Race and Immigration

securitization of immigration

Treating a policy question primarily as a matter for policing and surveillance, apprehension and incarceration; defines immigration discourse.

Taylor's answer to why immigration enforcement focuses on overstated problems

The Illegal Immigrant is a racial type, and regulating that type's presence on US soil is a racial project.

main philosophical debate in immigration

Those favoring a state's presumptive right to exclude immigrants vs those opposing this right by appealing to universal equality and individual freedom.

Mendoza's thesis about right to exclude view

The right to exclude view has had the hardest time dealing with racism in immigration policy.

David Miller's modification to right to exclude

Characteristics like race, ethnicity, sex, and gender should not be used as exclusion criteria because they don't connect to anything of real significance to liberal society.

Wellman's objection to Miller

If a state has a right to exclude potential immigrants, why should it matter that non-citizens are insulted by the criteria?

Michael Blake's criticism of ethnic restrictions

In a diverse society, to restrict immigration for national or ethnic reasons is to make some citizens politically inferior to others.

Mendoza's objection about race-neutral laws

Laws that appear neutral on the surface can nonetheless generate racist outcomes (e.g., US immigration law produces racially disparate outcomes).

attrition through enforcement

An immigration enforcement strategy that produces racially disparate outcomes by making life so difficult for undocumented immigrants that they leave voluntarily.

Sheth's expanded definition of race

A race is any group whose beliefs, values, and behaviors are perceived as a threat to the authority of the sovereign and are vulnerable.

Mendoza's objection to expanding race definition

Many exceptions that don't seem racial would be included; expanding the concept might take away from the seriousness of racism.

Yeng's response to Mendoza

Double down: any group perceived as a threat to the health of the nation can come to constitute a race.

Mendoza's objection to Yeng

We lose any difference between racism, sexism, and homophobia.

Sundstrom and Kim's alternative to expanding race

Classify new discrimination as xenophobia, specifically civic ostracism: civic outsiders are not necessarily racial outsiders.

Sundstrom and Kim's objection to expanding racism

Expanding racism would lead to a homogenized idea that ignores context and subsumes important concepts like xenophobia and nativism.

Silva and Fourlas's intermediate strategy

Expanding race dilutes understanding, but xenophobia isn't enough to capture anti-Hispanic or anti-Muslim discrimination.

problem of enforcement on citizens

Immigration enforcement requires disaggregating noncitizens from citizens, which can treat citizens in certain communities unequally and lead to civic ostracism.

Mendoza's first standard for immigration enforcement

Enforcement should not single out any particular community; burdens should be shared equally among all citizens.

Mendoza's second standard for immigration enforcement

Because some state intrusions are excessive even if shared (warrantless surveillance, random interrogations), certain protections must shield citizens from excesses.

Mendoza's conclusion about state control over immigration

If we respect political equality of citizens, a state's control over immigration becomes less discretionary and more circumscribed