, with the U.S.
tourist visa inside, was confiscated and he was formally "removed." The questioning of Rodrigo
by a Border Patrol agent reveals intersecting scales of ternporality. According to Rodrigo, the
agent pressured him to discuss years from the past during which he had worked without papers
in the United States. Curiously, this time during add the 1970s and 1980s was the precise period
when individuals who received amnesty through IRCA were also working without documents.
For example, Rodrigo's two brothers, now U.S. permanent residents, both worked with Rodrigo,
first in agriculture, and then for a construction company in Albuquerque. Here, the past,
present, and future converged in unsettling ways. In this moment, this one afternoon, Rodrigo's
future trajectory took a certain, seemingly permanent turn based on events from decades ago
Just prior to his "removal," Rodrigo was given a stack of paperwork, including a transcript of his
exchange with Border Patrol agents. Then he walked across the pedestrian Peal bridge at El
Paso/Ciudad Juarez and took a cab to the bus station for his eventual return to the rancho.
Several of the questions in the transcript of Rodrigo's removal documents aim to verify the
clarity of the proceedings and his understanding of the events; the transcript ends on a definitive
note, with Rodrigo's signature at the bottom of the document 11 indicating that the information
is correct and that he understood the ramifications. However, while these documents represent
the proceedings as clear and straightforward, they ends were, for Rodrigo, a source of great
confusion. When I spoke with Rodrigo about the experience, there was little certainty, a quite
different rendition of that day than the official akin documents indicate. "I didn't understand
it...honestly, I'm still not sure what happened. It was all very confusing. My wife was in another
room, and so I was worried about her. Also, I was concerned that they would go after my
parents and my brothers [U.S. permanent residents] and punish them." He showed
me the forms and asked if there was anything that could be done. Could I, he wondered, at least
explain to him what it all meant?
“Belonging” is never clearly defined in the status quo where shifting
definitions of citizenship, and thus “membership”, are intertwined with
deportability and criminality judgments predicated off of race
Boehm 13 – Associate Professor, Anthropology and Women's Studies and Ph.D. University of
New Mexico. Her research focuses on how gender and family are affected by migration and
deportation among transnational Mexican borders (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 220-221)//cl
The racializing dimensions of state power—a "racial governmentality" (Rosas 2007: 99)—
also extend to transnational Mexicans regardless of individual "legal" immigrant statuses,
demonstrating the slippery boundaries of U.S. state-defined membership for
Mexican nationals or those perceived to be Mexican, Latino, foreign, other. U.S.
citizens of color, while not legally "deportable," are subject to the racial logic of "deportability"
and the racism that guides surveillance and deportation (e.g., Chavez 2008; De Genova 2005;
Rosas 2007). The shifting and racialized character of deportability and deportation underscores
the complexities of studying "undocumented migration" and points to the significance of
ethnographic research in the analysis of both migration and return. This work draws on and
contributes to different bodies of literature, including emergent scholarship about "illegality,"
"deportability," state power, and return migration, as well as ongoing discussions about
transnational movement within the field of migration studies. Recent scholarship focuses on the
construction of "(il)legality" and "illegal" subjects as people cross nation-state borders (e.g.,
Chavez 2008; Coutin 2000, 2007; De Genova 2002, 2005; Ngai 2004). These scholars
emphasize the historical, political, and social context within which states define migrants as
"illegal" and the effect of such processes of categorization. Collectively, this body of work
demonstrates how categories linked to "illegality" are produced and maintained. Here,
deportation and "deportability" figure prominently: research has focused on, among other
topics, how exclusion and return have been tied to the development of the nation (Kanstroom
2007; Ngai 2004); the racialized character of policing within the United States and at the U.S.Mexico Border (Chavez 2008; De Genova 2005; Rosas 2007); the ways that "criminality" is
constructed within processes of deportation (Coutin, this volume; Peutz 2006; Zilberg
2004); and the character of state power as national governments create policies,
patrol borders, and implement removals (Coutin 2007; Heyman 1995, 1999; Peutz 2006;
Peutz and De Genova, 2010). My research contributes to the work on illegality and deportability
by extending analysis of deportation to migrants' nations of origin or current nations of
residence (see also Coutin 2007; Peutz 2006; Zilberg 2004), studying the impact of legal
categories formulated in the United States among a population central to U.S. im¬migration
processes and policies: migrants from and/or currently residing in Mexico.
Accounts of abuse of innocent individuals have been accompanied by the
racial bias of law enforcement agents against Latino/a migrants—their
treatment indicates a blatant discrimination
Coutin ’13 – Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology and is professor in the Department of
Criminology, Law, and Society and the Department of Anthropology at the University of
California, Irvine. Her research has examined social, political, and legal activism surrounding
immigration issues, particularly immigration from El Salvador to the United States. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 233-234)//cl
A Rampart Division CRASH [Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums] officer pursuing
a case against a 15-year-old accused of a fatal double shooting attempted to arrange the
deportation of a high-profile activist whose testimony could clear the youth of murder charges,
the activist says....Alex Sanchez, who is being held at the federal immigration detention facility
in San Pedro, said his Jan. 21 [2000] arrest by Rampart Officer Jesus Amezcua came after
months of threats and harassment against him and other activists in Homies Unidos, a group
working to end gang violence....Sanchez and others say Jose Rodriguez, the teenager accused of
murder, was at a Homies Unidos meeting at the time the shooting took place in August....The
arrest of Sanchez—whose detention has made him something of a cause celebre—is the most
recent example of what critics say is Rampart Division officers' use of immigration issues to
eliminate troublesome witnesses by having them deported....In an interview, Sanchez said he
and Amezcua were well-acquainted by the time the officer arrested him. Last summer, Amezcua
stopped him and photographed him, saying he looked suspicious, Sanchez said. A few weeks
later, on Aug. 6, Amezcua kicked open the door at a birthday party for Sanchez's fiancée, along
with another officer who shoved a girl's face against the wall several times and hit Sanchez in the
head with a baton, Sanchez said. He said he next saw Amezcua after the slaying, at a Juvenile
Court hearing for Rodriguez. After that, according to Sanchez, Amezcua began to stop him
routinely on the street and search him, sometimes punching him in the groin,
telling him: "We'll see who wins the court trial—his gang or our gang? Sanchez and others said
Amezcua was one of the officers who regularly harassed many members of Homies
Unidos, stopping them on their way to and from the group's Thursday night meetings at
Immanuel Presbyterian Church on Wilshire Boulevard. He said Amezcua was one of several
officers who went to the church in September just hours before state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los
Angeles) was to hold a nighttime hearing on harassment of the group.... When Amezcua saw
Sanchez on the street later, he said "he was going to see me behind bars, and he gave
Homies Unidos six months to live," Sanchez alleged.... Not long before his arrest, Sanchez
said, Amezcua searched him and a friend, Ricardo Hernandez, who was arrested on a minor
charge and then held because of his own illegal immigration status. Then at 8 P.M., Jan. 21,
Amezcua stopped Sanchez and told him he was wanted by the INS, saying: "'It's over. You can
take Homies Unidos and shove it' ... [were his] exact words," Sanchez said....He said Amezcua
refused to let him call a lawyer or Hayden's office. He was taken to Men's Central Jail but
not booked, then transported to Parker Center, he said. —Anne Marie O'Connor, "Activist Says
Officer Sought His Deportation. Alex Sanchez's experience of being arrested and
placed in deportation proceedings after having spent most of his life in the United
States is unusual in that he was the leader of a gang violence prevention program,
he had the support of respected public officials such as California state senator Tom Hayden,
and his case became part of the controversy over the Rampart scandal, in which officers in the
Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) were convicted of violence and the falsification of
evidence against alleged gang members (Zil¬berg 2002). At the same time, his experience is not
unusual in that deporting aliens with criminal convictions has increasingly been a goal of both
immigration and crime control policies in the United States (Coutin 2005). Further, U.S.
antigang policies, which assign gang membership based on tattoos, association, and dress style,
forbid suspected gang members from congregating in particular areas, and increase penalties for
those deemed to be gang members, have been exported to Central American nations and other
countries, making life for deported gang members difficult at best (Zilberg 2007a).
2AC Ext. Alienation
The exclusion of Latinos/as from society is in
effort to make them feel less than human so they
will self- deport
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, p. 22-23, TS)
there is no doubt that the effect of current immigration
policing practices has generally been to unsettle immigrant
communities in the United States, Latinos in particular. A survey conducted by
Altogether,
the Pew Hispanic Center in 2008 paints a rather grim picture of the psychological state of U.S. Latinos—
Latinos
generally reported feeling anxious and discriminated against amid
public immigrant bashing and enhanced immigration
enforcement. Among the survey's general findings were the following: within the year prior to the
taking of the survey, one in ten Latinos, both citizens and noncitizens, reported being
stopped by the police or other authorities and asked about their
immigration status; one in seven said they had trouble finding or
keeping a job because they are Latino; and one in ten reported
difficulties finding or keeping housing. Significantly, the survey also found that a
legal residents, citizens, and undocumented immigrants alike (Lopez and Minushkin 2008).
majority of Latinos worry about deportation. Approximately 40 percent reported being worried "a lot"
that they, a family member, or a close friend would be deported, while 17 percent said they worried
"some." Not surprisingly, immigrants are particularly concerned about deportation, with 72 percent
the immigration
enforcement climate has helped to create a sense of unease among
Latinos, immigrants in particular. It has helped to produce an
reporting being worried either "a lot" or "some." In effect, then,
increased feeling of insecurity . Ultimately, it is clear that the governing of migrant illegality
today is not just about deterrence. It is also about incapacitation and attrition (Gilbert, this volume).
the creation of insecurity among immigrants—by depriving
them of the ability to participate meaningfully in quotidian life—
appears to be a willful production designed to isolate this
population from society and render them utterly powerless.' It is a
tactic that seeks to in-capacitate immigrants, Latinos in
Indeed,
particular, in order to wear down their will to work and live in the
United States. Immigration policing, particularly in the interior, thus amounts to what has been called a
policy of "attrition through enforcement" (Krikorian 2006). The goal is not so much to actually
expel all unauthorized immigrants as it is to "persuade" a large share of this
population to self-deport.31As Mark Krikorian, executive director of the anti-immigrant
Center for Immigration Studies, puts it, the idea is to "prevent illegals from being able to
embed themselves in our society . That would involve denying
them access to
jobs, identification, housing, and in general making it as difficult
as possible for an illegal immigrant to live a normal life here, so as to
persuade a large number of them to give up and self-deport" (ibid.).
Attrition through enforcement is not an official government policy, but it does appear to be the de facto
Current immigration
policing practices are undoubtedly making it more difficult for
undocumented immigrants to live normal lives. Such practices serve
way that undocumented immigration is being governed (Doty 2009).
to dehumanize immigrants, undermine workers' rights, break families apart, and
generally deny immigrants human dignity and peace of mind.
Criminal law shapes the “alien other” stripping
the now underclass of citizenship rights
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, p. 75, TS)
criminal law's disparate treatment of members of
certain minorities and income levels is not explicit . Instead, criminal law
has a disparate impact: the rules of the criminal justice system are neutral
on their face, but their effect on racial and ethnic minorities is
notoriously disproportionate to the number in the general
population .' The movement toward retributive justice in criminal
law , the turn to the sovereign state as the answer to public fears about crime, and the disproportionate
representation of minorities and low-income classes in the offender population contribute to
the perception of criminal offenders as noncitizens. Rather than viewing
Unlike immigration law,
the view of the offender is
as a profoundly antisocial being whose interests are
fundamentally opposed to those of the rest of society. Within this
framework, the criminal becomes "the alien other," an underclass
with a separate culture and way of life that is "both alien and
threatening.'" The result has been a tendency toward publicly marking out the offender through
rehabilitation as a way of creating a more integrated citizenry,
community notification schemes, sex offender registers, distinctive uniforms, and the proliferation of
sanctions such as deprivation of the franchise and the ability to otherwise participate in public life.
This new penology has transformed offenders from members of the public in
need of realignment with society to deviant outsiders "deprived of their
citizenship status and the rights that accompany it."45
Turn—the correlation between immigration and the criminal justice system
actually increases instead of reduces violent acts committed by
undocumented citizens—rejection of entrance into the legal system forces
them to a more illicit form of work
Coutin ’13 – Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology and is professor in the Department of
Criminology, Law, and Society and the Department of Anthropology at the University of
California, Irvine. Her research has examined social, political, and legal activism surrounding
immigration issues, particularly immigration from El Salvador to the United States. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 245)//cl
In this interview excerpt, Alex Sanchez details ways that, by making people desperate to avoid
additional convictions, harsh criminal justice policies can fuel rather than reduce
violence. In the United States, increased penalties for illegal entry, stiffened border
enforcement, reductions in means of legalizing, expanded definitions of offenses for which one
becomes deportable, and the elimination of waivers that would prevent deportation have given
rise to an abject class of individuals who could be deported if apprehended. This abject class
includes undocumented individuals, as well as former legal permanent residents who have been
deported and who returned "illegally" to the United States. Similarly, in El Salvador, stiffened
antigang policies have made life nearly impossible for deportees who have been convicted of
crimes in the United States, or who resemble gang members. Whether they are located in
El Salvador, the United States, or somewhere in between, members of this class have few legal
options. Denied work authorization in the United States, subjected to employment
discrimination in El Salvador, and made targets of police activity in both countries, such
individuals face great difficulties in entering the legal economy. Members of this subgroup often
must work under the table or enter the illicit economy. Such policies affect not only
unauthorized immigrants but also, as Sanchez notes above, anyone who develops a criminal
record and for whom an additional "strike" can mean a lengthy or perpetual prison sentence.
Policies that deny unauthorized migrants and other individuals access to
employment, social domains, and even national territories can the very sorts of
lawlessness that they are designed to combat, thus doing violence to law itself. Such policies also
have deadly effects on the unauthorized, pushing them into domains, unlawful
activities, and dangerous spaces where their lives are in jeopardy, tether from the hazards
of migrating "illegally," the lack of access to health care and social services, or violence at the
hands of those (not excluding officials) caught up in networks of Regality. In short, deportation
can remove people not only from national territory but also any legal means of supporting
themselves and finally even from life itself.
The government use of sanctions on immigrants is
what alienates immigrants from society
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, p. 70-71, TS)
Government also began to rely heavily on sanctions that reached
beyond the post-trial sentence. The federal and state governments
began to remove certain hallmarks of citizen- ship as a
consequence of a criminal conviction. These hallmarks included
loss of voting rights, exclusion from public office and jury service,
ineligibility for public benefits, public housing, government
support for education, and exclusion from professional license
eligibility. The increasing use of these "collateral consequences' for crimes made clear that
retribution rather than rehabilitation was driving the modern criminal justice system. The most logical
motivation for the accumulation of these collateral consequences is that they constitute decisions about
the membership status of the convicted individual. Collateral consequences diminish the societal
Lost privileges often bear no
relation to the context of the crime. Nor do they appear to be an attempt to prevent
membership status of the individual convicted.
future criminal conduct in the areas declared off-limits to the convicted. For example, loss of voting rights
is not tied to the commission of political crimes, nor is loss of government benefits limited to those
convicted of defrauding the government or crimes related to public housing, education, or welfare. Several
these collateral consequences eliminate the incidents of
citizenship. Voting rights are often seen as the hallmark of
citizenship, perhaps because the right to vote is one of the most
familiar and fundamental divisions between citizens and
of
noncitizens. In the same category are the opportunities to seek public office and serve as a juror.
Excluding the convicted individual from these activities
translates into exclusion from full participation in the
social and political structure of society . The loss of these
markings of citizenship demotes the convicted individual to the
status of a noncitizen, constitutionally incapable of voting in a federal election, serving on a
jury, or seeking high public office.
Alienating noncitizens from society has more
value to the members – gives members a more
clear “cast system” thus increasing confidence in
public affairs
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, p. 73-74, TS)
The result of the application of membership theory has been to create a
population , often identifiable by race and class, that is excluded
physically, politically, and socially from the mainstream
community .39 This consequence raises a curious question: what is in it for the members? What
is the advantage to U.S. society of creating and policing these
membership lines? In the case of a limited pie such as public benefits, it seems at
least facially logical to exclude those with weaker claims to
membership as a way of ensuring an adequate slice for those with
stronger membership claims. Withholding the bundle of rights
and privileges that includes voting, holding public office, and serving on a jury has a less
tangible benefit for U.S. society. The purpose here is not to protect a scarce resource.
Barring ex-offenders and noncitizens from these activities seems to have
more value to the membership as an expressive statement. It
enhances the apparent value of those rights and privileges to the
members by making them privileges over which the membership has control, rather than
inalienable rights belonging to the individual. Because those rights and
privileges are susceptible to loss, they become more precious to the individual who holds them. Since
members decide how those rights may be lost and who loses them, the rights become more valuable to the
the value to the members is twofold: excluding exoffenders and noncitizens from the activities of voting, holding
public office, and jury service creates a palpable distinction
between member and non-member, solidifying the line between
those who deserve to be included and those who have either
shown themselves to be deserving of exclusion or have not yet
shown themselves worthy of inclusion. In this light, withholding these
privileges conceivably improves the quality of the membership by
excluding those less deserving of membership. Perhaps withholding these
members. Thus,
privileges is meant to enhance the public trust in the integrity of the voting process and of public
If the public perceives ex-offenders
and noncitizens to be unworthy of the public trust, one could
argue that excluding them from these forms of public
participation increases confidence in the products of voting,
public officeholding, and jury deliberations.
officeholders, and in the outcome of jury trials.
The creation of crimmigration has demoted the
immigrant to a position where they are not only
excluded from society as a whole but are treated
as if they committed a crime
Stumpf ’13 – Professor of Law at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. Stumpf’s research explores the
intersection of immigration law with criminal law, constitutional law, civil rights, and employment law. (Juliet P.
Stumpf, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, p. 75- 76, TS)
shaping the convergence of immigration and
criminal law seems likely to lead to a downward spiral of
protections for non-members and a significant constriction of the
definition of who is a member. A significant overlap between criminal
law and immigration law inevitably will affect the way that
decision makers view the consequences of exclusion from
membership in each area. As criminal sanctions for immigration-related conduct and
criminal grounds for removal from the United States continue to expand, aliens become
The role of membership theory in
synonymous with criminals. As collateral sanctions for criminal violations continue to
target the hallmarks of citizenship and community membership, ex-offenders become synonymous with
aliens.
When noncitizens are classified as criminals, expulsion presents
itself as the natural solution. The individual's stake in the U.S.
community, such as family ties, employment, contribution to the community, and whether the
noncitizen has spent a majority of his lifetime in the United States, becomes secondary to
the perceived need to protect the community. Similarly, when criminals
become aliens, the sovereign state becomes indispensable to police the nation against this internal enemy.
In combating an internal invasion of criminal outsiders, containing them through collateral sanctions
Although criminal
law and immigration law begin with opposite assumptions about
the membership status of the individuals that they regulate, once
the individual is deemed unworthy of membership, the
consequences are very similar in both realms. The state treats the individual—
such as registration and removal from public participation appears critical.
literally or figuratively—as an alien, shorn of the rights and privileges of membership. This creates an
ever-expanding population of outsiders with a stake in the U.S. community that may be at least as strong
The result is a society increasingly stratified
by flexible conceptions of membership in which non-members are
cast out of the community by means of borders, walls, rules, and
public condemnation.
as those of incumbent members.
2AC Ext. Deportation
As criminal justice and immigration policies become increasingly
intertwined, innocent migrants are easily connected with wrong-doing,
making them easily deportable
Coutin ’13 – Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology and is professor in the Department of
Criminology, Law, and Society and the Department of Anthropology at the University of
California, Irvine. Her research has examined social, political, and legal activism surrounding
immigration issues, particularly immigration from El Salvador to the United States. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 237-238)//cl
In the United States, removal has become increasingly common as criminal justice
and immigration policies have converged (Welch 2002; see also Stumpf this volume). In
1996 the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration
Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) expanded the definition of aggravated
felony for immigration purposes, creating a situation that legal scholar Nancy Morawetz
referred to as "Alice-in-Wonderland-like." Morawetz explains, "As the term is defined, a crime
need not be either aggravated or a felony. For example, a conviction for simple battery or for
shoplifting with a one-year suspended sentence—either of which would be a misde¬meanor or a
violation in most states—can be deemed an aggravated felony" (2000, 1939). Legal
permanent residents who are convicted of such aggravated felonies are stripped of
their residency and made deportable. Before 1996, noncitizens with criminal
convictions could request waivers by arguing that their equities—relatives, lengthy
period of residence, educational history—in the United States weighed against their
deportation. The 1996 laws eliminated such challenges, made both detention and removal
mandatory, and applied this new policy retroactively, to convictions that occurred prior to 1996
(Hafetz 1998). Noncitizens were made a particular target of law enforcement practices, and
criminals were made a target of deportation policies. As Kanstroom points out, "Deportation
policy ... has aimed increasingly at permanently 'cleansing' our society of those with
undesirable qualities, especially criminal behavior" (2000, 1892).
Lack of cultural knowledge leads to stigmatization no matter how migrants
act and/or dress, causing an abnormal amount of suspicion and violence.
These individuals are vulnerable to the violence of the death squads, who
dedicate themselves to a social cleansing mechanism similar to Hitler’s
concentration camps
Coutin ’13 – Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology and is professor in the Department of
Criminology, Law, and Society and the Department of Anthropology at the University of
California, Irvine. Her research has examined social, political, and legal activism surrounding
immigration issues, particularly immigration from El Salvador to the United States. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 242-243)//cl
The alienation and stigmatization that makes officials doubt deportees' Salvadoranness can also
exclude deportees from other domains of social life. Within El Salvador, deportees are generally
suspected of being criminals and possibly gang members (Zilberg 2007a). Those who have
tattoos and wear the baggy clothing typical of U.S. youth cultures are especially stigmatized.
Employers may be reluctant to hire such individuals, neighbors may reject deportees, and even
relatives are not always welcoming. A lack of cultural and social knowledge exacerbates these
problems; as an NGO member reported, "It's like a child who doesn't know, they don't have any
idea what the country is like, how it works." By the late 1990s, social programs, such as migrant
shelters, limited financial assistance (e.g., bus fare), an orientation course, and vocational
training, provided some assistance to returnees; however, the scope of such aid was limited
(Coutin 2007; Zilberg 2002). The predominant governmental response to deportees, however,
has been subsumed within a broader antigang initiative known as Super Mano Dura or "super
heavy hand." Instead of welcoming deportees, Super Mano Dura focuses on incarceration
(Zilberg 2007a). The Chief of Police of San Salvador, Alfonso Linares, arrives today in Los Angeles to testify about the dangers
that activist Alex Sanchez can face in the event that he is deported to El Salvador.Linares will go before the federal court as of
Wednesday, July 26, where he will serve as a witness in relation to the assassinations of three members of Homies Unidos. Those
crimes occurred in the last 16 months, after they were deported, said Rocky Rushing, chief administrator in the office of Senator
Tom Hayden....According to documents obtained by La Opini6n about the testimony of Linares, he will speak about the deaths that
have occurred in El Salvador at the hands of death squads. "It
is believed that the assassinations have been the
work of ... those groups, which dedicate themselves to social 'cleansing: This group is similar
to those death squads known as La Sombra Negra, an extremist group that has terrorized the
country with its extrajudicial killings," stated Linares' written declaration. Moreover, this
establishes that he considers "it certain that Alex could be killed if he returns to El Salvador. I do
not think that the law can protect him." "Alex Sanchez has the profile of a victim. He is an exgang member and currently advocates for the rights of other gang members in his organization
Homies Unidos. In fact his photograph has appeared in the paper and he has been characterized
as a gang member," stated the declaration that Linares will present to the court next week.
(Delgado 2000). The death squads that San Salvador chief of police Linares referred to in his
testimony in Alex Sanchez's deportation case are perhaps the most extreme version of the
antigang climate generated by policies adopted in El Salvador in the late 1990s. The Salvadoran
government did not condone death squads, but between 1999 and 2005, it criminalized gang
membership, increased police presence in areas of high gang activity, mobilized soldiers
alongside police in antigang units, rounded up suspected gang members, and in-creased prison
terms for convicted suspects. These policies, known during the presidency of Francisco Flores as
"Mano Dura" or "Heavy Hand" and during the presidency of Tony Saca as "Super Mano Dura" or "Super
Heavy Hand," responded to a crime wave that struck El Salvador during the postwar years. In 1994 the
homicide rate in El Salvador reached 138 per 100,000 residents, as compared to 30 per 100,000 residents
in the prewar years (Dalton 2002a; Dalton 2002b),2 and by 1996, according to World Bank statistics, El
Salvador was considered the most dangerous country in the Americas (Dalton 2001a). By 2001, an
average of fourteen cars were being stolen and six homicides were being committed daily (Dalton 2001b),
and a survey conducted in 2002 found that 25 percent of all Salvadorans reported having been the victim
of an assault or robbery in the previous four months (El Diario de Hoy 2002). While crime in El Salvador
assumed many forms, including "minor urban crime, private and public corruption, white collar financial
embezzlement of large fraudulent financiers, organized crime (like the international bands of car thieves
and drug smugglers), intrafamily and youth violence, massacres of entire families, the activities of
assassins and the aftermath, pseudo-political or not, of kidnappers who cling to the past" (Bejar 1998, 98),
publicly gangs were blamed for the crime problem. In 2004, when Super Mano Dura was launched,
newspaper advertisements announced, "iA los pandilleros se les acabo la fiesta! Hoy si tenemos Super
Mano Dura" (The gang members' party is over! We now have Super Mano Dura.)
The criminalization of being undocumented spurs an everlasting fear of
deportation that is used by the empowered for personal gain
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Intro, p. 22-23)
Although some state laws include protections for undocumented immigrants in the workplace, such as
minimum wage, overtime pay, workers compensation, and disability insurance, undocumented workers are not
entitled to legal recourse to recover back pay if they are fired because they are unauthorized to
work. If undocumented workers exercise their few legal rights to report workplace and labor violations, they
also put themselves at risk for incarceration and deportation.58 Furthermore, employers use the
threat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids to scare and intimidate workers
before paydays.59 Undocumented labor enables corporations to bypass labor and antidiscrimination
laws as well as health and safety regulations because undocumented workers are made too vulnerable by
immigration law to be able to utilize their rights as workers under state labor laws. Since U.S. laws cannot offer redress to
socially “dead to other” populations, such as undocumented immigrants and chronically unemployed African American
citizens, access to legal recourse becomes understood as something the population in power
decides to give freely or deny absolutely. It is, therefore, understandable that appealing to dominant populations’ sympathies and
sense of morality is a popular political tactic. Because poor people of color are legally disempowered, they are
positioned by law as having to rely on those whom the law empowers — those who,
consequentially, take it upon themselves to evaluate whether marginalized groups deserve the
rights, recognition, or resources their members are requesting. Both undocumented immigrants and
unemployed, impoverished citizens are legally ineligible for personhood because they cannot invoke the laws that
address unlivable wages or unfair hiring practices. Unemployment and illegal status leave people legally vulnerable because of U.S.
law, rather
than protected by it, because it is all but legal to discriminate against both groups.
Hence, because permanently criminalized, rightless statuses are also always already racialized,
law ensures that there will always be a population of color rendered permanently rightless in the
United States.
Deportation leads to violent crimes against and marginalization of noncitizens
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 114-115)//HW
Victor’s and Freddy’s experiences suggest that in the current era, forced removal—or
deportation—has effects that confound three of its ostensible goals. First, despite popular and
legal rhetoric depicting deportation as the unproblematic return of noncitizens to their
homelands, deportees fre¬quently experience removal as an exile from their home. This
sense of exile is often reinforced by the reactions of fellow citizens in their countries-of- origin,
who perceive and treat deportees as outsiders, foreigners, and/or vio¬lent criminals threatening
state security. Second, deportees and their family members experience a post-deportation
victimization that confounds popu¬lar perceptions of these migrants as troublemakers who, at a
minimum, have violated prohibitions on unauthorized entry or, at a maximum, have
victim¬ized others through violent crime. Some have argued that deportation is a form of “social
cleansing,” designed to rid society of individuals and groups that are considered undesirable (De
Genova 2002; Kanstroom 2000, 2007). For example, the U.S. government claims that its
removal policies reduce crime by targeting noncitizen offenders. Through this claim, the
govern¬ment suggests that it is addressing street violence stereotypically associated with
undocumented migrants (Chacon 2007; Dingeman and Rumbaut 2010). While such claims
appease immigration restrictionists in receiving countries, our research suggests that
deportation may, in fact, spread crime by exposing deportees to violence at the hands of
gang members, security guards, and even the police. Third, deportees’ responses to dislocation
are varied. Some are able to develop new and successful lives in their countries of origin, others
languish or turn to delinquency, and still others, like Victor and Freddy, defy banishment. While
deportation ostensibly keeps people out of the United States, many deportees return
clandestinely in spite of formal bans on their re-entry. Such returns push individuals further
underground, creating an increasingly vulnerable underclass of migrants ineligible for work
authorization and legal documentation and therefore at risk for further victimization.
Deportation severely harms the families of deportees – separation of parents from children,
destruction of marriages, and de facto deportations of citizen relatives
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 126-127)//HW
In addition to deportees themselves, deportees’ family members are indi¬rectly victimized
through deportation. They are like the relatives of prison¬ers in the United States, who “do
time” on the outside while their husbands serve lengthy sentences in prison, becoming “quasi
inmates” who “dwell in the juxtaposition of two ostensibly separate worlds. .. both captive and
free” (Comfort 2008: 17-18). Similarly, while relatives left behind after their fam¬ily members
are deported usually do not undergo exile themselves, they are forcibly separated from their
loved ones. Families suffer the socioeconomic consequences of the loss of a primary
breadwinner, children grow up without the presence of a parent, and families must find creative
ways to negotiate life across borders if they are to maintain their relationships. Some children—
even U.S. citizens—accompany parents who are deported, and thus undergo a de facto
deportation. In these ways, families’ lived experiences, and future trajectories, become
inextricably linked to the current deportation regime.¶ Many of the men we interviewed
expressed deep sorrow about separation from their family members. Speaking about how he felt
when he was first deported, one interviewee stated, “I was destroyed inside. I was destroyed. It
was horrible. It’s a horrible feeling. It’s like you know you will be so far away from your family,
you know. Your friends and your whole life is just like ripped in front of you. . . . They pull you
out of everything you know in your life.” These painful ruptures are compounded by the changes
they must make for not only financial, but also marital survival. Routine phone calls and emails
sustain some struggling relationships but, over time, other relationships become permanently
severed as deportees and their wives start new families. Deportees’ U.S. children are therefore at
risk of growing up in single-parent, reconfigured, and foster care homes. One deportee
described his predicament:¶ I have two kids over there, and it’s kind of hard because my kids, I
did everything I could for them. I never paid child support, because me and the mother of my
kids were not together. But I always took them on week¬ends. And I worked, I always worked. I
used to help them, take them for vacations. They went to Los Angeles, Las Vegas. They’ve been
practically everywhere with me. Now that I’m here, I’ve lost contact with them. Their mother got
hooked on drugs. My kids are with foster parents. I stress about that all the time. Wonder how
they are doing. That’s practically one of my biggest [sources of] suffering right now. . . . The last
I knew, my daugh¬ter had problems with her foster parents and she got changed to another
house. It’s tough knowing that. I speak to my mother all the time, and she tells me to be strong.
But it’s hard.
2AC Ext. Dehumanization
The discourse used in media has resulted in a strong stigmatization of
deportees, making transition into society impossible—deportees are
dehumanized while trapped in their own prison, all the while positioned
outside the boundaries of what defines citizenship and even more,
humanity
Coutin ’13 – Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology and is professor in the Department of
Criminology, Law, and Society and the Department of Anthropology at the University of
California, Irvine. Her research has examined social, political, and legal activism surrounding
immigration issues, particularly immigration from El Salvador to the United States. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 243-244)//cl
Government antigang policies have made it very difficult for deportees who may be or resemble
gang members to survive within El Salvador. These initiatives created a temporary special
security regimen to contend with the emergency created by gangs and high crime. Within this
regimen, gangs were defined as "illicit associations," making gang member¬ship—as evidenced
by displaying tattoos, throwing hand signs, or obeying gang leaders—a crime. Soldiers joined
police in the fight against gangs, resulting in the detention of 19,275 suspected gang members
(FESPAD and CEPES 2004). This public effort was accompanied by the securitization or
militarization of private space. In El Salvador, it was common for businesses, offices, banks,
stores, fast-food restaurants, gas stations, pharmacies, car repair shops, and even homes (in the
case of affluent individuals) to hire security guards who prominently displayed their guns.
Owners of small, street-side shops sometimes sold their products to customers through barred
windows (Godoy 2005). Homes were frequently behind walls or, in the case of those who were
economically advantaged, behind gates with security systems and armed guards. Public
discourse conflated crime with gangs, and gangs with deportation, as one NGO
member who worked with deportees noted during an interview: "Here, we [ Salvadoran society]
blame the deportees for everything bad that happens. For crime, for murders, for drug
problems, for gang problems, for everything. There is an extreme stigmatization, which
the communication media contribute to as well. There will be an article in the paper—
'100 murderers deported,' or '100 gang members deported: Salvadoran society closes its doors
to the reinsertion of deportees." Such security measures and public discourse made it hard for
deportees to pursue such everyday activities as traveling, shopping, working, socializing, or
going to school. One deportee interviewed in 2004 explained, "Let's say that you apply for a job
and they see that you speak English. Then they won't want to know anything else about the
situation here. They'll just say, 'How did you learn English? How long were you there? Oh, you
were deported? What for?' and then they think that it's better not to hire you for the job."
Another deportee, who worked with Homies Unidos, commented during a 2004 interview that
almost all deportees who stay in El Salvador are in prison. "Or," he said, "they stay in prisons
of their own, locking themselves in their houses and remaining hidden. They can
only be gang members inside their homes. When they go out, they have to wear elegant clothing,
get elegant haircuts." In these circumstances, deportees (particularly those with criminal
convictions) had few options. Immigrant advocates who worked with deportees in El Salvador
estimated that between 40 and 60 percent of deportees returned illegally to the United States,
where they faced incarceration if apprehended. The near impossibility of living in the
United States or in El Salvador placed deportees with criminal convictions outside
of the bounds of the citizenry of each nation, and indeed almost outside the
bounds of humanity.
The term “illegality” is engrained in immigration
law and objectifies Mexicans
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, p. 22-23, TS)
There is nothing matter-of-fact, therefore, about the "illegality" of
undocumented mi-grants. "Illegality " (in its contemporary configuration) is the
product of U.S. immigration law —not merely in the abstract sense that without the
law nothing could be construed to be outside of the law, nor simply in the generic sense that immigration
law constructs, dif-ferentiates, and ranks various categories of "aliens," but in the more profound sense
the history of deliberate interventions beginning in 1965 that
have revised and reformulated the law has entailed an active
process of inclusion through illegalization (cf. Calavita, 1982, 13; Hagan, 1994,
82; Coutin, 2000). Indeed, the legal production of "illegality" has made an
object of Mexican migration in particular , in ways both historically
that
unprecedented and disproportionately deleterious.
ICE puts a dollar sign on immigrants causing an
incentive to detain more people and create a space
of dehumanization
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 16, TS)
To facilitate the current deportation drive, the DHS has
developed, over the past decade and a half or so, a vast complex of carceral
spaces in which to detain immigrants pending their removal from the
United States. The growth of the carceral complex has been such that ICE's Enforcement and
Removal Operations (ERO) directorate now runs the largest detention operation
in the nation (Schriro 2009). In 2011, ICE detained 429,247 foreign nationals, more than five
times the number of people held in 1994 (81,707) and about a 105 percent increase from 2001 (209,000)
(US DHS 2012a, 4; Taylor 1995, 1107; Kerwin and Lin 2009, 7). Meanwhile, the number of INS/ICE
detainees per day has risen from 6,785 in 1994 to 20,429 in 2001, and all the way up to 33,384 in 2011
(Kerwin and Lin 2009, 6; US ICE 2012). The average length of stay for immigrants in ICE custody is
twenty-nine days (US ICE 2012). However, there is considerable variation between individual cases. Many
of those detained are released within one day of admission, but it is not uncommon for some to be held for
a year or longer (Schriro 2009, 6). Generally, detainees who agree to voluntary removal have shorter stays
than those who challenge their deportation or file an asylum claim. ICE houses its detainee population in
a variety of facilities. These include six ICE-owned Service Processing Centers (SPCs), seven private
prisons known as Contract Detention Facilities (CDFs), and more than two hundred forty
Intergovernmental Service Agreement facilities—basically local and county jails (both public and private)
that contract with ICE to hold immigrant detainees (National Immigration Forum 2012b; US ICE
Notably, for-profit prison corporations play a huge role in
managing the immigrant detention complex. They not only own and operate
2012).24
the seven CDFs, but also manage all but one of ICE's SPCs and most of the largest local and county jails
with which ICE contracts (Kerwin 2009). Given the control that private entities have gained over
immigration detention facilities, Judy Greene and Sunita Patel (2007, 48) suggest that
immigrants are fast becoming the modern day cash crop of the
prison industry?' Indeed, with ICE paying its contractees an estimated
average of one hundred twenty-two dollars per day for each
immigrant detained, there is a lot of money to be made in the
immigration detention business (National Immigration Forum 2012b, 2).Ultimately,
"
the delegation of immigrant confinement to organizations whose main purpose is to generate profits
inevitably produces pressure to increase detentions: the more immigrants confined, the higher the profits.
Immigrant bodies have thus become valuable commodities whose
worth lies in being placed and kept behind bars.25
The criminalization of certain groups are determined not by actions but by
their appearance – stripping their rights from primary confrontation
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Intro, p. 6-8)
To say that some groups form the foundation for law is to say that law is dependent upon the
permanence of certain groups’ criminalization. These permanently criminalized people are the groups to
whom I refer as ineligible for personhood — as populations subjected to laws but refused the legal means to contest
those laws as well as denied both the political legitimacy and moral credibility necessary to question them. These populations
are excluded from the ostensibly democratic processes that legitimate U.S. law, yet they are
expected to unambiguously accept and unequivocally uphold a legal and political system that
depends on the unquestioned permanency of their rightlessness. As I will argue, targeted
populations do not need to break laws to be criminalized. Their behaviors are criminalized even
if their crimes are victimless (using street drugs), even if their actual activities are not illegal at all (using health care), and
even if the evidence is not actually evidence (“looking like a terrorist”). Criminalization can operate through
instituting laws that cannot be followed. People subjected to laws based on their (il)legal status — “illegal aliens,”
“gang members,” “terrorist suspects” — are unable to comply with the “rule of law” because U.S. law targets their being
and their bodies, not their behavior. They are denied not only the illusion of authorship but even the possibility of
compliance.9 Certain populations’ very humanity is represented as something that one becomes or
achieves, that one must earn because it cannot just be.10 These populations are denied what political
philosopher Hannah Arendt calls “the right to have rights.”11 The bodies and localities of poor, criminalized
people of color are signifiers for those who are ineligible for personhood, for those contemporary (il)legal statuses
within U.S. law that are legally illegible. These statuses are legally illegible because they engender populations not just
racialized but rightless, living nonbeings, or, in Judith Butler’s words, as “something living that is other than life.”12 To be ineligible
for personhood is a form of social death;13 it not only defines who does not matter, it also makes mattering meaningful. For different
reasons,
undocumented immigrants, the racialized poor of the global South, and criminalized U.S. residents of color in
both inner cities and rural areas are populations who “never achieve, in the eyes of others, the
status of ‘living.’ ”14 In her study of death, race, sexuality, and subjectivity, Sharon Holland observes that in the space of social
death, “there is no full embrace of the margin here, only the chance to struggle against both a
killing abstraction and a life-in-death; neither choice is an appealing option.”15 The killing abstraction
is not itself abstract. It references the ways in which racialized populations are made unduly
vulnerable by global capitalism and neoliberal restructuring, and it refers to the way they are
positioned absolutely and necessarily beyond legal recourse. Urban geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore names
these killing, abstracting practices and processes “racism”: Racism is a practice of abstraction, a deathdealing displacement of difference into hierarchies that organize relations within and between
the planet’s sovereign political territories. . . . Indeed, the process of abstraction that signifies racism produces effects
at the most intimately “sovereign” scale, insofar as particular kinds of bodies, one by one, are materially (if not always visibly)
configured by racism into a hierarchy of human and inhuman persons that in sum form the
category of “human being.”16 Racism is a killing abstraction. It creates spaces of living death
and populations “dead-to-others.”17 It ensures that certain people will live an “abstract
existence” where “living [is] something to be achieved and not experienced.”18 Engendered by corporate
capital and the neoliberal state, ineligibility to personhood refers to the state of being legally recognized
as rightless, located in the spaces of social death where demands for humanity are ultimately disempowering because they can
be interpreted only as asking to be given something sacred in return for nothing at all.19 By definition an inalienable
right cannot be taken or given away, and, therefore, it cannot really be reconferred. Regardless
of citizenship status, whether people of color deserve rights and resources is often questioned because those with social
privilege often still interpret economic, social, political, and/or legal integration as a (conditional) “gift.”20 Ineligibility to
personhood is the contemporary manifestation of what Orlando Patterson refers to as the
“inalienability problem.”21 In his seminal work on slavery and social death, Patterson explains
that the act of freeing slaves, specifically their transformation from possession to personhood,
was legally, economically, and conceptually illegible. Because the master already owned
anything a slave could give, freedom could only be conceived of as granted, never actually purchased, so “even though
slaves paid dearly in one way or another for their freedom . . . freedom itself was still regarded as a gift from the master or
mistress.”22 When slaves bought their freedom, the transaction did not give them what their master possessed by owning them,
“for
the master does not convey dominion or power to the slave; he merely releases him from his
dominion.”23 Buying “freedom” did not transmit empowerment; it reconfigured the slave’s
relationship to the master’s power.
The criminalized fall under differential inclusion causing them to be used
as slaves above all else
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Intro, p. 5-6)
In this vein, people
who occupy legally vulnerable and criminalized statuses are not just excluded
from justice; criminalized populations and the places where they live form the foundation of the U.S.
legal system, imagined to be the reason why a punitive (in)justice system exists. Although they are excluded from
law’s protection, they are not excluded from law’s discipline, punishment, and regulation. Their position
evidences what ethnic studies scholar Yen Le Espiritu terms “differential inclusion.”6 As Espiritu argues,
marginalized groups are “deemed integral to the nation’s economy, culture, identity, and power
— but integral only or precisely because of their designated subordinate standing.”7 Certain
vulnerable and impoverished populations and places of color have been “differentially included” within the U.S. legal
system. As targets of regulation and containment, they are deemed deserving of discipline and punishment
but not worthy of protection. They are not merely excluded from legal protection but criminalized
as always already the object and target of law, never its authors or addressees. As the foundation of law, certain
racialized populations are excluded from its protections and its processes of legitimation, but they
are not quite imagined as completely outside the law because to be outside the law suggests that eventual inclusion is possible. When
immigration law excluded people of particular races and national origins from immigrating, it was not permanent. Because these
laws explicitly criminalized identities, they could be changed or rescinded to incorporate
previously excluded groups. They did not, however, fundamentally change the criminalized
statuses such laws produced. For instance, Chinese Exclusion (1882) produced Chinese “illegal aliens.”8 Repealing
Chinese Exclusion (1943) enabled more immigrants from China to enter the United States legally, but it
did not change the vulnerable legal status of the “illegal alien.” The “illegal” or unlawful alien is a
status that forms the foundation of immigration law, and, therefore, the unlawful alien cannot be incorporated
into immigration or naturalization law. Laws that have tried to address the problem of having an undocumented, rightless
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, for example,
provided a path toward legalization and citizenship for a specific contingent of undocumented immigrants, but
it did not change or decriminalize the rightless status of the “illegal alien.” All those who did not
qualify (or could not prove that they qualified) under the exemption would still be criminalized, demonized, and
rendered rightless. Recent proposals for a federal Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act)
population have only been able to make exceptions.
also propose to create exceptions to current immigration law (i.e., by giving a path to legalization to undocumented college educated
students and undocumented persons who serve the military).
But the DREAM Act proposals do not address the
fundamental problem of immigration law: that it creates a permanently rightless status.
Criminalization of undocumented immigrants has violent, unintended
consequences that decimate value to life
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 8-9)//HW
Some of these consequences can be anticipated. For example, individuals who immigrate
without proper authorization may be deported and employ¬ers who hire undocumented
workers may be sanctioned. Individuals make choices in light of these risks. A second set of
consequences, while readily apparent, is less likely to be anticipated. These include, for example,
the dev¬astating effects of parents’ deportation on children and other family mem¬bers, some
of whom may be citizens. And, because attorneys practicing in criminal or family law may not
have a complete understanding of immigra¬tion law, they may unknowingly recommend
actions that have devastating ramifications for their client’s immigration status.¶ Yet a third
group of consequences are what we call hidden, state-created vulnerabilities. These include
harms to individuals (e.g., increased victim¬ization by unscrupulous employers, fear of
reporting violence in the home, risks from human traffickers, etc.) and to communities (e.g.,
reduced willing¬ness of victims and witnesses to report crime, reduced efficacy of the public
health sector and school systems because immigrants fear interacting with government
employees). In other contexts, these state-created vulnerabili¬ties may include forced
relocations and displacement of refugees, rape and other assaults against displaced persons, or
finding oneself in unfamiliar and unsafe settings following deportation or relocation. The
chapters included in this section of the volume exemplify some of these anticipated and
unanticipated collateral consequences. As a set, they help us understand the myriad ways in
which our policies and practices cre¬ate new dilemmas even as they seek, often unsuccessfully,
to resolve other problems confronting societies today. Evelyn Cruz’s chapter, Unearthing and
Confronting the Social Skeletons of Immigration Status in our Crimi¬nal Justice System,
examines the breach of trust that can arise when crimi¬nal defense attorneys are unaware of the
immigration consequences of the advice they offer to clients. Without such knowledge, attorneys
may unwit¬tingly recommend legal actions that result in deportation and permanent bars
against re-entering the country. Examining just such a situation in the case of the Postville
workers, Cruz takes us beyond the consequences for individuals to help us confront the
ramifications for our legal order when cli¬ents cannot trust that their attorneys will give them
competent legal advice. ¶ Workplace and community raids may result in the arrest and
deportation of persons who have lived in the host country for many years. Also, lawful
permanent residents convicted of “aggravated felonies” are subject to man¬datory deportation.
The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration
Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), in combination, expanded the category of
aggravated felonies to include a range of minor and nonviolent offenses and made deportation
mandatory even for persons who had already, served their criminal sentence or when the offense
did not fit the criteria for mandatory deportation at the time of conviction. The 1996
immigration laws also eliminated immigration hearings for legal permanent residents facing
deportation based on aggra¬vated felony convictions (International Human Rights Law Clinic
2010: 3). If these individuals come into contact with the criminal justice system or immigration
officials for any reason, they risk immediate deportation. This broader net includes many
immigrants who have lived in the United States for years and have raised families here.
Decriminalization is critical now – ripple effect of the unequal judicial proceedings
for noncitizens
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 91-93)//HW
The need for competent representation of noncitizens in criminal proceed¬ings has never
been more critical. As documented extensively in the first section of the volume, in the last
20 years, domestic immigration laws have become more complex and severe. Additionally, the
line between criminal proceedings and immigration proceedings has blurred. Today, what is
decided in the criminal case may very well seal the noncitizen’s fate in the removal process. And,
in the name of efficiency, law enforcement agencies are pressing the judicial system to combine
criminal and immigration proceedings into one simultaneous administration in which one
tribunal decides both the criminal and immigration fates of the noncitizen defendant (Taylor
and Wright 2002:1151-57). For criminal tribunals, the convergence of criminal and immigration
law in the courtroom challenges the judge who “bears the ‘heavy responsibility> for presiding
over a ‘fair’ proceeding, which includes not only what occurs at trial itself, but outcomes
produced by the common result of settlement”(Pearce 2004: 978 n.48). The noncitizen status of
the defendant alters the stakes of the criminal proceedings and, if ignored, fosters distrust of the
judicial system.¶ Noncitizen criminal defendants find themselves on unequal footing
with U.S. citizen defendants. Noncitizens are often subjected to disparate treat¬ment
in bail and sentencing because of their immigration status (Ruvalcaba v. Nevada 2006). The
threat of removal looms large in the criminal proceed¬ings. These inequalities lead to
disillusionment with the American legal sys¬tem and its effectiveness.¶ There is a social
ripple effect to the noncitizens encounters with the judi¬cial system. Mixed-status
families are a fact of life in immigrant communi¬ties. Over half of the 16 million Latino children
in the United States have at least one immigrant parent (Fry and Passel 2009). Of all new lawful
perma¬nent residents, 65 percent obtain status based on a family relationship with a U.S.
citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States (USDHS 20091). A majority of Latinos,
even in the absence of criminal proceedings, worry about deportation—their own or that of a
family member. As a result, the despair and disillusionment that noncitizen defendants feel
toward the legal system spills over to the entire population (Lopez and Minushkin
2008b).
2AC Ext. State Bad
Prisons are an attempt at confinement that reifies the state’s obsession with
management of persons deemed “dangerous”
Coutin ’13 – Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology and is professor in the Department of
Criminology, Law, and Society and the Department of Anthropology at the University of
California, Irvine. Her research has examined social, political, and legal activism surrounding
immigration issues, particularly immigration from El Salvador to the United States. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 237-238)//cl
The convergence between immigration and criminal justice policies extends the logic of massincarceration policies to immigrant populations. Correctional practices have recently moved
from a rehabilitation model to what Feeley and Simon (1992) term "risk management." Instead
of attempting to reform socially deviant individuals, prisons now attempt to "manage"
dangerous persons, who are then "warehoused" as part of ever-growing prison
populations . Prisons are conceptualized as a space outside society (Schinkel 2002), as
evidenced by the increasing use of the term "reentry" to refer to being released from prison
(Petersilia 2003). Targeting noncitizens who have been convicted of crimes extends
this spatialized logic in that such individuals are physically removed from U.S. society and
territory, initially through detention centers and eventually through deportation.
Warehousing of fenders and deporting noncitizens with criminal convictions also
have similar social consequences. In both cases, individuals are removed from
communities, family members are subjected to lengthy separations, and
populations are excluded from the electoral process (felons are often disenfranchised,
and noncitizens cannot vote in the United States). A Bureau of Justice Statistics report
attributed 14 percent of the growth in the federal prison population between 1985 and 2000 to
increases in the incarceration of immigration offenders (Scalia and Litras 2002). The 1996 laws
had an immediate and dramatic effect on the number of noncitizens forcibly removed from the
United States, as table 1 show.
The otherization of immigrants is problematic, stemming from the state’s
ambiguous management of the border. Migrants are unsure about their
position in American society—performative acts are forms of belonging and
opposition to the logics of the state
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 260-261)//cl
More specific to migration and Latina/o identity, however, scholars draw on the term hybridity
to discuss the melding of cultures and the fusion of political identities.' As discussed above,
dominant logics of immigration present a contradictory picture of immigrants and their role in
the US. Immigrants are conceived of as physically within our borders yet not within our
people, necessary but threatening to the integrity of the nation. There is a "deep ambivalence"
about immigrants' role in US society and a conflicting view of immigration.' This "troublesome
both/and" of migrants is evident in the contradictory public discourses of immigration
throughout American history and in the binary interpretations of LGM (as either alien or
American) discussed above.' Yet viewing activities like LGM through the discursive or
performative perspective on citizenship can focus our attention on how migrants negotiate this
productive tension at the heart of US national identity. As scholars such as Homi Bhabha and
May Joseph have argued, there is a congruence between the condition of migrants (e.g., a
"troublesome both/ and") that contributes both to anxiety over immigration and concurrently to
the agency of migrants to reformulate national belonging.' In other words, the "ambiguous
positionality" of migrants—their hybrid status as both "necessary and unwelcome,
... both visible and invisible, both acknowledged and ignored"—creates anxiety in
dominant society because of the very power migrants possess to problematize
borders and lay bare the otherization endemic to citizenship.' As Joseph explains,
there is a radical potential in the "tenuous" condition of migration that "sunders the relationship
between passport and citizen and challenges any tidy division between citizen and
noncitizen."45 In this case, performances of citizenship by immigrants entail not only hybrid
rhetorical form and a fusion of rhetorical functions but also the synthesis of political and
transnational identities. On the one hand, the hybridity of many migrants and minorities—their
status as "both us ... and not us"—fuels "a deep anxiety about the national project.'46 Hybridity
can be threatening to dominant logics, fueling attempts to shore up the borders of national
identity. On the other hand, the hybrid position of migrants can challenge sedimented cultural
forms by crafting new, diverse, and multi-positional forms of political identity. In sum,
appropriation of the conditions that often make migrants abject creates opportunities to
(re)border US citizenship and national identity. I contend that LGM was fundamentally a hybrid
performance of citizenship that fused multiple, transnational citizenship traditions and varied
forms of discourse into a new vision of the civic imaginary. In the following section I explain
how LGM enacted hybrid citizenship through a dynamic discourse involving signs and chants
(verbal rhetoric), flags and symbols (visual rhetoric), and physical presence (embodied rhetoric).
By coming out in public and staging a multi-discursive performance of US citizenship,
protestors in LGM enacted US citizenship and civic identity. Yet by flouting their violations of
citizenship laws (their violations of the border), celebrating transnational political and cultural
traditions, and embodying racial difference, the protestors problematized citizenship,
creating a hybrid "discursive space.'47 In other words, the protest was
simultaneously an act of position (i.e., citizenship) and an act of op-position to
dominant logics of immigration.
2AC Ext. Inherency
The discourse of the border has structured the American identity to be an
exclusive, overshadowing entity that dictates social relations between those
that are “inside” the borders and those that are excluded
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 252-253)//cl
Persistent public controversy about immigration and its impact on society points to a deep
public anxiety about the integrity of the nation. As a recent essay by D. Robert DeChaine argues,
"the specter of the border haunts the language of social relations."' Obsession over
the literal and symbolic border between American and foreigner, between us and them, is
motivated in part by fear of the dilution and dissolution of US citizenship. As a result,
alienization of the non-citizen is fundamental to the rhetorical maintenance of US identity.
Discursive bordering is a "double-edged sword," for in order to make citizenship (or Americanness, in this case) a special and desired identity, it must not only be desirable but
also exclusive and difficult to attain.' Migrants and racial and ethnic minorities, among
other minority groups, have served as "others" through which US identity is constituted in part.
Consequently, many scholars have traced how contemporary mass media discourse, popular
culture, and political rhetoric surrounding immigration attempt to "border" the nation, shoring
up the demarcations between citizen and alien through constructions of race, culture, and
gender.' However, while (rhetorical) bordering may be our obsession, it is not totalizing.
Discourses of US national identity certainly define the border between citizen and
non-citizen and also structure the lives of immigrants, who live in the shadows as
"impossible subjects."' However, migrants regularly struggle with these dominant logics of
the border and of US citizenship; they are not merely victims of alienization and exclusion. We
know that "citizenship enactment necessarily involves hegemonic struggles over the very
meaning of the term 'citizen' in a multipublic sphere."' Dominant discourses of US citizenship
are contested through alternative attempts to (re)border the civic imaginary . Just as the
border is drawn to exclude migrants based on their legal, racial, ethnic, or other
"difference," borders can be redrawn to reshape the contours of US citizenship. In
this chapter I show how migrants, who embody a "troublesome" ambivalence and ambiguity as
transnational subjects, resist and rewrite dominant representations of the ideal US citizen
The stereotyping of immigrants has stigmatized them into a source of
danger, fear, and cultural disintegration
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 255-257)//cl
Scholars and community activists agree that LGM was mobilized—in the most immediate
sense—in opposition to Congressional immigration legislation (H.R. 4437) and the antiimmigrant, anti-Latino discourse surrounding this initiative in the popular media.' Throughout
the fall of 2005, Congress debated proposals for "comprehensive" immigration reform as
President Bush toured the country speaking in border states such as Arizona, Texas, and New
Mexico. In December 2005 the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4437, a bill that would
impose a number of restrictions on federal immigration policy, such as making both
undocumented immigration and the aiding of undocumented immigrants felony crimes,
mandating the building of a massive border fence, and authorizing the im¬mediate deportation
of undocumented immigrants. Concurrent with this legislative debate, numerous vigilante
Minutemen groups—spurred on by fears of "illegal immigration"—began to police the border,
protest immigration, and purportedly protect the sanctity of the CS nation (see Chavez, this
volume). Popular discourses of immigration—whether emanating from political leaders,
mainstream media, or radical groups like the Minutemen—relied on "deeply embedded"
stereotypes and dominant logics of immigration as a social problem and of
immigrants as threats to the nation. As Kent Ono and John Sloop's book Shifting Borders
shows, these dominant logics of immigration are so entrenched in US identity and cultural
history that even discourses that champion immigrant rights often employ assumptions of US
citizenship as a static identity that must adapt to and/or benefit from the introduction of
immigrant "others."' In other words, the immigrant is often a "symbol of hope"
justifying both US citizenship and US exceptionalism. However, this is only insofar as
the immigrant evidences cultural myths of assimilation such as "a nation of immigrants" or "the
melting pot." More often than not , the immigrant is "a source of fear" and anxiety, a
threat to national unity and the cultural integrity of the nation." As a result of these
exigencies created by Congressional legislation and popular debate about immigration, "diverse
organizational constituencies were . . . mobilized," including activists and community leaders,
documented and undocumented immigrants, and sec¬ond- and third-generation Latina/os.' A
series of summits were held throughout the country which were organized by grassroots groups
and "were designed to forge a coalition to confront the Minutemen and to address a growing
anti-Latino migrant climate.' These organizations ranged from Latina/o and immigrant activist
groups, like the Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and the National Alliance for Human Rights, to
larger labor groups, like the Service Employees International Union and the United Farm
Workers (UFW). After organizing the basic elements of LGM, activists and organizers reached
out to La¬tino media to promote the march and spur discussion about H.R. 4437. Radio DJs in
par¬ticular played a key role in mobilizing popular support and participation by promoting
LGM to both Latina/o citizens and immigrants." Though protests in Chicago and Phoenix in
early March (organized by many of the same groups and activists) provided impetus for LGM,
the size and scope of the LA march exceeded all expectations. As one organizer—Victor Narro of
the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education—remembered: By 7am it was clear that
there were more than [the projected] 50 000 [sic] people ready to march. Most of the organizers
had not even got there. Some had not even woken up yet. I had to quickly recruit people to do crowed
[sic] control. I remember asking random people to help with security as they got off the bus and training
them on the spot.' Though ultimate calculations of the protest's size varied widely, even conservative
estimates placed LGM at half a million participants.As a result, LGM was a galvanizing event that sparked
a nationwide protest movement. As Alfonso Gonzales argues, anti-immigrant forces saw it as "proof of
[immigrants' and Latina/os'] unwillingness to assimilate" while "migrants and their allies" saw the march
as "a national wakeup call to action."' Many studies of LGM have focused on the mobilization of the
protest movement as well as its effects on Latina/o political solidarity and public opinion about
im¬migration.21 Yet as Richard Pineda and Stacey Sowards argue, the presence of multiple
national flags and even the protestors' bodies served as points of contestation in debates about
immigration and citizenship.22 Following on this work, I argue that LGM was a hybrid
performance of US citizenship that contested dominant discourses of immigration and
(re)bordered the US civic imaginary. In the next section, I explain the theoretical grounding of
this argument by elaborating on the performative dimensions of US citizenship.
Performative acts are an intersection of national identity and immigration,
and requires recognition of hybridity in discussion
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 259-260)//cl
A discursive view of national identity necessitates a discussion of hybridity, for, as Asen
ar¬gues,"acts do not possess intrinsic value" as expressions of citizenship. An act such as
buying fair trade coffee can be one of many "hybrid cases" of citizenship because it has a hybrid
function; it is at once a performance of citizenship and an act of consumption (which is not an
inherently civic act).37 In the same vein, a political protest may perform citizenship and civic
engagement in the public sphere while simultaneously serving to consolidate the solidarity of
the protestors and contribute to the group's self-affirmation. Hybridity is a meta¬phor for the
complex and intersecting purposes of many performances of citizenship, which, like other
performances, feature a fusion of audiences (both inward and outward-directed) and functions
(artistic expression, political statement, entertainment, etc.).In another sense, Kathleen Hall
Jamieson and Karlyn Kohrs Campbell use hybridity as a metaphor to explain the "productive
but transitory character of ... combinations" in genres of discourse." The metaphor of hybridity
describes not the function but the multiform nature of discourses that combine multiple generic
elements and styles. In a more recent article, Darrel Enck-Wanzer speculates about the radical
possibilities of this hybrid (or what he calls "intersectional") rhetorical form, in which "one form
of discourse is not privileged over another; rather, diverse forms intersect organically to create
something challenging to rhetorical norms." In his discussion of the Young Lords Party's
"garbage offensive," Enck-Wanzer shows how a hybrid rhetorical form reshapes community and
challenges conventions of "US liberal democracy." Therefore, performative enactments of
citizenship can be called hybrid both in terms of their compound function—as quotidian
acts and as acts of civic engagement—and in terms of their hybrid rhetorical form—since
many performances of citizenship fuse multiple forms of discourse together. As this
review suggests, beyond grounding as situated, staged, and aesthetically marked performance of
national belonging, turning scholarly attention to discourses of citizenship and national identity
necessitates attention to the hybrid functions and rhetorical forms of this rhetoric.
Immigration enforcement incapacitates
undocumented immigrants
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology from the
University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of immigration, governmentality and
life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the
United States. Dr. Inda is currently Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive
Theory. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 2-3, TS)
The immigration enforcement action that took place in Postville is not unique.2 It
is actually emblematic of a broader practice of government that has
aggressively criminalized unauthorized immigrants (see De Genova 2002;
Miller 2003; Inda 2006a; Chacón 2009; Coutin 2010; Rosas 2012). Building on the work of Jonathan
we call this practice "governing immigration through
crime." Basically, to govern immigration through crime is to make
crime and punishment the institutional context in which efforts to
guide the conduct of immigrants take place.3 The objective is to
shape the comportment of the undocumented in such a way as to
incapacitate them and contain the "threat" they and their actions
putatively pose to the security of the nation. The most notable form that this
Simon (1997, 2007),
way of governing has assumed over the last twenty years or so is that of intensified law enforcement at the
The U.S.
federal government has essentially determined that the best way to deal
with the "problem" of undocumented immigration is by turning the United States
into a fortified enclave of sorts. Since 9/11, however, political and other authorities have
nation's borders (Andreas 2000; Nevins 2002; Inda 2006b; Heyman, this volume).
also placed a strong emphasis on the interior policing of the nation. For example, local and state law
enforcement agencies have progressively become more involved in policing immigration matters; criminal
prosecutions of immigration violations have increased; the number of undocumented immigrants
incarcerated in county jails, federal prisons, and privately run immigration detention centers has surged;
states have made it more difficult for unau¬thorized immigrants to obtain driver's licenses and other
identity documents; and raids—of homes, worksites, and public spaces—have become rather prevalent
(see Miller 2003; Chacón 2009; Coutin, this volume; Hernandez, this volume; Stumpf, this volume).
What we have witnessed, then, is the progressive criminalization
of migrants and a significant expand in the space of policing. In the
process, the boundaries of immigration enforcement migrated inward, turning much of the
interior of the United States into a border zone governmental
authorities endeavor to regulate putatively "dangerous" migrant
practices.
We have ignored the prosecution of immigrants in the US and the
legislation behind it
Hernandez 08 - Assistant Professor of Spanish, Latina/o & Latin American Studies (David
Manuel, "Pursuant to deportation: latinos and immigrant detention" www.palgravejournals.com/lst/journal/v6/n1/full/lst20082a.html0)
Several reasons, in addition to the exceptionalist rhetoric of 9/11 and the “war on terror,” help
explain the limited knowledge of Latino detention. Because detention by immigration authorities is
a liminal process that occurs, or is supposed to occur, as an administrative procedure pursuant to the execution of
deportation or exclusion orders, little is known about it or its history. Immigrant detention is further
eclipsed by the enormity and severity of the “prison industrial complex” in the US, or what Angela Davis
has called the “punishment industry” (Gordon, 1998/1999, 146). Over two million people – two thirds of whom are
nonwhite – are incarcerated in US prisons and jails, representing a tripling of this population since
1982 (Gilmore, 1998/1999, 171). While this is clearly cause for widespread concern, immigrant detainees, too, tripled in the 1990s
(Solomon, 1999), increasing, since then, to over 275,000 annually. Moreover, as a result of existing and proposed
legislation, they are scheduled to triple again in this decade. Immigrant detainees, however, are
incarcerated outside of the criminal court system and are largely unaddressed by prison
literatures. The parameters and conditions of detainees' confinement thus remain obscured and legally ambiguous. Consider
for example the recent political and social atmosphere surrounding immigration legislation. Despite
the intense criticism and praise that the US House of Representative's 2005 punitive immigration legislation (H.R.
4437) received, and the dramatic nationwide collective action which ensued in the spring and summer of 2006, few have
commented on the proposed legislation's detention and due process provisions that would have
dramatically increased the government's capacity to detain and deport noncitizens, including
legal permanent residents. Many of these detention provisions were also in the US Senate's more “affirmative”
immigration law of 2006 (S. 2611), and included: expanding the definition of an “aggravated felony,” which
mandates detention and deportation proceedings; increasing mandatory detention without relief and removing
barriers to indefinite detention; expanding expedited removal without a court hearing; and redefining “alien
smuggling,” such that it would criminalize family members, neighbors, co-workers, and relief
organizations who provide nonemergency aid to undocumented migrants. All these provisions, including
making unproven membership in a gang a deportable offense even if the person never committed a criminal act, would have
considerably impacted Latino communities and families. Yet
the seriousness of these provisions has been
overlooked by Democrats and national Latino organizations, who offered ambivalent support for Senate Bill
2611 because of its proposed guest worker program (Flores, 2006; National Council of La Raza, 2006). This blind spot to the
issue of detention further obscures one of the key federal authorities and disciplinary functions
of immigration policy.
Immigrants in the US face criminalization under every circumstance
Hernandez 08 - Assistant Professor of Spanish, Latina/o & Latin American Studies (David
Manuel, "Pursuant to deportation: latinos and immigrant detention" www.palgravejournals.com/lst/journal/v6/n1/full/lst20082a.html0)
The collective demographic profile of Latinos in the United States contributes to their vulnerability to confinement within the
detention infrastructure. Latinos'
numerical size, in particular in migration categories, and their “societal
construction as violent, foreign, criminal-minded, disloyal, and as overrunning the border” (Bender, 2002, 1154) have
contributed to the long history of Latino immigrant detention. Today, Latinos represent the largest
group of foreign born, documented and undocumented migrants, border apprehensions and
removals, criminal alien detainees, and the largest minority group in the United States. Researchers estimate
a range between 46 and 51% of adult Latinos in the US are first generation immigrants and an additional one-fifth to one-fourth of
all Latinos are their children (Mariscal, 2005, 39; Pew Hispanic Center, 2005, 2). In other words, a
majority of Latinos in
the US are immigrants or directly related to immigrants. The complex range of immigrant issues thus
affects a majority of Latinos in the US. In 2005, for example, Latinos represented seven of the top 10
foreign-born groups in immigrant detention, and Mexicans comprised half of all immigrant
detainees (Siskin, 2007, 13). Latinos thus predominate over immigrant detention today, and as we shall see, have been key
figures throughout its history. That immigrant detention threatens millions of Latino families and their
communities is cause for alarm and further study, especially the relationship between the detention processes and
other forms of structural and cultural inequality affecting Latino citizens and noncitizens.
Widespread beliefs about Latino criminality, especially as it relates to the widely bemoaned and sensationalized
presence of “illegals” or undocumented immigrants, have led to the routine and popular conflation of Mexican
nationals and other Latinos with “illegals.” The Department of Homeland Security estimates that Mexicans
represent 57% of undocumented immigration and that Latinos account for roughly three-fourths of current and new undocumented
immigrants (Hoefer et al., 2006). These
figures, although significant, contribute to the widespread
criminalization of Latinos, while simultaneously obscuring the fact that roughly half of each
year's cohort of new undocumented immigrants enter by legal means and have instead allowed their legal
entry status to lapse, and that there are undocumented immigrants from a variety of nations residing in the US. The vast
majority of government efforts to halt undocumented immigration, however, are targeted at
Mexican and Latino communities at the US–Mexico border. As a result, Mexicans have euphemistically
represented, indeed epitomized, “the illegal,” dominating deportation and detention categories for many decades (De Genova, 2004,
171). The
detention authority plays a significant role in criminalizing Latino noncitizens,
duplicating the punishment of the criminal justice system. Detention accentuates not simply the border
separating who remains in the US and who is deported, but the real weight of such processes is felt by the
creation of a social class inside the US, but outside its legal protections. The appropriate measure of detention, then,
is in the nearly 30 million noncitizens – the largest among them Latino immigrants and legal permanent residents – who
are subject to the threat of detention and deportation. According to Nicholas De Genova (2004, 161),
“Deportability is decisive in the legal production of Mexican/migrant ‘illegality’ and the
militarized policing of the US-Mexico border, however, only insofar as some are deported in
order that most may ultimately remain (un-deported) – as workers, whose particular migrant
status has been rendered ‘illegal.’” The structural inequalities created by immigrant detention
extend beyond the detainees themselves, or even undocumented migrants, and include all noncitizens, their millions
of US-born and naturalized children and family members, and their communities. Moreover, the actors criminalizing noncitizens
and detainees are not simply the President and Attorney General, or Congress and the Judiciary. State
apparatuses,
enforcing detention, function through smaller bureaucrats, border patrol agents, local police, detention center guards, and
border vigilantes like the Minutemen, who, along with private prisons and detention centers, exemplify a private version
of immigration control.
This form of criminalization is not new – it’s been present throughout
history
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 1, p. 40-41)
In immigration and naturalization law, this history was one of restriction and privilege, and it
was this history that shaped the political landscape of California in ways that made being an
undocumented Mexican immigrant a de facto status crime, not just vulnerable to violence but designated both
criminal and disposable. As legal scholar Leti Volpp argues, status has been historically fused to conduct in
citizenship and immigration law, in spite of seeming to be distinct. We conventionally separate identity
into realms of status and conduct, and have presumed that status (for example, one’s race) as opposed to
conduct (in the form of how one behaves) has constituted the primary barrier to citizenship. But what we remember as
status-based exclusions in fact were premised on assumptions about appropriate conduct. Thus,
history shows the impossibility of separating the realm of status from that of conduct. 9 Volpp argues
that ineligibility to citizenship was both premised upon status and justified by (presumptions about) conduct. As she explains, the
Page Law excluded Asian women from immigrating to the United States on the basis of both status (Asian, women, unmarried) and
conduct (sex, work). Like
the Page Law, Volpp reminds us, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was also
premised on status and conduct because not all Chinese were barred from immigrating to the
United States. Chinese laborers were excluded, but Chinese merchants and diplomats were exempt from these immigration
restrictions. The Chinese Exclusion Act was premised on both status (Chinese) and conduct
(laborer). The exceptions to the exclusion act were also premised on fusing status (upper class) and
conduct (merchant, diplomat).10 Eligibility for U.S. citizenship was also restricted on the basis of status
and conduct. Naturalized citizenship was restricted to people of a certain status thought capable of self-governance (conduct).
The 1790 Naturalization Law conferred naturalized citizenship on the basis of race, gender, and class status: Only white men
who owned property could become naturalized citizens. Lifting race-based status restrictions in
immigration and naturalization law did not remedy status-based discrimination. Thus, although
together, the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act and the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act removed the final overt
vestiges of status-based exclusions premised on race and national origin in immigration and
naturalization legislation, at the same time they implemented “race-neutral” or “color-blind” preferences that
privileged heteronormativity and discriminated against homosexuality.11 As Siobhan Somerville has argued, normalizing race in law
often works through universalizing heterosexuality and further demonizing and/ or abnormalizing gender nonconformity and sexual
“deviance.”12 Asians
had been excluded and/or severely restricted from immigrating and
naturalizing since the late 1800s, and those few in the United States were mostly male, which contributed to
marking Asian relationships and residences as nonnormative.
Terrorism discourse has incarcerated immigrants into the “illegal” body
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 3, p. 98-99)
During the war on terror, “illegality” was a particularly salient incarnation of social death as the
basis for literal death because the state depends on the notion of “illegality” to naturalize ineligibility to legal
personhood, to justify the status of rightlessness as a biopolitical necessity, and to neutralize popular and potential
dissent. Yet because “illegality” in immigration discourses has been racially reified as “Latina/o,” the
need to incorporate the Arab and Muslim “suspected terrorist” within the racial vocabulary of the
national imaginary destabilized and repurposed (abruptly but not absolutely) the gendered racial
signifiers for “illegality,” noncitizenship, and non-belonging. Discourses of terrorism overlapped, unsettled,
and resecured racialized imaginings of undocumented immigration as Latina/o, as well as racist narratives
of Latinas/os in general, as economic and cultural threats. These ruptures altered the
epistemological frame, or the evaluative structure, that has rendered undeserving the figure of the undocumented
immigrant and the real world Latina/o bodies that signify it. Those Latinas/os (legal or not) who were not marked as
possessing the “background-body” of “terrorism” within U.S. borders were extended the
“opportunity” to earn social value for themselves, their families, and their communities by participating in the war
on terror as soldiers and supporters. This shift offered limited and costly possibilities for “rehabilitation” to a few, on a case-bycase basis, while denying redemption for the rest. In a very literal way, expedited naturalization for
those who serve the U.S. military recuperated a select group of Latinas/os. And although still repudiated
in reality, undocumented Latinas/os were also symbolically recuperated, positioned as the loyal noncitizen
counterpart to the suspected terrorist. In this way, as queer studies scholar Jasbir K. Puar contends, “the
terrorist and the person to be domesticated — the patriot — are not distant, oppositional entities, but
‘close cousins.’ ”3 In this instance, both the undocumented patriot and the illegal terrorist are recruited relationally to conceal
the violences that U.S. systems of value direct toward its devalued and disposable others for the purpose of silencing the dead of all
nations and nationalities. Because the
dead can force us all to reckon with the violences that produced
them, the ever-present haunting of these restless ghosts will always be the most salient threat to
the United States.
The silent ignorance to the real world is what keeps the oppression alive
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 4, p 117)
Because undocumented immigrants are marked as indelibly “illegal” across various institutions,
mobilizing support for undocumented immigrants’ rights requires negotiating accusations of
criminal intent. Mitchell also wrote that she could not feel sympathetic toward Arellano because she disagreed with the means
by which Arellano contested immigration laws.8 Because being an “illegal alien” is essentially a de facto status
crime, undocumented immigrants’ “illegal” status renders their law-abiding actions irrelevant.
At best, “illegal” status complicates representing undocumented immigrants as moral, ethical,
and “deserving.” Mitchell believed that Arellano should have reported to immigration authorities rather than seek sanctuary.
Speculating that Arellano would have received more public sympathy if she had taken that route, Mitchell wrote that
Arellano should have “marched into the immigration office and showed America exactly what
the present immigration laws really mean: That a single mother can be separated from her child;
that husbands can be snatched from their wives; that working-class families can be torn apart
simply because America has waited far too long to craft a fair and reasonable immigration policy.”9 While Arellano would
have been deported immediately if she had challenged immigration law in this way, for Mitchell, such selfsacrifice on Arellano’s part was necessary just to warrant public sympathy. As she wrote, “Maybe
then more of us would respect her stance.”10 Mitchell is not unaware of how much Arellano stood to lose. However,
because Mitchell’s definition of morality cannot be disentangled from her commitment to the
“rule of law,” she cannot apprehend the irony that for Arellano, following the “rule of law” would
have meant complying with deportation orders, thereby freeing herself from the obligation to
follow the U.S. “rule of law.”
Current immigration policies lead to demonization of immigrants and lead to stricter social
control
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 4-5)//HW
Immigrant growth, legality aside, has implications for the nation. Stereo¬types regarding
newcomers dominate public discourse in the United States and paint immigrants as dangerous
threats to the nation (Chavez 2008; Nev- ins 2002; Ngai 2005). Immigration policy now
reflects, in part, local con¬cerns about economic competition, racialized political threat, and fear
of crime, even in the absence of systematic evidence revealing a connection between
immigration and crime (Johnson 2007; Martinez and Valenzuela 2006; Newton 2008).
Moreover, policy mandates for controlling the Ameri¬can border and “illegals,” who are
primarily of Mexican origin, are encour¬aged by politicians and commentators for the sake of
enhancing “national security” and preventing crime. Such mandates include demanding proof of
citizenship, deploying the National Guard, building a fence on the border between Mexico and
the United States, encouraging the growth of self-styled “militias,” and labeling
“undocumented” immigrants as criminal aliens (Doty 2009). Taking this one step
further based on arguments that the fed¬eral government is not doing enough to curb
immigration, states and local governments across the country are enacting laws and approving
ballot ref- erendums designed to “get tough” on immigration. Most notably, in April 2010, the
governor of Arizona signed into law Senate Bill 1070, which makes it a crime to be
undocumented and threatens law enforcement officials per¬ceived to be lax in enforcing
immigration law with lawsuits. New Modes of Social Control
These numerous and varied immigration policies, we argue, constitute new and expanding
modes of social control in the United States. The first set of chapters in this volume outlines new
modes of control by discussing recent laws and policies designed to control immigrants and
immigration more generally. What emerges from this collection of policies and practices, as
described in the chapters, is a nationwide re-visioning of immigration enforcement
driven by federal law and policy as well as by politics at the local level. These enhanced control
strategies, as we come to find out, are not unique to the United States but can be found
elsewhere, including in Europe and Australia.
Status quo immigration laws are grounded in fear and contradiction
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 7-8)//HW
One of the lessons prior research has demonstrated repeatedly is that laws and policies are
political, and often symbolic, responses to larger social prob¬lems. As such, they frequently
result in both anticipated and unanticipated consequences (see, for example, Beckett and
Herbert 2008; Chambliss and Zatz 1993; Clear 2007; Fine 2006; Ganapati and Frank 2008;
Simon 2007). Immigration law is no exception; indeed, symbolic politics with unintended
“collateral” consequences may be the norm when it comes to immigration legislation.
Immigration policy is inherently contradictory as it tries to balance a variety of strains within
and among nations. For instance, political and eco¬nomic relations have created lopsided labor
markets and economic opportu¬nities in the global North and South. Looking just within the
United States, immigration policies and practices have sought to respond to a number of
conflicting needs. These include, for example, religious and ethical demands regarding the place
of immigrants in our society and understandings of what constitutes citizenship, the desire for
cheap labor on the part of some busi¬ness sectors (e.g., agribusiness, the hospitality industry,
and the meatpack-ing industry) and individuals (e.g., for nannies, house cleaners, and
garden¬ers), and racialized and gendered educational and employment structures. At the same
time, as noted earlier, immigration policies are often reflective of unfounded fears and moral
panics (Cohen 1972; Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994; Welch 2003). As immigration policies
attempt to address these often contradictory realities and fears, they can create new sets of
problems for individuals and communities (Calavita 1984, 1996; Chavez 2008; Gardner 2005;
Johnson 2004, 2007; Newton 2008).
State courts are inherently biased towards undocumented immigrants
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 106-107)//HW
To a lesser extent, state criminal courts are perpetuating the inequality at noncitizen defendants
in the criminal justice system. The noncitizen status is exploited for reasons not connected to
crime prevention. Defense attorneys object that noncitizens are subjected to charges normally
not raised against¶ citizens, and the prosecutor prioritizes removal from the United States over
fair punishment, all of which undermine confidence in the criminal justice system.¶
Conclusions¶ In the Postville case, the noncitizen status of the defendants affected deci¬sions
made by all the parties involved in the criminal process. The experi¬ences of noncitizen
defendants in Arizona follow a similar path. Without knowledge of the immigration
consequences of a conviction, or the indi¬vidual’s eligibility for immigration relief in general,
defense counsel may not be able to diffuse the fears that cloud the noncitizens judgment,
resulting in hasty plea decisions. Tribunals may undercut the noncitizen’s opportu¬nity for a
fair hearing by devaluing criminal procedures in light of imminent immigration consequences.
Even the prosecutor may cut corners to move the case faster since the criminal charge is just a
means to an end—exile of the noncitizen.¶ Ignorance and marginalization of immigration law in
the adjudication of a criminal case involving a noncitizen can be catastrophic. It can lead to a
devaluation of the criminal proceedings or to heightened immigration consequences from the
proceedings, or both. The first is illustrated by the Postville raid and the second by Arizona’s
criminal justice system. Tribunals and criminal law attorneys must also recognize that
noncitizens will often assume that their legal status will compromise their access to an impartial
tribunal, especially where there are statutes that treat noncitizen defendants differently from
U.S. citizens. Regrettably, in Postville and in Arizona, this assumption has proven true.
2AC Ext. Solvency
Citizenship is no longer defined as institutional definitions, but through
individual affect—civic performance is key to show commitment
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 257-259)//cl
Rhetorical scholars have traced the way citizenship is defined through public
discourses that ritualize national identity and constitute the borders of the
imagined community.' This approach to citizenship, which Asen terms a "discourse theory,"
turns attention to how, why, and to what end citizenship takes shape through public
discourses and performances of national belonging. Citizenship shifts, in this perspective,
"from a status attribute to a way of acting."' In other words, civic belonging is not
conceptualized exclusively through a nation's laws, institutions, or myths
but instead in individual and group performances of citizenship . Individuals
enact citizenship through a host of discursive actions, including consuming information,
displaying the flag, engaging in public discussions, participating in public ceremonies,
demonstrating, and even voting. Above all else, viewing citizenship as performance entails
shifting focus from the category of citizen (and the attributes or quali¬ties that define it) to the
individual and situated articulation of citizenship. This focus on civic performance as a marker
of citizenship borrows from performance theory by foregrounding quotidian enactments of
citizenship that are, in Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites' words, "aesthetically marked,
situated, reflexive examples of 're-stored behavior' presented to an audience."' Like performance
art, enacting or performing citizenship—whether through community activism, artistic
expression, speeches, conversations, cultural demonstrations, protest, or even economic
activity—is "aesthetically marked" because it is staged and framed as a public spectacle, like the
flying of an American flag. Civic performances are "situated" enactments of national belonging
because they entail, in Asen's words, both "manner" (or intent) and "deed" (or action)." That is,
civic performances (such as patriotic songs or pledges) not only refashion collective identity but
also move a particular audience and motivate political consequences. Enactments of citizenship
also necessarily involve what Hariman and Lucaites term "reflexive" and "restored" behavior, or
the reiteration and appropriation of accepted practices, norms, rituals, and ideals.' The flying of
national flags or the appropriation of national myths or slogans necessarily reflects and remakes
national values to fit the circumstance in which they are discursively deployed. In other words ,
though civic performances may problematize conventions of citizenship and
national identity, they still affirm commitment to the public, broadly defined. At the
most macro level, citizenship is continually performed through "civic rituals [that] constitute and sustain truths [and]
that stabilize normative political identities.' In their book No Caption Needed, for example, Hariman and Lucaites
trace how iconic images serve as national civic performances which provide the vocabulary for public culture and
through which citizenship and civic identity are reiterated." Also, in the more formal and ritual set¬ting of
presidential inaugurals, Vanessa Beasley argues, American ideals and identity are performed." Yet we have seen this
performative or discursive perspective on citizenship take shape not just in studies of dominant discourses such as photojournalism
or presidential rhetoric but also in the vernacular rhetoric of counterpublics. For example, several studies show how, at a time when
they were defined as second-class citizens, women enacted citizenship and challenged conventions of belonging through
appropriation of ritualized rhetorical acts such as petitions, marches, or attempts to vote in public elections.' Scholarship on the
Af¬rican American civil rights movement too shows how individuals and groups reimagined cultural ideographs and/or dominant
narratives of American identity through public dis¬course and protest, all in the struggle for full citizenship." Furthermore, protest
movements have unique and far reaching rhetorical significance in attempts to challenge exclusionary dimensions of citizenship
based on sexuality and gender." Thus one of the most obvious domains for the vernacular performances of citizenship can be found
in the legacy of social protest movements, which both enact and challenge citizenship. In sum, this performative view of
citizenship entails enactment and appropriation of citizenship and national identity in the discourses and acts of
dominant and vernacular groups—from the ritualistic to the quotidian. As Asen summarizes, "when viewed as a mode
of public engagement, citizenship appears as a performance, not a possession."34 This view of citizenship is evident in
scholarship on immigration, for what Ono and Sloop call "dominant logics" of the nation are reiterated through large
and small scale discourses—from public debates about immigration to the radical vigilantism of the border
Minutemen.' This is not to say that citizenship is wholly discursive, for laws and institutions
granting formal inclusion (or exclusion) still exist. However, viewing citizenship as a way of
acting rather than as a status attribute means that even those individuals, like migrants, who are
excluded from formal dimensions of citizenship can enact national belonging and challenge the
borders of the civic imaginary. In the next section I elaborate on this discursive view of
citizenship by discussing the role of hybridity in terms of civic performance and more
specifically in relation to migration and citizenship
We can only change the system by re-evaluating the system itself
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 2, p. 81-83)
Civil rights law can recognize racialized spatial and economic violence as racial discrimination
only if one of the consequences of that violence takes the form of interracial conflict. When racial
segregation leads to withingroup violence, urban violence is reduced to “black-on-black” or
“Asianon-Asian” crime, cultural pathology, or internalized racism — none of which register as “racial
discrimination” in civil rights law. Hence, the need to remedy Southeast Asian poverty can only be recognizable if the
state-sanctioned
violences of racial segregation are not just ignored but displaced onto African Americans as well as rescripted
and individualized. This
not only normalizes violence against African American residents of inner
cities but also holds them responsible for it, rendering law enforcement (increased statesanctioned
violence) the only solution to the everyday violences of racial segregation directed against African Americans. It’s
vital that we don’t misunderstand the critical task, which, as Jun reminds us, is not to criticize the
Asian Law Caucus, other advocates for marginalized groups, or the Asian and black residents of inner cities. Assigning
and allocating culpability are not what’s at stake. What’s at stake is figuring out the criminalized
and racialized parameters of rights discourses by realizing that the ways in which a group’s demands for rights and
recognition can highlight an/other racialized group’s ineligibility for those same rights. This is not just exclusion from
rights. Rather, as Hannah Arendt articulates, “Their plight is not that they are not equal before the law,
but that no law exists for them.”97 African Americans in the inner city are not eligible for civil rights
not only because racism is defined in law as personal prejudice but also because inner-city
spaces are criminalized. Criminalization, as I have been arguing, not only forecloses empathy but does
so through producing people and places always already subject to a form of discrimination
believed to be both legitimate and deserved. Research that pathologizes or rationalizes inner-city violence attributes its emergence to
inner-city space. On the one hand, reading
“socially deviant” behavior as a “logical reaction” to dangerous
environments potentially condemns impoverished communities of color to lifelong surveillance and
containment. Such diagnoses imply that the spaces where gang members live need to be better controlled
and better regulated because they have too much potential to produce dangerous people. On the other hand, the
“irrationality” of “senseless” crimes identifies certain unlawful acts as “immoral” and
“abnormal,” which situates the people who commit them and the places where they take place
outside the rational “rule of law,” outside political and legal systems. When rendered intrinsically
“affectable” or subjected to the disciplinary power-knowledge of the “condition,” people
of color are imagined as able
only to react to (not analyze nor purposely influence) outside forces in ways that deny them reason, rationality, and
ethicality — those attributes defined as “universal” and self-determining. In the United States, the way of
knowing naturalized as “rationality” presumes that deliberate adherence to social norms and
normative values is universal. When people’s behaviors do not conform to “universal” norms and values, their conduct is
rendered either irrational (as utterly unintelligible) or inescapable (due to the absence of rational options). Establishing
rationality requires demonstrating that for people in certain places, abiding by social norms,
heteronormative values, and/or neoliberal ethics is a luxury. Hence, representing nonnormative conduct as
rational is incompatible with challenging normative thought, action, values, and ethics. Rationality is
socially, culturally, and politically constructed, and it is constructed in ways that make it all but impossible to evoke
sympathy for criminalized people of color and simultaneously represent them as rational agents. As such, it is the
presumption that rational thought is both universal and transparent that positions poor,
criminalized persons of color absolutely outside law and justice. According to rational logic, the spaces where
poor criminalized people of color live are violent for one of two reasons: because those who live there engage in irrational acts of
senseless violence or because the inner city does not offer rational choices due to persistent poverty, political disenfranchisement,
and chronic unemployment. In other words, the criminalized poor of color are characterized as either products of violent
environments that should be heavily policed or as irrational people incapable of moral agency who need to be under police
surveillance. In effect, arguments
that pathologize or humanize gang members lead us to the same
solutions for urban violence if “rationality” is taken for granted — more law enforcement and
stricter surveillance. Either way, residents of the inner city are held responsible today for crimes
they might never commit in the future.
To truly reach success we need the state and need to experience struggle
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 4, p. 141-142)
If we recognize that the United States was not the only site of social justice struggles and that
legal recognition was not the only goal of the 1960s rights movements, we can set aside the
notion that rights are contingent (with citizenship as the prerequisite) and conditional (with deservingness as the proviso).
Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, movement leaders both inspired and were inspired by the
movements for social justice and national independence worldwide. In fact, juxtaposing the immigrant rights movement with
other forms and fronts of black social activism in the 1960s could avoid framing the contemporary moment in racial and
relational terms as “us or them” or in Mitchell’s terms of “debt” and “disrespect.” For instance, the Revolutionary Action
Movement (RAM), formed in 1962, developed a theory of “revolutionary Black
internationalism,” which, according to culture and labor historian Robin D. G. Kelley, “argued
that the battle between Western imperialism and the Third World — more so than the battle between labor and
capital — represented the most fundamental contradiction” of that era. 113 RAM articulated the urban uprisings in the
United States as part of “an international rebellion against imperialism.”114 This global
perspective did not replace black nationalism; it deployed black nationalism differently. As Kelley
puts it, the members of RAM were “internationalists before they were nationalists.”115 By placing a critique of neocolonialism and imperialism at the
center of their theory, RAM
militants never agonized over whether to support reactionary black regimes
in Africa or the Caribbean. They flatly rejected unconditional racial unity and developed a nationalism built on a broader concept of
revolutionary Third World solidarity.116 If we read the contemporary immigrant rights movement as part of the still-ongoing international rebellion
against imperialism, rather
than as an emergent movement solely against U.S. immigration and
deportation law, we can explain the ways in which the contemporary struggles of both groups in
the United States are linked not only to one another but also beyond the U.S.-Mexico border. The
Oaxacan struggles over the right to stay home, or “el derecho de no migrar,” are connected to undocumented immigrants’ struggles for rights in the
United States, and both, in turn, are linked to the struggles of working poor African Americans
for whom the futility of international migration ensures persistent poverty. All these racialized
populations are rendered essentially rightless and ineligible for personhood — they all must
struggle for the right to subsist.
CIR policies can’t solve devolution of authority – only the aff solves
Kubrin et al. ’12 (Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, Professor of Criminology, Law and Society and (by
courtesy) Sociology. Professor Kubrin’s research focuses on neighborhoods, race, and violence
as central to social disorganization theory, Marjorie Sue Zatz, Professor of Justice and Social
Inquiry in ASU's School of Social Transformation. She is currently on leave, serving as director
of the Law and Social Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation. Her research and
teaching interests address the ways in which race, ethnicity, and gender impact juvenile and
criminal court processing and sanctioning, immigration policy, Chicano/a gangs, and
comparative justice, particularly Latin American legal systems, Ramiro Martinez, Professor in
the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, “Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice”, pp. 44-45)//HW
The construction of unauthorized immigrants as bearers of crime is creating a moral panic about
immigration control, much as Stanley Cohen described in the movement toward repression of
the Mods and the Rockers in Britain more than a generation ago (Cohen 1972), and in line with
the arguments made by other authors in this volume. The source of this construction, as in the
past, is partly media hysteria, but it is a hysteria also driven by political opportunism and by the
federal governments increasingly punitive response to pressure to “do something” about
unauthorized immigration. The trend tends to be self-reinforcing. As Cohen observed, and as
demonstrated in Welch’s chapter in this volume, moral panics reduce our capacity to design
wise public policy (Cohen 1972, 2002; also see Melossi 2000). Consistent empirical evidence
that immigration, including unauthorized immigration, does not increase street crime or the
threat of terrorism makes no difference in this situation. Nor is it easy to persuade skeptics that
creating a safe space for residents who lack legal status may, in fact, make communities more
secure than attempting to root them out.¶ The movement toward devolution appears to be
unstoppable, as evi¬denced by the Obama administrations recent renewed commitment to
inter¬nal immigration enforcement through the “Secure Communities” initiative (ICE 2009)
and the expanding list of local partners trained by the Depart¬ment of Homeland Security in
immigration enforcement. Secure Communi¬ties has become the umbrella program that links
federal enforcement to local policing through identification of individuals booked in local jails
and trans¬mission of that information to federal authorities. The plan is to extend the program
to every jail in the United States, despite criticism that it is not tar¬geting criminal aliens as
promised, but rather low-level offenders and indi-viduals who have no charges at all pending
against them (Feltz and Baksh 2010; National Immigration Law Center 2009).¶ This trend
toward devolution likely will not be derailed by the adoption of “comprehensive immigration
reform,” whatever its final dimensions. None of the current reform proposals contains a
simple, ongoing program to regu¬larize individuals who enter illegally or fall out
of status. Such persons will continue to arrive, find work, and maintain relationships with
family mem¬bers who do have legal status. They will find work in informal labor mar¬kets
(Calavita 2005; Massey, Durand, and Malone 2003; Marshall 1978:169). Absent a reconceptualization of the significance of lack of legal status, the presence of these
individuals will continue to be controversial. One can thus reasonably anticipate there will be
strong political pressure for the federal government to continue, and perhaps expand, interior
enforcement, and to engage local police in this effort (Thatcher 2005; Kobach 2005).
Vote Aff to go against the current discourse and narrative against
immigrants and minorities
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 4, p. 133-134)
In ways that are akin to model minority discourse, these narratives discipline unemployed young
African American men by applauding hardworking, uncomplaining undocumented Latinas/os
for doing whatever it takes to feed their families, which almost always means accepting highly
underpaid and insecure wage labor — a precarious situation that is further exacerbated by employers’ unspoken yet
ever-present threat of deportation. Undocumented immigrants, as Monisha Das Gupta reminds us, “serve a number
of critical functions. They not only supply the cheap, exploitable labor that forms the foundation
of a service economy but also serve as bodies that the state uses as ideological projects.”85 For
example, an April 2006 Boston Globe story contrasted Latina/o immigrants, who are construed as
responsibly “just feeding their families,” with young African American men, who are
characterized as socially “deviant,” shunning education. The story paraphrases James Banks, an African
American store manager in Lynn, Massachusetts, saying he “doesn’t blame the immigrants: They’re just feeding their families.
Banks, 36, says the
fault lies with a generation of young African-American men who would rather
‘walk their sneakers up and down the street’ then step up on a stage to collect high school
diplomas.”86 Located on “the street” as opposed to in a home, workplace, church, or school, these young men are
portrayed as disconnected from familial stability and disinterested in decent work. Unlike hardworking immigrants, the article implies, young African Americans are not as committed to family and
community. As such, they not only will not participate in the reproduction, development, or progress
of African America but will themselves allow immigration to effectively castrate an entire
generation. As Banks said, “ ‘Immigration is going to set the black community back 25 years, because they’ll let it.’ ”87 One of
many that chastises the black poor for not being as self-sacrificing as undocumented Latinas/os,
this article is a typical example of the ways in which the news media blame the high rates of
black unemployment on (the perception of) African Americans’ personal problems or character flaws rather
than on the structural conditions that make both groups hyperexploitable. Supporting neoliberal
ideologies, these stories erase the workings of global capital by exaggerating the importance of
personal qualities such as ambition and motivation. In this narrative, Latina/o immigrants
function as the “model minority” of the working poor, putting family first, working hard, and doing whatever it
takes to get ahead, while impoverished African American young men are depicted as wayward, unmotivated drifters waiting for the
U.S. government to solve their problems or refusing to take advantage of the many opportunities available to them.88 Like
the
Asian American model minority myth, the compelling story of hardworking, disenfranchised,
uncomplaining Latinas/os disciplines their supposedly more “privileged” citizen of color
counterparts. To put this another way, “model minorities” can be conceived of as populations
whose legal vulnerability makes them exploitable as well as ensures that they cannot complain.89
Asian American studies scholar Victor Bascara explains that the model minority narrative functions in American culture to mobilize
racial/ethnic difference in the service of U.S. imperialism, where “members
of that minority are a testament to the
success of the incorporative capacities of the United States, politically, economically, and
culturally.”90 When such “model minorities” are juxtaposed against un(der)employed young
African American men, U.S. citizenship rights appear to be both an already achieved goal and an
underutilized asset of African Americans’ human capital, at the same time that the fact that poor
African Americans are politically disenfranchised and legally vulnerable too is dismissed. The
news narrative of black-Latina/o conflict, however, explains employer preference for undocumented workers as the
result of racial bias and cultural stereotypes, which we can see when stories use language such as “there is a hidden code that black
people are lazy” or “immigrants have a reputation for working harder, which gives them a leg up.”91 When
black and
Latina/o informants are interviewed to make these claims, news stories give the impression that
Latinas/os perpetuate anti-black racism and vice versa.
The only way to solve is to decriminalize
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 4, p. 131)
The argument aptly illustrates the impossibility for undocumented immigrants to follow “the
rule of law” in their country of residence (the United States) because their status, their presence, is illegal
and therefore always already in violation of the “rule of law.” According to this logic, undocumented
immigrants can follow U.S. law only if they leave the country, which means they can abide by
U.S. law only when it no longer applies to them. In other words, to prove they are law-abiding, undocumented
immigrants must reinforce the laws that mark them as always already criminal. This status of impossibility could really be countered
only with equally absolute rules and inflexible laws, such as “divine law” to override the “rule of
law,” or “human rights” to challenge “U.S. citizens’ rights.” Because undocumented immigrants
are often refused recognition as people with the right to demand rights and just treatment, they
must frame their demands outside the arbitrary and absolute confines of U.S. law by drawing on
different moral rubrics that could confer the right to demand rights such as labor rights, human rights, or the “natural” rights of
nuclear families. Little
else could be read as directly opposed to U.S. society’s “rule of law” than the
ethical obligations of international law coupled with the moral authority of a mother’s love.
Cooperation is key
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 4, p. 143-144)
This does not mean that contemporary rights-based movements in United States are devoid of
hope and potential. Oftentimes activists have to negotiate uncomfortable contradictions inherent to struggles over
rights and recognition, but these contradictions are not always evident when buried beneath
media master scripts of racial conflict and competition. For instance, when the black-Latina/o master narrative
is imposed on representations of contemporary social movements, not only are the international tenets of African American social
activism in the 1950s– 1970s erased, so, too, is the work of young undocumented adults. The
focus on family rights and
civil rights draws attention to Arellano and Mitchell, and because the black-Latina/o divide is
often spoken about and naturalized in terms of uneducated citizens competing with
undocumented immigrants for low-wage, unskilled work, people who don’t fit these identity and
status categories are largely left out. U.S. immigration policy has also created a U.S.-educated and socially (but not
economically or politically) integrated undocumented population for whom legal status is not as easily connected to nationality as
most coverage of immigrant rights demonstrations lead us to believe. Each year that the Development, Relief, and Education for
Minors Act (known as the DREAM Act) fails to get through Congress,
the promise of citizenship is foreclosed to
countless young adults, producing a highly educated population of people we might consider
“undocumented Americans.” These youth and young adults are relegated to the realms of social
death, perhaps permanently so. Social relations influenced by race and legal status expressed
themselves differently for young DREAM activists, whose countries of origin can be traced to Latin America, Asia,
the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Africa. Young undocumented activists have been organizing protests around the nation for
years. When
engaged in acts of civil disobedience, these activists publicly disclose their
undocumented status, unsettling witnesses’ perceptions and prejudices of undocumented
immigrants. Like RAM members in the 1960s, today’s young undocumented activists who engage in unthinkable politics are all
too aware that there is much at stake in daring to critique the state. The state targets their families for deportation when
their voices become too loud, their criticisms too astute, their whispers too influential. What these
youth have learned is that unthinkability is not merely synonymous with impracticality but that state violence, whether
enacted or inherited, makes certain ways of knowing and methods for mobilizing unthinkable.
Upon voicing the injustices undocumented people must live with in the United States, many
young activists find themselves and/or their family members in deportation proceedings. These
young adults are not reckless; rather, they risk so much because they realize that there are few
alternatives if they want meaningful change.
Creating dissonance can solve
Cacho 12 - Associate Professor of English, Asian American Studies, Latina/Latino Studies, and
Gender and Women's Studies (Lisa Marie, 2/7/15, "Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and
the Criminalization of the Unprotected." Ch 4, p. 137-138)
Disassociating the immigrant rights movement from the civil rights movement was a rhetorical
tactic used to criminalize undocumented immigrants and to represent the movement itself as
not a “true” rights movement. To establish this disassociation, many reporters and writers
portrayed the U.S. history of civil rights as African Americans’ private intellectual property.
Mitchell, for instance, argued that Arellano’s “blatant exploitation of Parks’ legacy undermine[d]
the fragile coalition between some blacks and Hispanics that has formed around the
immigration issue.”104 Framing the immigration debate over the use of “civil rights” frames the
black-Latina/o relationship as one of debt and ingratitude, as more about respect than about
rights. Positioning African Americans as the gatekeepers of civil rights history, the media
discredited and trivialized the immigrant rights movement by representing civil rights as rights
that African Americans had to pay for (with their bodies and their lives) and had to earn
(through civil rights protests). Often these sentiments were expressed bitterly; as Mitchell
articulated, “instead of thanking blacks for paving the way, other groups have walked across
black backs without so much as a ‘thank you for your sacrifices.’ . . . The benefits that so many
other groups — women included — now enjoy were purchased with black blood, sweat and
tears.”105
NEG
Capitalism Links
Immigration is multi-dimensional—influenced by multiple factors of
capitalism
Kaye ’10 (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for NewsHour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p. 4-5)//cl
On the world’s political stages, the often fierce rhetoric over migration tends to
overlook the issues that propel people to move, forces such as global supply chains,
money flows, nomadic businesses, inequality, and trade policies. Instead, we fall into
questions of control and management: How best to keep out unwanted foreigners and let in
more desirable ones? What to do about the millions of illegal migrants who sneak across borders
or overstay visas? While people obviously migrate for many reasons, a chief focus of
this book is the movement of labor. I began writing this book before the global recession hit.
The economic downturn led to somewhat of a decline in labor migration, but
nonetheless the same basic issues and trends persist. If anything, the increased
competition for jobs has only sharpened the debates over immigration. The United
Nations has estimated that nearly ninety million people worldwide are migrant workers. As
many as forty million of them are believed to be illegal migrants. Millions more move as a result
of conflicts, natural disasters, environmental degradation, or a combination of factors. Even
though migration can be complex, much of the political debate, at least in the United States,
is one-dimensional, viewing migration through one prism, the legal status of
migrants. The legal arguments mask a convenient historical amnesia and obscure more
fundamental issues.
Repealing immigration policies stimulates the economy and
bolsters the capitalistic country
Kaye 10- (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for News Hour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p.183-185, TS)
The pursuit of business - friendly
immigration policies has been
a priority for companies that have come to rely on
migrant workforces. Although the language is often couched according to
circumstances and political currents, the overriding objectives of employers have
been consistent.
The immigration laws they favor would have
the effect of providing a cheap, disposable, compliant
labor force by authorizing additional work visas. They
would like the current illegal workforce legalized, and, beyond gathering
paperwork and consulting computer records, employers do not want to be held
responsible or penalized for hiring immigrant workers with the wrong
identification documents. Advocates
for business groups
pushing at both the federal and state levels to ease
immigration restrictions have often formed alliances with migrants’
rights organizations, sometimes joining with them to pursue lawsuits that
challenge attempts to inhibit the use of migrant labor. The convergence by
business interests and civil rights groups involved in immigration politics has
made for strange bedfellow coalitions. The public side of the pro - immigration
debate is more likely to feature a representative of the National Council of La Raza
than of the Chamber of Commerce. Nonetheless, marriages of convenience have
been forged between organizations that under different circumstances are
generally on opposite sides. One organization, the National Immigration Forum,
has established itself as the go - to group for journalists wanting the liberal take on
immigration issues. Its representatives, such as the executive director Ali Noorani,
the son of Pakistani immigrants, speak out at rallies and on TV talk shows. But
behind the scenes, the forum ’ s less
visible leaders have expressed
more concern for the value of migrant workers than for
their rights. In 2009, its board, claiming to “ collectively reflect the broad pro
- immigrant community, ” included the chairman John Gay, at the time the chief
lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association, and Randel Johnson, a vice
president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In 2007, the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security announced plans to implement a “ no match ” rule to
prosecute employers for hiring workers who presented Social Security numbers
that don ’ t match those on fi le with the Social Security Administration. Civil rights
groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the AFL - CIO predictably and
immediately cried foul. Their lawsuits were backed up by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, the American Nursery and Landscape Association, and the National
Roofi ng Contractors Association — the latter groups all representing employers
normally at odds with unions. The odd political groupings also have played out in
immigration disputes at the local level. For instance, after Hazleton, Pennsylvania,
enacted its anti - illegal immigrant ordinance, such usual suspects as the American
Civil Liberties Union and various Latino organizations quickly mounted court
challenges. Less noticed were the business groups that joined them. High powered lawyers fi led amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs on behalf of the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce as well as chambers representing the states of
Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New
Jersey, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The
business community ’ s political message about the need
for migrant workers has remained consistent, with its
arguments for easy access and looser regulations tailored to fi t the occasion.
During periods of prosperity, the case made by business leaders and their allies is
bringing in or legalizing migrant workers helps the
economy grow and gives the nation an edge in a globally
competitive environment. When downturns or threats
that
emerge, they contend that migrants will assist in getting
the economy back on track. To the business community,
migrants are like aspirin, magic potions, or keys to a successful
marriage — to be used in sickness and in health.
Maintaining the security at the Mexican border is necessary to
defeat the capitalistic monster that this country has become
Kaye 10- (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for News Hour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p.188, TS)
“ If
the migrants don ’ t show up for the next harvest,
Nick says he ’ll have to destroy entire orchards that were
planted more than a century ago, ” reported ABC News correspondent John Qui ñ
ones after interviewing a pear grower in Lake County, in northern California. “
Most of his crop, almost two million pounds, lies on the ground,
rotting away. Thanks to increased security along the
Mexican border, thousands of migrant workers who harvest the nation ’ s
fruits and vegetables never showed up to work. ” Across the country, an apple
farmer in upstate New York had the same lament, “ We
need to import
this labor to pick crops or we ’ re going to be importing
our crops, ” John Teeple, told a newspaper reporter. The flurry of apocalyptic
- sounding news reports prompted a sober analysis of the claims by the migration
expert Philip L. Martin, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of
California, Davis. Examining the pear industry, Martin found not only that the
business was in decline anyway, but also that the Lake County pear harvest
actually increased in 2006 over the previous year. “ These reports of farm
labor shortages are not accompanied by data that would
buttress the anecdotes, like lower production of fruits
and vegetables or a rise in farm wages as growers
scrambled for the fewer workers available, ” Martin pointed
out.
The financial vulnerability of Mexican immigrants is exploited by
American companies for a capitalistic gain—they are paid less and
treated less than human
Kaye 10- (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for News Hour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p.168, TS)
Loose controls accommodated industry ’ s needs,
allowing Mexican laborers to travel freely back and forth
across the border. The policy was essentially “ easy come, easy go. ” The U.S.
Commissioner - General of Immigration, an agency then under the Department of
Commerce and Labor, did not even bother to get an accurate count of the number
of incoming Mexicans, estimated at more
than fi fty thousand a
year. Labor contractors and recruiters fanned out throughout the border areas
to ensure a steady stream of Mexican workers, disregarding an1885 federal law
that specifically prohibited American employers from signing contracts promising
jobs to migrants before they arrived in the country. Unregulated migration served
both countries. Mexico
had an escape valve for its poorest
citizens, who were unemployed and potentially revolutionary. U.S.
industries were provided a ready source of cheap labor.
Representatives of large industrial enterprises told Congress that they
were so dependent on Mexican labor that immigration
restrictions would leave them on the verge of
bankruptcy. A 1910 U.S. congressional commission reported that Mexican
railroad workers were not only plentiful, they also were
cheap, at least compared to “ the English - speaking races formerly employed by
most of the railroad companies. ” Railroad companies paid nearly all
their Mexican track maintenance workers less than $
1.25 a day, compared to the daily rate of $ 1.50 or more (a 20 percent
difference) earned by just about every English, Greek, Irish, and Norwegian
employee. The report noted that in
addition to their low pay rates,
the railroads prized Mexicans for their docility, finding
that they were well suited to the hot climate “ and
regarded as being very tractable; in fact, they are noted
for their passive obedience. ” A Texas cotton grower said, “ They are
content with whatever you give them. [T]hey’ re more subservient, if that ’ s the
word. ”
The loosening of immigrant restrictions perpetuates the ‘coyote capitalism’
that smuggles workers without consideration–this also encourages
businesses and governments to pass around workers like simple objects,
reinforcing the dehumanization they experience
Kaye ’10 (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for NewsHour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p. 5-6)//cl
In other words, immigration should be seen more as a symptom or a reaction to
policies and conditions than as a problem. Immigration is a fact of life. Given the right set
of circumstances, people (not to mention our prehuman ancestors) have always moved and
always will. Labor migration persists for at least two main reasons. First, global and
local businesses rely on human mobility and on ready, vulnerable pools of labor,
often available at bargain basement prices. Second, successful migrants — who
number among the most assertive, determined, and entrepreneurial people in the world — are
able to overcome the forces and obstacles arrayed against them. It’s the law of supply
and demand. Just as the drug trade feeds apparently insatiable appetites, overwhelming
borders and policing, the world ’ s migrants as well as the businesses and
economies that love them make sure the human flow continues. It is a global
system that may be called “coyote capitalism.” Coyotes are human smugglers, or as
professors Gilbert G. Gonzalez and Raul A. Fernandez described them, “unauthorized
Mexican labor recruiters.” This neutral - sounding phrase filters out the legal
baggage to arrive at a basic job description. It allows us to think of coyotes in economic
terms rather than as fanged creatures of the underworld. Similarly, coyote capitalism
straddles the realms of the legitimate and the unlawful, evoking a netherworld in which many
migrants find themselves. This is not to suggest that most migrants are smuggled, although
many are. Coyote capitalism describes a system of interlocking, dependent
relationships, some “authorized,” some not. It is also a system of avoidance and
transference. The coyotes ’ job is to ensure that human cargo gets from one place to another.
They are shippers who take no responsibility for the consequences of moving freight,
either at the place of departure or the destination. Coyote capitalism allows businesses
and governments (in both developed and developing nations) to pass workers
around and pass the buck. If your policy is to export labor, there are fewer expectations to
create jobs. If you import workers, you can excuse yourself for developing an economy
dependent on migrant labor. And if you develop business or trade policies that encourage people
to move around in search of opportunities, you are only the middleman, just the coyote.
Any action that encourages immigrants across the border only further
objectifies them under the capitalist enterprise where migrant policies are
used to further labor demands of businesses, trading off with the needs and
rights of the worker
Kaye ’10 (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for NewsHour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p. 6-8)//cl
Across the globe, migrants commonly perform the so -called- D jobs — labor that is
dirty, dangerous, or demeaning. The migrant - dependent industries are the same
everywhere. Many of the world ’ s farms, fields, hospitals, nursing homes, and construction sites
would be losing enterprises if not for the work of foreign laborers. Ditto for hotels and
restaurants, labor - intensive manufacturing, and low - skilled services. Armies of migrant
domestic workers clean, nanny, and nurse. Some are victims of ruthless
traffickers, serving masters who keep them in conditions of indentured servitude.
Although migrants are overrepresented in low - wage, lower - skilled work, at the opposite end
of the skills spectrum, global industries often compete for well - trained professionals. Taken
together, the promise of jobs, the willingness of employers to hire migrants, and
the calculation by migrants that leaving is better than staying are all powerful
incentives for crossing borders — legally or not. Migrant incomes are lubricants for the
often extensive networks of recruiters, traffickers, and smugglers who get them to their
destinations. Industries rely on the billions of dollars migrants send back to their homelands.
The interconnected machinery comprising today ’ s labor market forms a
complex, global migration industry. In the face of such forces, efforts to fashion
rational, consistent, and humane migration policies have been elusive. Benjamin E.
Johnson, director of the migrant advocacy group the Immigration Policy Center, eloquently
summed up the conundrum: “We send two messages at our border: ‘ Help Wanted ’
and ‘ Keep Out, ’ ” he told a congressional committee. Johnson nailed it, describing the
default official approach as “ schizophrenia. ”Formulating sensible policy requires rulemakers to
weigh competing interests. But a key issue is basic: Is it possible to formulate migration
policies that balance the labor requirements of businesses and economies with the
needs and rights of migrant workers? Or are migrant workers interchangeable
parts, expendable widgets whose export and import should be calibrated and
adjusted according to our needs? Other questions flow from those. Clearly, importing
nations have come to rely on migrants as integral to their labor force. But what should be done
in exchange? Do migrant - dependent businesses or economies have obligations to the families,
communities, and countries left behind? Developed nations and companies often adopt policies
— both domestic and global — that have the effect of promoting migration. Should there be
checks on such strategies? At the same time, less wealthy nations actually encourage their
citizens to leave, for both political and economic purposes. Should more be done to encourage
sustainable economies that don ’ t rely on the sacrifices that migration often entails?
Increasingly, businesses are forming tentative and unusual coalitions with immigrant advocacy
groups. Who wins when partners in the “strange bedfellows ” alliances have competing
priorities? Most Western countries argue over how many immigrants are too many. We focus on
the size of the fences or the number of visas. But should we also pay more attention to the
behavior of people importers? We go after human smugglers, but what about the other
middlemen, the legal recruiters? Just as we try to monitor the importers of foreign food or toys,
do we need to keep a closer eye on those in the people import business and hold them more
accountable for the treatment of their human cargo? Migration is a global phenomenon. Given
that fact, how reasonable is it for politicians to adopt national immigration policies as if they
were the equivalent of local zoning ordinances passed with a nod toward placating homeowners ’
associations with a NIMBY (not in my backyard) mentality? Policymakers need to not only
make sure economic interests do not trump human rights; they also should
recognize that migration does not take place in a vacuum. Besides considering the international
context, they need to reject the disease model of immigration that tries to treat it in isolation from its
causes. Taking account of the reasons people migrate will allow them to shape humane and rational
migration policies.
Immigrants that cross the border end up trapped in cycles like the padrone
system
Kaye ’10 (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for NewsHour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p. 81-82)//cl
This line of conversation was common for the times. The period of mass migration from Europe
had kindled a virtual obsession among restrictionist politicians and their enablers in the
pseudoscientific eugenics movement who were fanatical about cataloging the relative and what
they considered innate abilities of ethnic and racial groups. “What is the poorest?” the chairman
remembered asking the mine owner. “The dagos,” was the reply. The Alabama congressman
expressed surprise. “Worse than the Negro?” he pressed. “Yes,” replied the coal operator,
explaining that even so, he would prefer to hire Italians than Negroes. Burnett was confused.
“Then why do you want the Italian?” he asked. The preference was a matter of pure economics.
“For the purpose of regulating the price, not the quantity,” the businessman explained.
A fellow committee member understood immediately why Italian immigrants were
a better value. “The padrone system,” clarified Congressman William G. Brown of West
Virginia. The padrone system was a corrupt practice in which international
networks of recruiters, placement agents, bankers, contractors, and
subcontractors trafficked in Italian immigrants, turning most of them into
indentured laborers. The system flourished after the Civil War, when American industries
needed a supply of workers to sustain production. In 1864, Congress had obligingly
passed the Act to Encourage Immigration, allowing employers to require migrant
workers to “pledge the wages of their labor” for up to a year to “repay the
expenses of emigration.” Even though the law was repealed four years later, abusive
practices of private recruitment and placement agencies continued for decades. In
1890, congressional investigator Victor L. Ricketts described the padrone system as “probably
the worst evil connected with our modern immigration.” “ Twenty - seven thousand Italian
immigrants were landed at New York last year, and probably two - thirds of them
are subject to a bondage almost as pernicious as the African slave system that
prevailed in the Southern states thirty years ago, Ricketts told a newspaper reporter.
Similarly, increased migration to the U.S. in the twentieth century resulted
in the ‘el enganche’ system where migrants were exploited for even more
profit
Kaye ’10 (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for NewsHour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p. 82-83)//cl
While the padrone arrangement was a particularly odious practice, U.S. immigration history
is bound up with the active recruitment of migrants, a practice dating back to the
colonial era when businesses advertised in Europe their growing need for
workmen and artisans. In the early nineteenth century, construction firms sent agents to
Europe hoping to attract canal builders. At the end of the century, U.S. railway companies
and farmers seeking cheap labor looked south, to Mexico. They developed a
system known as el enganche (the hooking), in which labor contractors along the U.S. side
of the border paid commissions to agents in Mexico (enganchadores ) to procure hundreds of
thousands of Mexican workers. Like the padroni, the contractors often made their
money by renting housing in labor camps to migrants and charging them inflated
prices for food and supplies. Recruitment of migrant workers during the nineteenth
century provided the English language with colorful expressions. In the garment business, the
widespread use of contracted labor was referred to as the sweating system. The middlemen were
known as sweaters because they made their profits by sweating the difference between
what they earned from contractors and what they paid their workers. Sweatshops
were the places where the work was done. In China, flesh peddlers abducted people from
the streets to be used as laborers in colonies in Southeast Asia, South Africa, Cuba, Australia,
and Canada. Those tricked into working were said to have been Shanghaied.
Many migrants fall under the spell of opportunity, seeking out a more
prosperous life but often end up swindled, abused, traded off like toys, and
threated with deportation by companies
Kaye ’10 (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for NewsHour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p. 87-88)//cl
In Edison, New Jersey, I met Subbu (he asked me not to use his full name), an Indian national,
in the United States on a work visa. He had just returned from taking his wife, an Indian trained scientist, for her New Jersey driver ’ s test. As we left their sparsely furnished apartment
and drove down Oak Tree Road, one of America ’ s most densely populated areas for Indian ex pats, Subbu said the concentration of Indian - owned businesses and restaurants
and the sari -clad women made him feel as if he were back in India. Subbu moved to
New Jersey from Bangalore in 2007. He had expected to work full - time, but after a
year he lost his job as a systems analyst for JP Morgan Chase, even before the
financial tailspin. When I met him, he was biding his time, hoping for another placement. At any given time,
as many as fi ve hundred thousand people — there are no accurate figures — are working in the United States on
nonimmigrant “ specialty occupation” H- 1B temporary work visas. Each year, the government issues eighty - five
thousand such visas (sixty- fi ve thousand for holders of bachelor ’ s degrees or higher, and, since 2005, an additional
twenty thousand for foreigners with masters ’ or Ph.D. degrees from an American university), good for a maximum of
six years. During the go - go economic boom years of 2007 and 2008, so many companies were applying for foreign
workers that the quota was reached soon after the April application period started, and federal immigration officials
cut off petitions after the first week. But the recession of 2008 – 2009 seemed to dampen enthusiasm for importing
workers. The number of applications dropped, and the application window reverted to preboom levels of months
instead of a week. Subbu had been sending money home to his mother in his hometown of Mysore near Bangalore,
and had planned to return there himself with his wife and children. He wanted to care for his mother and see that his
kids become fluent in Kannada, his native tongue and one of India ’ s offi cial languages. So, like many migrants,
Subbu was not planning a permanent stay in the United States. He paid a body shop a $
3,500 fee and arrived in New Jersey from India in 2007. He expected to be hired out as a
systems analyst earning about $ 70,000 a year. Once settled, he would send for his family. As a
condition of employment, the recruiter had him sign a seven - page agreement
pledging to work for the agency for eighteen months or face a lawsuit if he didn’t.
Subbu didn’t know it, but that requirement is illegal according to an immigration
attorney I asked to review the agreement . The recruiter was attempting to treat Subbu
as a bonded laborer. But as it turned out, the contract was the least of Subbu ’ s difficulties. There was no
job. The recruiter, who has offices in India and New Jersey, put him up in a four - bedroom house in New Jersey
with eleven other recruits. (The recruiter was later cited for operating an illegal boardinghouse.) Subbu stayed there
for five months, and in that time was paid $ 500. Unemployment is common in the recruitment industry, despite
assurances to the contrary. H - 1B workers describe the downtime as being “ on the bench. ” Another Indian H - 1B
worker who was at the house at the same time confirmed Subbu’ s story, and said he had similar problems — no work
for three months. The recruiter eventually placed Subbu after transferring the visa to
another body shop. As he put it, one recruiter “ rented me out to another one, and
then rented me out to JP Morgan Chase. ” He said the bank, his ultimate employer, was
unaware of the convoluted arrangements. Each of the body shops took a cut from his pay, even
though he wound up with a still respectable $ 100,000 for the year he worked there. Subbu
reckoned that he was owed about $ 6,000 by the recruiter who brought him to the
United States, and he was bitter. “ I have been exploited to the maximum, ” he said. He was
angry at fellow Indians, those who run recruitment agencies and tell their workers that if they complain, they’ll be
sent back to India. “ They are trying to swindle us by not giving us proper salary and creating fear. People who are
coming with this type of visa are not coming as illegal immigrants. They are coming in with a valid visa. They have
valid degrees and a valid education, so they are afraid [that if they speak out] they will not only spoil their image, they
Subbu ’ s experience is not isolated. I spoke to half a
dozen H - 1B employees with similar stories, who asked to remain anonymous. In 2000, the
Baltimore Sun , after reviewing hundreds of court records and government documents, found
numerous cases in which unscrupulous body shops billed U.S. companies at rates
three to four times the salaries they actually paid the workers. They also
interviewed H - 1B workers who were not paid what they had been promised and
were threatened with deportation if they challenged their employers. In 2007, Patni
will spoil their family ’ s reputation also. ”
Computer Systems, a global technology company headquartered in India, agreed to pay more than $ 2.4 million to
607 H - 1B workers following a U.S. Department of Labor investigation that determined the workers had been
underpaid. Patni supplied IT workers to such companies as State Farm Insurance, MetLife, and General Electric.
Immigrants come to the US for cheap labor and that
furthers the capitalist gap in the economy
Kaye 10- (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for News Hour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p.166-167, TS)
The federal foray into migration
management came during a period
when a growing economy needed more workers and
consumers. It was the beginning of a series of immigration laws and policies
in the United States that often have tracked national fortunes and business cycles,
opening and closing the doors as the demand for labor increased and dipped.
The 1864 law established the U.S. Immigration Bureau, which
was supposed to increase the supply of migrants to
American industry to meet its production needs during
the Civil War. (Because the law allowed recruiters to require workers to sign
contracts pledging their wages for a year, organized labor and their supporters
attacked the legislation for creating a “ species of servitude. ” It was repealed in
1886.) In the late nineteenth century, America shifted from an agricultural to an
urban and industrial power. The
growth of railroad companies, mines,
steel, meatpacking industries, and industrial farming required more and
more migrant workers. Railroads — among them Illinois Central, the
Burlington, and the Northern Pacifi c — sent agents to Europe to entice migrants to
move. Owners of mines and factories also sent emissaries abroad on recruiting
expeditions. The captains of enterprise found migration to be as great a boon as
the expansion of industry: “ Were the owners of every gold and silver mine in the
world compelled to send to the Treasury at Washington, at their own expense,
every ounce of the precious metals produced, the
national wealth would
not be enhanced one - half as much as it is from the golden stream which flows
into the country every year through immigration, ” wrote
the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. During the 1860s and 1870s — years of post –
Civil War Reconstruction, territorial expansion, and rapid industrialization — new
settlers were in great demand. So much so that twenty - fi ve of the thirty - eight
states provided migrants with economic incentives, including good deals on
property and real estate tax exemptions. Southern states were part of the
scramble. They
desperately needed cheap labor to replace
emancipated slaves.
The economy is addicted to foreign labor. Any withdrawal
from it will crush capitalism.
Kaye 10- (Jeffrey Kaye, Los Angeles Emmy Award winning author for News Hour and a former
magazine writer and freelance reporter that worked on four continents, “Moving Millions: How
Coyote Capitalism Fuels Global Immigration”, p.251, TS)
Microsoft ’ s long - term plan for more migrant employees to spur economic
growth stood in sharp contrast to the firm ’ s immediate financial reality. With
declining revenue, Microsoft needed to control costs. As
one arm of the company pushed to be allowed to import
more foreign workers, another was preparing dismissal notices. Two
and half weeks after making its case to import “ people from around the world, ”
the company announced that it would be eliminating fourteen hundred jobs right
away, and might lay off up to twenty - six hundred additional employees over the
next eighteen months. To the Microsofts of the world, the globe is a mighty
chessboard with pieces that need to be moved around in accordance with longterm
goals, grand strategies, challenges from other major players, and the
circumstances of play. Mobility is key, and if the rules of play inhibit movement,
then the players seek to change them. Generally missing from the calculation is a
sense of the common good. It’s
a global system that I earlier
referred to as “coyote capitalism,” one whose skewed
priorities place the welfare of migrants at the bottom of
the list. Properly addressing migration requires not only a commitment to
address its causes, but a reexamination of values, a better understanding of
enforcement regimes and vested interests, and the realization that an
international issue entails a global approach. Even though the
demand for
migrant workers rises and dips over time and with
economic fluctuations, the overall appetite in the
developed world for the brains and brawn of foreign
labor seems unrelenting. Like addicts, we need the next fi x. We are
hooked. The cravings come from all sectors of the
economy. “ There are only so many brains available, ” the
president of a U.S. high - tech market research firm told Investor ’ s Business
Daily. “ And either
they ’ re going to get them or we are. ”
FW
*** Best FW card is in the Middleground aff – Copy and Paste below card
Our call to legal action as an ally, echo’s the call of undocumented immigrants, that
demand recognition and an end to the campaign of fear vs local police. It is this
fight for recognition that transforms citizenship from a juridical to a practical one
– This embodies Foucault’s reversibility of power relations, and is empirically
successful
Inda et. al ’13 – Chair and Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies, Ph.D. in Anthropology
from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. His research areas include the politics of
immigration, governmentality and life politics, the critical study of race and medicine, the
anthropology of globalization, and Latino populations in the United States. Dr. Inda is currently
Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies and Criticism and Interpretive Theory. (Jonathan
Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling, “Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 20-21, TS)
Undocumented immigrants have both the agency and the access to
challenge the state—empirics prove they also have the capability to be
successful
Cisneros 14- Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and affiliate faculty in the Department of
Latina/Latino Studies and the Center for Writing Studies. His research focuses on the ways in which social and
political identities are rhetorically constructed and contested in the public sphere. He specializes in issues of
citizenship, race/ethnicity, Latin@ identity, and immigration. (Jonathan Xavier Inda & Julie A. Dowling,
“Governing Immigration through Crime”, pg. 249)//cl
This final part focuses on immigrant resistance and contestation. There is no doubt that a
criminal dragnet has been cast over the United States in order to manage the putative
"dangers" of migrant illegality. However, the nation cannot be reduced to a mere space of
policing. It is also most certainly a site of political struggle. Indeed, although the policing of
immigrants may have escalated, the undocumented have not stood idly by and accepted the
highly punitive treatment to which they have been subjected. Rather, they and their allies have
actively sought to challenge the anti-immigrant climate and the governing of immigration
through crime. We have called their acts of contestation migrant counter-conducts. These are
acts or forms of comportment that challenge the criminalization and exclusion of undocumented
migrants. The counter-conducts in which migrants have engaged include labor and hunger
strikes for justice, advocating for legalization and political rights, the occupation of churches as a
way of gaining sanctuary, public demonstrations, and fighting for legal redress for unpaid
wages. Such counter-conducts ultimately speak to the political becoming of
undocumented migrants and their enactments of citizenship. The authors in this
section highlight several of these forms that pro-immigrant activism has assumed in the United
States: mass marches and protests, undocumented student activism, and border activism.
Chapter 13, by Josue David Cisneros, focuses on the momentous pro-immigrant marches that
took place in the spring of 2006. Across the country, unions, religious institutions, immigrant
rights groups, Latino organizations, and the general public banded together that spring to
publically protest immigration policing and its drastic effects on migrants and their
communities. Cisneros specifically deals with what has come to be known as La Gran Marcha,
the pro-immigrant demonstration that took place in Los Angeles on March 25. With an
estimated half a million people participating, it was one of the largest of the nationwide
marches. The main argument that Cisneros makes is that La Gran Marcha amounted to an
enactment of U.S. citizenship: the protesters simultaneously sought to construct
undocumented immigrants as part of the national community and to challenge the
popular and political construction of these individuals as alien others who threaten the
social body.
Questions of class don’t apply to Latin America like they do Europe
Mignolo, Duke University Professor of Literature and Romance Studies 5 (Walter,
“The Idea of Latin America”, BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, pg.87-89 RRR)
In Europe, racial differences did not function as internal colonialism. Modern nation-states in
Europe, after all, did not arise with imperial independence and political decolonization as a goal.
Their point of origin was, instead, a struggle for the emancipation of a new social class, the
bourgeoisie, and not a colonial second-class population. In Europe, internal colonialism could
be used as a metaphor for class exploitation linked to the Industrial Revolution, but the
historical conditions of inequality were quite distinct from the ones in the Americas: the
European bourgeoisie did not decolonize itself by its emancipation from monarchic and despotic
regimes, similar to the decolonizing struggles by Blacks in Haiti. The rise of the bourgeoisie
paralleled the broadening reach of the Industrial Revolution and the constitutiori and control of
the state. The control of the economy and the state by a new social class had generated a new
oppressed stratum of the population (the proletariat); but racism was not part of the problem.
Class differences, not racial ones, shaped the European political scene. The proletariat as the
identity of a social class was defined by conditions of labor and capital rather than by racial
classification, which came into its full force as a con¬sequence of the transformation of the1
exploitation of labor in the colonies. There is no doubt that a class distinction is embedded in
racial classification and internal colonialism in the Americas, but the principle of classification is
not based on a social class formed out of a group of workers employed in the industries
emerging from the Industrial Revolution. It hinges, instead, on a social stratification that
emerged from colonialism. Of course, the social classification was not “naturally embedded” in
the group of differentiated people; it was — rather - an epistemic classification foundational for
the establishment of the modern/colonial world.37 This is precisely how the colonial matrix of
power is “glued” together by racism, by the discourse that demonizes entire populations by
portraying them as inferior human beings, if human at all. Jamaican philosopher Lewis Gordon
summarized the divergence between the historical logic of modernity/coloniality as experienced
in Europe and that of modernity/coloniality in the Americas. For Gordon, class is so indigenous
to Europe that it emerges even in European efforts toward socialism. One can “feel” class in
Europe as the air that one breathes, observes Gordon, looking at Europe from his subjective
understanding and personal location in a Caribbean history rooted in slavery, racism, and
European colonialism. In the Americas, Gordon continues, race became an endemic motif of
New World consciousness, and that is why one can “feel” race here in the same way as in Europe
one can “feel” class.38 However, the issue is not to dwell on that distinction, but to be attentive
to the conse¬quences of it. These are crucial to understanding that, today, the “idea” of Latin
America is being refurbished against the very back-drop of the modern/colonial world. Gordon
observes that: The agony experienced globally, then, is not simply one of intensified class
division but also one of an^asserted New World consciousness on those not indigenous to ifc^. .
Something new is being formed. Just as a new oppressive relation emerged when Europe
expanded westward (and sub¬sequently, eastward), so, too, are new oppressive relations
emerg¬ing as the New West goes global. Is it racism? Classism? Sexism? In my view, it is none
of these uniquely, but instead a pervasive ethos against humanistic solutions to any of them. In
short, it is the ethos of counter-revolution and anti-utopia.39 The quotation encapsulates the
predominant ethos of the modern/ colonial world, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first
centuries. The “idea” of Latin America, in the nineteenth century, was forged in the movement
of imperial institutions for the control of meaning and of money, supported by a Creole elite
eager to cut the umbilical cord to Spain and Portugal, and join the club of emerging empires.
However, while class division was shaping the life and institutions of Europeans, racism
continued to shape the life and institutions in the colonies — and not only the new colonies of
France and England but also the new, apparently independent nations in the process of
identifying themselves as “Latin” American nation-states.
Case
Americanization
Attempts to apply multi-culturism to the region lead to further
“Americanization” of culture through cross-pollination
Cueto, Professor in the School of Public Health at the Universidad Peruana
Cavetano, and Esguerra, Ph.D History Professor at The University of Texas at
Austin, 9
(Marcos, an historian and a professor in the School of Public Health at the Universidad Peruana
Cayetano Heredia in Lima, Perú. and Jorge Cañizares, s the Alice Drysdale Sheffield Professor of
History at the University of Texas at Austin, 2009, History of Science Society, “Latin America,”
http://www.hssonline.org/publications/NonWesternPub/Latin_America.html, Accessed:
7/3/13, LPS.)
As the first colonial outpost of the early-modern European world, Latin America has long
witnessed complex processes of cultural cross-pollination, suppression, and adaptation.
Beginning in the fifteenth century, millenarian Amerindian civilizations, heirs to rich local
"scientific" traditions, seemingly gave way to European institutions of learning and to new
dominant forms of representing the natural world. What happened to the earlier modes of
learning? How do subordinate cultures resist and adapt to new forms of knowledge? Latin
America has long been a laboratory where the "West" has sought to domesticate
and civilize "non-Western" forms of Amerindian and African knowledge. Given
Latin America's rich history of cultural adaptations, suppressions, and hybridizations, it cannot
be labeled non-Western without serious qualifications. From the fifteenth century, Western
modes and styles of apprehending the natural world have influenced all learned elite institutions
in the region. Latin America has witnessed different periods of Western scientific dominance;
Iberian, French, British, German and USA scientific traditions and institutions have left
indelible marks.
Inclusion Bad
Their proposal is a universalizaing gesture—even well-intentioned inclusion
replicates the exclusion of the other and authorizes violence
Mignolo 2000 [Walter, William H. Wannamaker Professor of Literature and Romance Studies
at Duke University Local Histories/Global Designs, 175-178] //
In 1971 Dussel, starting and departing from Levinas, conceived
totality as composed by "the same" and "the
other." Describing the totality formed by "the same" and "the other," Dussel called it "the Same."
And we'll see soon why. Outside totality was the domain of "the other." The difference in Spanish was rendered
between lo otro, which is the complementary class of ihe same" and el otro relegated to the domain exterior to the system. I am
tempted to translate this view today as a "interior" and "exterior" subalternilics. Socially
and ontologically, the
exteriority is the domain of the homeless, unemployed, illegal aliens cast out from education,
from the economy, and the laws that regulate the system. Metaphysically, "the other" is—from
the perspective of the totality and the "same"—the unthinkable that Dussel urges us to think. "Philosophy in
Latin America, and this is a first conclusion, should begin by making a critique of Totality as totality" (1975, 21). this conception is
useful in the sense that the
difference between interior and exterior subalternities is framed in legal
and economic terms. Thus, it is indeed a class difference. However, the difference is not justified in terms of
class but in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and sometimes ity (i.e., if the nationality in question
happens to be "against" democracy and Western nationalistic ideals). Nobody is cast out because he or
she is poor. He or she becomes poor because he or she has been cast out. On the other hand, this
difference allows us to understand that gender, ethnic and sexual differences could be absorbed by
the system and placed in the sphere of interior subalternity. This is visible today in the United
States as far as Afro-Americans, women, Hispanics, and queers (although with sensible differences between
these groups) are becoming accepted within the system as lo otro, complementary of the totality
controlled by "the same." Beyond the fact lhat Dussel used some questionable metaphors based on the structure of the
Christian family to make his argument, he also untie 1 lined very important historical dimensions: 1. A critique of modern
epistemology or modern thinking (el pensiii moderno); 2. The coloniality of power introduced by Christianity in the "dis covery" of
America and in what Dussel ( 1 9 9 6 ; 1998a) most recent I\ identified as the modern world system. Dussel
placed what is
known today as Latin America in the exteriority of "the other" upon which tin modern world
system constituted itself; 3. Claims that looking at Latin America as "the olher" explain the successive constructions of
exteriorities in the colonial histories of the modern world system and, consequently, the similarity (beyond obvl ous differences in
their local histories) among regions of the "Third World" (e.g., the Arabic world, black Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and China); 4.
Consequently, and beyond
the details of the geopolitical relations and the fact that these observations
were made during the crucial year, of the cold war, the geopolitical conclusions were that
Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union constitute "the geopolitical same" while the rest
constitute "the geopolitical other." At this point the lot .1 tion of Latin America as "the other" is ambiguous. Dussel's
argument tries to show the uniqueness of Latin America as the only geopolitic al and subaltern unit—with the exception of Cuba—
that cannot entertain a dialogue with Europe, the United States, and the Soviet Union at the same time, while all the other
geopolitical units can, but this line ol argumentation is unconvincing. However, I would like to retain from this issue Dussel's
confrontation with Marxism in the modern world system as well as in Latin America. His conceptualization of Totality in historical
and socioeconomic and legit terms led Dussel, a serious scholar of Marx (Dussel 1985; 1988; 1990) n I a critic of Marx and of
Marxism in Latin America. Marx's unquestionable contribution to the analysis of the functioning of capitalist economy cannot not be
confused with Marx's sightless when it came to the location ni The other" (el otro) and the exteriority of the system. That is, Marx, •n
• Hiding to Dussel, only thinks in terms of totality ("the same" and "the i a In i," which is the working class) but is less aware of
alterity, the exteriority ni ihe system. Hence, Marx's thinking on these issues is located within modern epistemology and ontology. In
his critical analysis about modern episteItmlogy (el pensar moderno), that term to which he attributed the conceptual .iiion of
totality I described earlier, Dussel summarizes ideas well known (nilny, although less familiar in 1971. Modern
thought since
an ontology of totality that, for reasons that are quite simple,
had to include a metaphysic of alterity as negativity. The reason, he Hrues, can be found in the ontological break
of modern thought with its i iieck legacies. The modern concept of being is secular and is therefore built
upon a negation of the other, which is identified with the God of Christian totality. The same, now,
is the ego, an ego without God. Totality, according In Dussel, is no longer a fysis (in the sense of ancient Greek
Descartes, Dus• I argues, presupposed
philosophy) hill ego; there is no longer a physic but an egotic totality. To this egotic Inundation of totality
corresponds the Kantian left denke and Marx's Ich arliflle. Hegel, for whom Knowledge and Totality are the Absolute, installed
lilmsclf, according to Dussel, at the crux of modern thought. Neither
Nietzsche nor Marx could escape from the
modern paradigm. Nietzsche's mystical experience, in the Alps, where he discovered that "All is
one," napped him in the idea of an eternal return to "the Same," a Totality moved li\ "a will to power," to
which Dussel opposes the "dominated will." He • i includes by saying that: A esta modernidad pertenece tanto el capitalismo liberal,
y por lo tanto tambien el dependiente latinoamericano, como tambien el marxismo ortodoxo. Esto me parece fundamental en este
momento presente de America Latina. Puedo decir t|iie no son radicalmente opuestos siquiera, sino que son ontologicamente "lo
Mismo." Esto, evidentemente, no lo aceptarian con ninguna facilidad muchos marxistas del tipo althuseriano, por ejemplo. (Dussel
1975, 21) in this modernity belongs both liberal capitalism, and consequently Latin American dependent capitalism, as well as
orthodox Marxism. This premise is basic for me, at this particular junction of Latin American history. 1 can say that liberal
capitalism and Marxism are not radically opposed but that they are indeed ontologically "the Same." This conclusion may not be
easily accepted, I believe, by Althusserian-Marxists. Dusscl's view of the inadequacy of Marxism for Latin America is grounded in Ins
analysis of modern thought and the place of Marxism in this paradigm— mainly, in the fact that modern thought was oblivious of
colonialiiy. I mil America" in this case could be read as the unthinkable of modernity, ni , iJ only thinkable within modernity, but not
as coloniality. In his own won I El marxismo es incompatible ontologicamente no solo con la tradicion Lalliin americana sino con la
meta-fisica de la Alteridad. No es puramente una inn i pretacion econoniico socio-politica, es tambien una ontologfa, y, como tal, n
intrinsicamente incompatible con una metafisica de la Alteridad. No es incom patible, en cambio, lo que podria llamarse socialismo;
esto ya es otra cuestion (Dussel 1975, 41) Marxism is ontologically incompatible not only with the Latin American tradt tion but also
with the metaphysic of alterity. Marxism
is not only an economic and sociopolitic interpretation but, as
such, is intrinsically incompatible with the metaphysic of Alterity. It is not incompatible, on the
contrary, with something that could be called socialism. This is a different story. Here, Dussel puts his finger on an
issue and a possible debate within the I. It itself. First of all, Dussel's view of Marxism as ingrained in "modern thinking" (el pensar
moderno) and not alien to it, has been restated by others molt recently (Immanuel Wallerstein recently did so in his discussions ol
tin geoculture of the modern world system [1991a, 8 4 - 9 7 ] ) . But that is not all and perhaps not the most interesting aspect of
Dussel's position. Of more interest for the argument of this chapter is the fact that il coincides wilh tin positions defended by Aymara
intellectual and activist Fausto Reinaga. What are the grounds from which Dussel is defending this argument? My sense is that it has
to do with his view of the deopolitics of Christianity. Let me explain.
AT: Underview
The 1ac’s assumption of the modern being tangible means their impacts are
built upon false assumptions
Grossberg 10 (Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies, and Adjunct
Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Anthropology, and Geography at the University of North Carolina)
(Lawrence, Cultural Studies in the Future Tense, pg. 260) //DDI13
The question is neither empirical nor conceptual, but conjunctural and discursive. To theorize
the problematic of the modern requires us to inves- tigate the production of the discourses of
the modern-what are its condi- tions of possibility, its effectivitics, and its dispersions. Or to
put it differ- ently, it involves questions of what might be called conjunctural and epochal
ontologies. What are we saying about a context when we call it modern, or when we deny it such a
description? What was it that was brought into existence under the sign of euro-modernity that is what we
refer to as "the modern"? What sort of answer would not simply condemn the modern to forever becoming
euro-modern? I offer a somewhat speculative analysis of fractions of a spatially and historically dispersed
conversation on modernity. What can possibly be signaled by the complexity of the contexts and
claims made about and for modernity? The analysis does not seek to define either an essence or
a simple unity; rather, it points to the virtuality of modern, to a reality that has effects but
is never fully actualized, because it can be actualized in multiple ways.
No Warrant for all modernity being European or for the chance of alternatives
Grossberg (Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies, and Adjunct Distinguished
Professor of American Studies, Anthropology, and Geography at the University of North Carolina) 10
(Lawrence, Cultural Studies in the Future Tense, pg. 264) //DDI13
However, there are ambivalences within the project. First, the M/C group is attempting to decenter
modernity from its apparent European origins, proposing instead to adopt "a world
perspective in the explanation of modernity, in lieu of a view of modernity as an intraEuropean phenomenon" (Escobar 2007, r84). Yet they continue to identify modernity with
Europe, even as they double it: the first modernity begins in 1492 with the Spanish
colonization of the Americas, followed by a second (n1ore con1monly rec- ognized) modernity
of northern Europe, which did not replace the former but "overlaps” with it. They limit
modernity to Europe, but suggest it is the product of global relations; yet it is unclear
why all modernity is euro-modernity, and therefore inescapably involved in coloniality.
Could one imagine a modernity without coloniality? If such imagination is not possible, then how
is it possible to imagine other elements that are similarly intimately connected to
modernity but without the contamination of euro-modernity? For exrunple, if it is necessary to
give up any notion of moder-nity, why are we not compelled to give up notions of democracy? VVhy can
democracy be reconceived but modernity cannot?
No single cause of violence
Muro-Ruiz 2 [Diego, London School of Economics, “The Logic of Violence”, Politics, 22(2), p.
116]
Violence is, most of the time, a wilful choice, especially if it is made by an organisation.
Individuals present the scholar with a more difficult case to argue for. Scholars of violence
have now a wide variety of perspectives they can use – from sociology and political
science, to psychology, psychiatry and even biology – and should escape easy
judgements. However, the fundamental difficulty for all of us is the absence of a
synthetic, general theory able of integrating less complete theories of violent
behaviour. In the absence of such a general theory, researchers should bear in mind that
violence is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that resists mono-causal
explanations. Future research on violence will have to take in account the variety of
approaches, since they each offer some understanding of the logic of violence.
Their framing is flawed—magnitude overwhelms low probability
Posner 05 [Richard A. Posner, “The Probability of Catastrophe,” Wall Street Journal, January
4, 2005]
The fact that a catastrophe is very unlikely to occur is not a rational justification
for ignoring the risk of its occurrence. Suppose that a tsunami as destructive as the one in the Indian Ocean occurs on average once a
century and kills 150,000 people. That is an average of 1,500 deaths per year. Without having to attempt a sophisticated estimate of the value of life to the people exposed to the
risk, one can say with some confidence that if an annual death toll of 1,500 could be substantially reduced at moderate cost, the investment would be worthwhile. A combination
of educating the residents of low-lying coastal areas about the warning signs of a tsunami (tremors and a sudden recession in the ocean), establishing a warning system involving
emergency broadcasts, telephoned warnings, and air-raid-type sirens, and improving emergency response systems, would have saved many of the people killed by the Indian
Ocean tsunami, probably at a total cost below any reasonable estimate of the average losses that can be expected from tsunamis. Relocating people away from coasts would be
even more efficacious, but except in the most vulnerable areas or in areas in which residential or commercial uses have only marginal value, the costs would probably exceed the
benefits. For annual costs of protection must be matched with annual, not total, expected costs of tsunamis. Why weren't any cost-justified precautionary measures taken in
anticipation of a tsunami on the scale that occurred? Tsunamis are a common consequence of earthquakes, which themselves are common; and tsunamis can have other causes
besides earthquakes -- a major asteroid strike in an ocean would create a tsunami that would dwarf the Indian Ocean one. There are a number of reasons for such neglect. First,
although a once-in-a-century event is as likely to occur at the beginning of the century as at any other time, it is much less likely to occur in the first decade of the century than
later. Politicians with limited terms of office and thus foreshortened political horizons are likely to discount low-risk disaster possibilities, since the risk of damage to their
careers from failing to take precautionary measures is truncated. Second, to the extent that effective precautions require governmental action, the fact that government is a
centralized system of control makes it difficult for officials to respond to the full spectrum of possible risks against which cost-justified measures might be taken. The officials,
given the variety of matters to which they must attend, are likely to have a high threshold of attention below which risks are simply ignored. Third, where risks are regional or
global rather than local, many national governments, especially in the poorer and smaller countries, may drag their heels in the hope of taking a free ride on the larger and richer
countries. Knowing this, the latter countries may be reluctant to take precautionary measures and by doing so reward and thus encourage free riding. Fourth, countries are poor
people have
difficulty thinking in terms of probabilities, especially very low probabilities,
which they tend therefore to write off. This weakens political support for incurring the costs of taking precautionary measures against
often because of weak, inefficient, or corrupt government, characteristics that may disable poor nations from taking cost-justified precautions. Fifth,
low- probability disasters. The operation of some of these factors is illustrated by the refusal of the Pacific nations, which do have a tsunami warning system, to extend their
system to the Indian Ocean prior to the recent catastrophe. Tsunamis are more common in the Pacific, and most of the Pacific nations do not abut on the Indian Ocean. An even
more dramatic example concerns the asteroid menace, which is analytically similar to the menace of tsunamis. NASA, with an annual budget of more than $10 billion, spends
only $4 million a year on mapping dangerously close large asteroids, and at that rate may not complete the task for another decade, even though such mapping is the key to an
asteroid defense because it may give us years of warning. Deflecting an asteroid from its orbit when it is still millions of miles from the earth is a feasible undertaking. In both
cases, slight risks of terrible disasters are largely ignored essentially for political reasons. In part because tsunamis are one of the risks of an asteroid collision, the Indian Ocean
The fact that a disaster of a particular type has
not occurred recently or even within human memory (or even ever) is a bad reason to ignore it. The risk
may be slight, but if the consequences, should it materialize, are great enough, the expected
cost of disaster may be sufficient to warrant defensive measures.
disaster has stimulated new interest in asteroid defense. This is welcome.
Prefer a utilitarian framework—all lives are valuable
Cummisky 96 (David, professor of philosophy at Bates, “Kantian Consequentialism”, p. 131)
Finally, even if one grants that saving two persons with dignity cannot outweigh
and compensate for killing one—because dignity cannot be added and summed
in this way—this point still does not justify deontological constraints. On the
extreme interpretation, why would not killing one person be a stronger obligation
than saving two persons? If I am concerned with the priceless dignity of each,
it would seem that I may still save two; it is just that my reason cannot be that the two
compensate for the loss of the one. Consider Hill's example of a priceless object: If I can
save two of three priceless statutes only by destroying one, then I cannot claim that saving
two makes up for the loss of the one. But similarly, the loss of the two is not outweighed by
the one that was not destroyed. Indeed, even if dignity cannot be simply summed up,
how is the extreme interpretation inconsistent with the idea that I should save as many
priceless objects as possible? Even if two do not simply outweigh and thus compensate
for the loss of the one, each is priceless; thus, I have good reason to save as many
as I can. In short, it is not clear how the extreme interpretation justifies the ordinary
killing/letting-die distinction or even how it conflicts with the conclusion that the more
persons with dignity who are saved, the better.8
Lack of State Action Bad
Political action key to actualize the change.
Grossberg (Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies and Cultural Studies, and Adjunct Distinguished
Professor of American Studies, Anthropology, and Geography at the University of North Carolina) 10
I ·want to describe a diagram of ways of being modern as a configuration-a doubled difference-of four distinct but
articulated apparatuses of spatial and temporal belonging." The
actuality of any possible
modernity will be defined by particular articulations of each of the terms of lived
temporality-change and the event-and of lived spatiality-institutional space and
everyday life-as well as the relations among them. In euro-modernity, for example,
these appear as history and the phenomenological present, as the state and a
commodified everyday life. But there arc other ways of actualizing change, and the
present of realizing institutional and everyday space. They are virtualities that can
be differently actualized to create a multiplicity of ways of being modern. In other
words, being modern involves neither the event nor change in the abstract but
concrete actualizations of both in relation-neither everyday life nor institutional
space in the abstract but concrete actualizations of both in relation. Insofar as each of
these varied logics of belonging in space and time is never simply singular and universal, as if there were only one
possibility, then "being modern') itself is a real and positive multiplicity.
Policy is necessary to disengage from the normative forms of domination
Dussell 2000 ("Europe, ENRIQUE DUSSEL, was born December 24, 1934 in the town of La Paz, in the region of Mendoza, Argentina. He first
came to Mexico in 1975 as a political exile and is currently a Mexican citizen, Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Iztapalapa campus of the
Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Autonomous Metropolitan University, UAM) and also teaches courses at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México (National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM). He has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy (from the Universidad Nacional de
Cuyo/National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, Argentina), a Doctorate from the Complutense University of Madrid, a Doctorate in History from the
Sorbonne in Paris, and an undergraduate degree in Theology obtained through studies in Paris and Münster. He has been awarded Doctorates Honoris
Causa from the University of Friburg in Switzerland, the University of San Andrés in Bolivia and the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. He is the
founder with others of the movement referred to as the Philosophy of Liberation, and his work is concentrated in the field of Ethics and Political
Philosophy, Modernity, and Eurocentrism." Nepantla: Views from South 1, no. 3 (2000): 465-478. . Philosophy of Liberation. Orbis Books,
http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/wan/wandussel.pdf)
¶
Only when the civilizing and exculpating myths of modern violence are denied and
the injustice inherent to sacrificial praxis both inside and outside of Europe is
recognized is it possible to overcome the essential limitation of “emancipatory
reason.” This overcoming of emancipatory¶ reason as a liberating reason is
possible only when both enlightened reason’s¶ Eurocentrism and the
developmentalist fallacy of the hegemonic process of¶ modernization are
unmasked. It is my contention here that these operations¶ can still be performed from
enlightened reason when one ethically discovers the dignity of the other (of the other
culture, sex, or gender), when one¶ pronounces innocent the victims of modernity by
affirming their alterity¶ as identity in the exteriority. In this manner, modern reason is
transcended¶ not as denial of reason as such, but rather as denial of the violent,
Eurocentric, developmentalist, hegemonic reason. What is at stake here is what¶ I
have called “transmodernity,” a worldwide ethical liberation project in¶ which
alterity, which was part and parcel of modernity, would be able to¶ fulfill itself.19 The fulfillment of modernity has
nothing to do with a shift¶ from the potentialities of modernity to the actuality of European modernity. Indeed, the fulfillment of modernity
would be a transcendental shift¶ where modernity and its denied alterity, its victims, would mutually fulfill each other in a creative process. The
transmodern project is the mutual¶ fulfillment of the “analectic” solidarity of center/periphery, woman/man,¶ mankind/earth, western
culture/peripheral postcolonial cultures, different¶ races, different ethnicities, different classes. It should be noted here that¶ this mutual
fulfillment of solidarity does not take place by pure denial but¶ rather by subsumption from alterity.2
SFO Turn
The alt recreates the hierarchy of civilizations and normalizes racist views
of the subaltern – you must reject the K
Alcoff 92(Linda Martín Department of Philosophy at Syracuse University. “The Problem of Speaking For Others”
Cultural Critique Winter 1991-92, pp. 5-32.)
(1) The impetus to speak must be carefully analyzed and, in many cases (certainly for academics!),
fought against. This may seem an odd way to begin discussing how to speak for, but the point is that the
impetus to always be the speaker and to speak in all situations must be seen for what it is: a desire
for mastery and domination. If one's immediate impulse is to teach rather than listen to a less-privileged
speaker, one should resist that impulse long enough to interrogate it carefully. Some of us have been
taught that by right of having the dominant gender, class, race, letters after our name, or some other criterion, we are more
likely to have the truth. Others have been taught the opposite and will speak haltingly, with apologies, if they speak at all. 16
At the same time, we have to acknowledge that the very decision to "move over" or retreat can occur only
from a position of privilege. Those who are not in a position of speaking at all cannot retreat
from an action they do not employ. Moreover, making the decision for oneself whether or not to retreat is an
extension or application of privilege, not an abdication of it. Still, it is sometimes called for. (2) We must also
interrogate the bearing of our location and context on what it is we are saying, and this should be an
explicit part of every serious discursive practice we engage in. Constructing hypotheses about the possible
connections between our location and our words is one way to begin. This procedure would be most successful
if engaged in collectively with others, by which aspects of our location less obvious to us might be
revealed.17One deformed way in which this is too often carried out is when speakers offer up in the
spirit of "honesty" autobiographical information about themselves, usually at the beginning of
their discourse as a kind of disclaimer. This is meant to acknowledge their own understanding that
they are speaking from a specified, embodied location without pretense to a transcendental truth. But as Maria Lugones and
others have forcefully argued, such an act serves no good end when it is used as a disclaimer against one's ignorance or
errors and is made without critical interrogation of the bearing of such an autobiography on what is about to be said. It
leaves for the listeners all the real work that needs to be done. For example, if a middle class white man were to begin a
speech by sharing with us this autobiographical information and then using it as a kind of apologetics for any limitations of
his speech, this would leave to those of us in the audience who do not share his social location all the work of translating
his terms into our own, apprising the applicability of his analysis to our diverse situation, and determining the substantive
relevance of his location on his claims. This is simply what less-privileged persons have always had to do for ourselves
when reading the history of philosophy, literature, etc., which makes the task of appropriating these discourses more
difficult and time-consuming (and alienation more likely to result). Simple unanalyzed disclaimers do not improve on this
familiar situation and may even make it worse to the extent that by offering such information the speaker
may feel even more authorized to speak and be accorded more authority by his peers. (3) Speaking
should always carry with it an accountability and responsibility for what one says. To whom one is accountable
is a political/epistemological choice contestable, contingent and, as Donna Haraway says, constructed through
the process of discursive action. What this entails in practice is a serious commitment to remain open to
criticism and to attempt actively, attentively, and sensitively to "hear" the criticism (understand it). A quick
impulse to reject criticism must make one wary. (4) Here is my central point. In order to evaluate
attempts to speak for others in particular instances, we need to analyze the probable or actual
effects of the words on the discursive and material context. One cannot simply look at the location of
the speaker or her credentials to speak; nor can one look merely at the propositional content of the speech; one
must also look at where the speech goes and what it does there. Looking merely at the content of a set of
claims without looking at their effects cannot produce an adequate or even meaningful evaluation of it, and this
is partly because the notion of a content separate from effects does not hold up. The content of the claim, or its
meaning, emerges in interaction between words and hearers within a very specific historical situation. Given
this, we have to pay careful attention to the discursive arrangement in order to understand the full meaning of
any given discursive event. For example, in a situation where a well-meaning First world person is
speaking for a person or group in the Third world, the very discursive arrangement may
reinscribe the "hierarchy of civilizations" view where the U. S. lands squarely at the top.
This effect occurs because the speaker is positioned as authoritative and empowered, as the
knowledgeable subject, while the group in the Third World is reduced, merely because of the
structure of the speaking practice, to an object and victim that must be championed from afar.
Though the speaker may be trying to materially improve the situation of some lesser-privileged
group, one of the effects of her discourse is to reenforce racist, imperialist conceptions
and perhaps also to further silence the lesser-privileged group's own ability to speak
and be heard.18 This shows us why it is so important to reconceptualize discourse, as Foucault
recommends, as an event, which includes speaker, words, hearers, location, language, and so on. All such
evaluations produced in this way will be of necessity indexed. That is, they will obtain for a very specific
location and cannot be taken as universal. This simply follows from the fact that the evaluations will be based
on the specific elements of historical discursive context, location of speakers and hearers, and so forth. When
any of these elements is changed, a new evaluation is called for.
Speaking for others is wrong—their privileged social location makes any claim to political
empowerment suspect—it’s an act of commodification and colonial domination, which
turns the K
Linda Martín Alcoff (Department of Philosophy at Syracuse University. “The Problem of Speaking For Others”
Cultural Critique Winter 1991-92, pp. 5-32.)
Feminist discourse is not the only site in which the problem of speaking for others has been
acknowledged and addressed. In anthropology there is similar discussion about whether it is possible to
speak for others either adequately or justifiably. Trinh T. Minh-ha explains the grounds for skepticism
when she says that anthropology is "mainly a conversation of `us' with `us' about `them,' of the
white man with the white man about the primitive-nature man...in which `them' is silenced. `Them'
always stands on the other side of the hill, naked and speechless...`them' is only admitted among
`us', the discussing subjects, when accompanied or introduced by an `us'..."4 Given this analysis,
even ethnographies written by progressive anthropologists are a priori regressive because of the structural
features of anthropological discursive practice.
The recognition that there is a problem in speaking for others has followed from the widespread
acceptance of two claims. First, there has been a growing awareness that where one speaks from
affects both the meaning and truth of what one says, and thus that one cannot assume an ability
to transcend her location. In other words, a speaker's location (which I take here to refer to her social
location or social identity) has an epistemically significant impact on that speaker's claims,
and can serve either to authorize or dis-authorize one's speech. The creation of Women's Studies
and African American Studies departments were founded on this very belief: that both the study of and the advocacy
for the oppressed must come to be done principally by the oppressed themselves, and that we must finally
acknowledge that systematic divergences in social location between speakers and those spoken for will have a
significant effect on the content of what is said. The unspoken premise here is simply that a speaker's location is
epistemically salient. I shall explore this issue further in the next section. The second claim holds that not only is
location epistemically salient, but certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous.5 In
particular, the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged
persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reenforcing the oppression of
the group spoken for. This was part of the argument made against Anne Cameron's speaking for
Native women: Cameron's intentions were never in question, but the effects of her writing were argued to
be harmful to the needs of Native authors because it is Cameron rather than they who will be listened to
and whose books will be bought by readers interested in Native women. Persons from dominant groups
who speak for others are often treated as authenticating presences that confer legitimacy and credibility
on the demands of subjugated speakers; such speaking for others does nothing to disrupt the
discursive hierarchies that operate in public spaces. For this reason, the work of privileged
authors who speak on behalf of the oppressed is becoming increasingly criticized by members of those
oppressed groups themselves.6 As social theorists, we are authorized by virtue of our academic positions
to develop theories that express and encompass the ideas, needs, and goals of others. However, we must
begin to ask ourselves whether this is ever a legitimate authority, and if so, what are the
criteria for legitimacy? In particular, is it ever valid to speak for others who are unlike me or
who are less privileged than me? We might try to delimit this problem as only arising when a more
privileged person speaks for a less privileged one. In this case, we might say that I should only
speak for groups of which I am a member. But this does not tell us how groups
themselves should be delimited. For example, can a white woman speak for all women simply by virtue of
being a woman? If not, how narrowly should we draw the categories? The complexity and multiplicity of group
identifications could result in "communities" composed of single individuals. Moreover, the concept of groups
assumes specious notions about clear-cut boundaries and "pure" identities. I am a Panamanian-American and a
person of mixed ethnicity and race: half white/Angla and half Panamanian mestiza. The criterion of group identity
leaves many unanswered questions for a person such as myself, since I have membership in many conflicting groups
but my membership in all of them is problematic. Group identities and boundaries are ambiguous and permeable, and
decisions about demarcating identity are always partly arbitrary. Another problem concerns how specific an identity
needs to be to confer epistemic authority. Reflection on such problems quickly reveals that no easy solution to the
problem of speaking for others can be found by simply restricting the practice to speaking for groups of which one is
a member.
Speaking from a position of privilege props up power relations—the speaker relies on the
assumption that less privileged cannot speak for them selves
Nontsasa Nako (“Possessing the voice of the other: African women and the ‘Crisis of Representation’ in Alice
Walker’s possessing Secret of Joy” Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, 20 01)
In her essay, “The Problem of Speaking for Others,” Linda Alcoff identifies two widely accepted claims
relating to speaking for others (1994). The first one concerns the relationship between location
and speech; that the position from which one speaks affects the meaning of his or her
speech. Therefore where one speaks from “has an epistemically significant impact on that speaker’s
claim and can serve either to authorize or disauthorize one’s speech”(Alcoff 1994, 287). This is perhaps
the reason why most critics tend to leave their identities and locations visible. One example is Chandra
Mohanty in her introduction to a volume of essays by Third World women, where she writes: “I [also]
write from my own particular political, historical, and intellectual location as a third world feminist
trained in the U.S., interested in questions of culture, knowledge production, and activism in an
international context” (1991, 3).Whether such acts of self-identification are always possible is
debatable, as it is now commonly understood that identities are fluid and always shifting. But it is clear
that such acts are necessary, because for instance, in Mohanty’s case, by foregrounding her
position within the category Third World women she ensures that the meaning of what
she says is not separated from the conditions which produced it. She also acknowledges the
difference within Third World women, and this anticipates her definition of Third World women as
“imagined communities of women with divergent histories and social locations”(Mohanty 1991, 4).The
second claim that Alcoff identifies is that power relations make it dangerous for a privileged
person to speak for the less privileged because that often reinforces the oppression of
the latter since the privileged person is more likely to be listened to. And when a
privileged person speaks for the less privileged, she is assuming either that the other
cannot do so or she can confer legitimacy on their position. And such acts, do “nothing
to disrupt the discursive hierarchies that operate in public spaces” (Ibid).
Speaking for others oppresses them—we must stop the impulse to speak to allow the
organic intellectual to rise up
Lauren Marino (published author in the Malacester Journal of Philosophy, Volume 14, Issue 1, Spring 20 05.
“Speaking for Others”)
What then is the solution? I agree with bell hooks that the oppressed
margins. The oppressed should not try to move into the center but
must celebrate their position on the
appreciate their counterculture. The
oppressed must produce intellectuals so that the dominated can speak to the dominating. The
idea goes back to Antonio Gramsci’s concept of the organic intellectual.7 The elites are indoctrinated
in the ruling ideology and have an investment in the current order. No matter how progressive their politics
may be, the elite will always be the elite. Their investment in the current social order precludes offers of true
systemic change. Gramsci writes of the need for the working class to develop its own intellectuals who are
organically tied to their class. This argument is similar to hooks’ argument. The margin must produce
organic intellectuals. It might be thought that these organic intellectuals should translate between language
games. But as hooks points out, using “the oppressor’s language” is not adequate because it cannot articulate the
experience of the oppressed. Yet, it is the only language game the oppressing can play. Organic intellectuals affect
the center from the margins if they are able to incorporate multiple voices in the texts they create. The goal of the
organic intellectual according to hooks is to “identify the spaces where we begin a process of revision” to create a
counter-ideology.8 Hooks relates this agency to language. “Language is also a place of struggle.”9 The
counterculture can produce a counter-language, which is able to produce a new language to mediate
between the margins and the center. Necessarily the new game must include portions of both old language games or
no one will understand it. It must use old understandings to create new meanings. These counter-languages can
function as the intermediary language games that the oppressed and the elites can be initiated simultaneously. A
new language game must be created. A good example of this is Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”
speech. He used concepts of freedom and democracy familiar to the center to explain the experience of the
oppressed within in the mainstream language game, as well as created new metaphors and linguistic form, i.e. the
preacher’s sermon, to bring the voice of the oppressed and the oppressors into a realm of communication. (bell
hooks uses the preachers sermon form in her refrain ‘language is also a place of struggle’).10 One famous metaphor
is freedom as a bounced check to African Americans. This created a new understanding of the situation. It worked
between the language of oppression understood by African Americans and the center’s understanding of freedom
and the promises of democracy. King was able to include multiple voices, building a bridge between the margin and
the center. The conclusion of hooks is that the margin can be more than a place of oppression and alienation. It can
be “a site of radical possibility, a space of resistance,” that is not open to those in the center. It is the space to
produce counter-hegemonic culture that the organic intellectual is looking for. The oppressed can retell their
story, and if we accept Rorty’s argument that the self is contingent, the oppressed create themselves in the
process. To speak for the oppressed is to silence them. Moreover, in their absence of voice, we define
them. We can define them in many ways, but they will always be a “they” and not an “us.” They will be
the other. We must have faith in the margins to produce new language games to communicate with us.