Latino Immigrant Rights in the Shadow of the National Security State: Responses to Domestic Preemptive Strikes

Abstract

Introduction THIS ARTICLE GREW OUT OF A JOINT PROJECT ON LEGALIZATION STRATEGIES FOR undocumented immigrants, undertaken by the authors early 2001--before September 11, 2001. It is part of an ongoing project, and thus hot a finished document; the topic is a moving target and key events are changing very rapidly (e.g., the Act and other legislation affecting migrants). Although the article focuses on Latino immigrants, other immigrant groups also share the conditions and responses described here. We hope that these reflections will stimulate further interest and activism, particularly the context of the 2004 election the U.S. Central to out argument is the notion that the rate of immigrants is key to the future of democracy the U.S. and the Americas as a hemisphere. Following the passage of Proposition 187 California and at the height of the immigrant-bashing laws of the mid-1990s the U.S. Congress, we characterized U.S. immigration policy as being dominated by a regime (Jonas, 1999). In the wake of September 11, 2001, with U.S. military action abroad the name of fighting terrorism, and the creation of new national security laws and infrastructures within the U.S., we are witnessing the establishment of a state apparatus that threatens to undermine democracy within the U.S. and abroad. That is the larger backdrop for this article, which aims to reframe the issues and struggles for immigrant rights outside (in opposition to) the U.S.-centric national security mentality. We shall examine the following aspects: * The history of anti-immigrant measures since the mid-1990s and the brief opening for legalization just before September 11, 2001; * The effects of September 11 on immigrant rights--hence the title, in the shadow of the state. We emphasize the effects of the Patriot Act(s) and associated legislation for Latinos, although several other immigrant/non-citizen communities (Arabs, South Asians) were much more heavily affected. That is precisely our point: once the government begins to strip away the rights of the most vulnerable (Arab and Arab-American communities), the spillover effect is very rapid and dangerous for all immigrants and other noncitizens--and eventually for U.S. citizens as well; * Defensive and proactive immigrant rights organizing and legalization strategies within the spaces that still exist, from the viewpoint of immigrants themselves; * Longer-range prospects for issues of immigrant rights, legalization, and citizenship. We shall argue that however bleak their prospects--now and for the immediate future--immigrant rights, legalization, and citizenship are issues that will not disappear. They will remain on the and hemispheric agendas for reasons having to do with three major factors: immigrant organizing (agency), long-range structural considerations the Americas, and the gradual construction of international immigrant rights regimes; * Long-range implications of immigrant rights issues for U.S. society and democracy; this context, we suggest directions for reconceptualizing full citizenship (including the problem of second-class citizenship) that might guide research and organizing during this difficult and fundamentally anti-immigrant period. Backdrop: Brief History Since the mid-1990s: Our starting point is 1996, one of the major turning points U.S. immigrant regimes the 20th century. The previous turning points were the 1920s, with their racially driven immigrant quota laws, and the more immigrant-friendly law of 1965, which abolished quotas and instituted family reunification as a major criterion. Signaling concern over the growing presence of undocumented immigrants, Congress passed the Immigrant Reform and Control Act (IRCA) 1986, after more than a decade of political wrangling and the deliberations of a commission on sweeping immigration reform. …

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