ImmigrationProf Blog

From the Bookshelves: Constructed Movements: Extraction and Resistance in Mexican Migrant Communities by Ragini Shah

Constructed Movements:  Extraction and Resistance in Mexican Migrant Communities by Ragini Shah (University of California Press, November 2024)

The publisher's summary:

"A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

At once theoretically sophisticated and poignantly written, Constructed Movements centers stories from communities in Mexico profoundly affected by emigration to the United States to show how migration extracts resources along racial lines. Ragini Shah chronicles how three interrelated dynamics—the maldistribution of public resources, the exploitation of migrant labor, and the US immigration enforcement regime—entrench the necessity of migration as a strategy for survival in Mexico. She also highlights the alternative visions elaborated by migrant community organizations that seek to end the conditions that force migration. Recognizing that reform without recompense will never right an unjust migratory system, Shah concludes with a forceful call for the US and Mexican governments to make abolitionist investments and reparative compensation to directly counteract this legacy of extraction."

KJ

From the Bookshelves: Not Your Rescue Project Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice by Chanelle Gallant and Elene Lam

Not Your Rescue Project Migrant Sex Workers Fighting for Justice by Chanelle Gallant and Elene Lam (2024)

 

The publisher's description of the book:

 

"A landmark abolitionist primer on migration, sex work, policing, and the “anti-trafficking industry”—and a powerful argument about who is really leading the way toward justice: migrant sex workers themselves.

In this impassioned corrective to decades of misguided, carceral approaches to migration and sex work, long-time organizers Chanelle Gallant and Elene Lam deftly expose the harms of criminalization in the name of “anti-trafficking” and lift up migrant sex workers’ organizing in the US, Canada, and elsewhere. In doing so, they make the compelling case that the only effective response to the needs of migrant sex workers must be led by migrants in the sex trade, as they fight for rights, safety, and autonomy.

Gallant and Lam illustrate how this movement is taking aim at the root causes of violence and abuse: the white supremacist securitization of borders, the criminalization of both migration and sex work, the patriarchal devaluation of women’s labor, and forced displacement due to climate disaster, war, and poverty—all fueled by racial capitalism.

An indispensable exploration of the relationship between migration and sex work—and the underlying societal conditions they reflect—Not Your Rescue Project is a thorough indictment of the anti-trafficking industry as an engine of criminalization and state violence, and an instructive account of the emancipatory politics already being practiced by migrant sex workers in their organizing. Throughout, Gallant and Lam place migrant sex workers at the center of struggles against border imperialism, carceral states, and capitalism—dispelling a range of poisonous myths and paving the way for deeper alliances across movements with the shared goal of dismantling and abolishing carceralism in all its forms."

 

For a discussion if the book with the authors, register here.   Tue Nov 26, 2024 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM EST, Online, YouTube.

 

KJ

Webinar: The Highest Law of the Land: The Role of Sheriffs in the Deportation Machine

Webinar:  The Highest Law of the Land: The Role of Sheriffs in the Deportation Machine

Date & Time:  Nov 21, 2024 03:00 PM in Pacific Time (US and Canada)

 

Description

 

The office of Sheriff has become central in ICE’s mission to detain and deport thousands of immigrants every year. Join us for a conversation with Jessica Pishko, author of The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy. Speakers will also include organizers and advocates who have been fighting against the jail-to-deportation pipeline. Panelists: Jessika Pishko, author and journalist Stefania Arteaga, co-director of Carolina Migrant Network Rachel Ida Buff, organizer with Never Again Action and historian Nithya Nathan-Pineau, Policy Attorney with Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

 

KJ

From the Bookshelves: From Immigrant to Ambassador: My American Journey by Eduardo Aguirre

From Immigrant to Ambassador: My American Journey by Eduardo Aguirre

Arte Publico Press describes the book as follows:

"Cuban exile recounts his rise from refugee to diplomat in autobiography rife with influential people.

Dressed in tails, white tie and matching gloves while sitting in a gilded seventeenth-century carriage drawn by six horses and attended by liveried coachmen, footmen and horse-mounted royal guards, Eduardo Aguirre could hardly believe he was about to present his diplomatic credentials to Spain’s King Juan Carlos I. And this after meeting with President George W. Bush just a few weeks earlier! Only in the United States could a boy rise from immigrant to ambassador.

Aguirre’s fascinating memoir recalls his carefree, happy childhood in Cuba, the onset of the revolution and his parents’ painful decision to send him alone to the United States after his involvement in a counterrevolutionary youth movement jeopardized his safety. Fifteen-year-old Eduardo had one thin dime in his pocket when he arrived in Miami in December 1961, one of the “Operación Pedro Pan” children sent with clandestine help from the US government and the Catholic Church. Despite his often-dire circumstances—lack of money to support himself, inability to manipulate the English language well and even witnessing a sexual abuser at one of the church-run homes in New Orleans—Aguirre maintained a positive attitude and worked hard to succeed. Along the way, he met and married another Cuban exile, raised a family and had a long and respected career in corporate banking.

A gifted storyteller, Aguirre recounts numerous behind-the-scenes anecdotes about his time as a member of the Bush administration, including being vetted for his presidential appointments and the Senate confirmation hearings for his roles as the acting chairman and CEO of the Export Import Bank of the United States, the first director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services following the 9/11 attacks and the US Ambassador to Spain and Andorra. This engaging autobiography by an accomplished US citizen sheds light on politics during the Bush presidency and his attainment of the American Dream."

KJ

From the Bookshelves: Trial Skills for Immigration Court: A Practical Guide to Effective Strategies and Tactics by Michelle Méndez and Vickie Neilson

Trial Skills for Immigration Court: A Practical Guide to Effective Strategies and Tactics

From the publisher, The American Immigration Lawyers Association:

"Cases heard in immigration courts often have life-altering consequences for the respondents in removal proceedings. Many of the basic procedures we take for granted in the American court system are absent in immigration court. While litigants are entitled to due process, immigration judges are given broad leeway in how to conduct hearings, and practitioners must be both knowledgeable and flexible to successfully practice in such a setting.

The first edition of Trial Skills for Immigration Court offers detailed guidance and practical tips on how to present a client’s case. Authors Michelle Méndez and Victoria Neilson teach fundamental court advocacy skills to help practitioners prepare systematically for what they can expect to face in immigration court proceedings."

Here is the Summary Table of Contents.

KJ

Discussion of Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the United States by Ernesto Castaneda

In this discussion (Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the United States - Author Meets Critics), scholars discuss the book Building Walls: Excluding Latin People in the United States, where Ernesto Castañeda and co-authors draw upon multiple data sources (including original survey and archival data, interviews, photovoice, media and online content analysis, ethnographic observation, and in-depth interviews) to describe how and why Latin people are portrayed as a threat to U.S. society, culture, and economy and as continual outsiders even after being in the country for generations. Castañeda formulates a theory that works at three different levels to create social boundaries that exclude and racialize Latin people in the United States in a manner that the resulting inequalities seem normal and justified. 

KJ

From the Bookshelves: Jonathan Blitzer, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

 

Jonathan Blitzer's 2024 book Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis underscores the parallels between the past and the present conditions of the U.S. immigration crisis.

The publisher's description of the book:

"Everyone who makes the journey faces an impossible choice. Hundreds of thousands of people who arrive every year at the US-Mexico border travel far from their homes. An overwhelming share of them come from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, although many migrants come from farther away. Some are fleeing persecution, others crime or hunger. Very often it will not be their first attempt to cross. They may have already been deported from the United States, but it remains their only hope for safety and prosperity. Their homes have become uninhabitable. They will take their chances.

This vast and unremitting crisis did not spring up overnight. Indeed, as Blitzer dramatizes with forensic, unprecedented reporting, it is the result of decades of misguided policy and sweeping corruption. Brilliantly weaving the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tragically tangled immigration policy, Blitzer reveals the full, layered picture for the first time.

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here is an odyssey of struggle and resilience. With astonishing nuance and detail, Blitzer tells an epic story about the people whose lives ebb and flow across the border, and in doing so, he delves into the heart of American life itself. This vital and remarkable story has shaped the nation’s turbulent politics and culture in countless ways—and will almost certainly determine its future."

KJ

From the Bookshelves: The Documented Child: Migration, Personhood, and Citizenship in Twenty-First-Century U.S. Latinx Children's Literature by Maya Socolovsky

The Documented Child:  Migration, Personhood, and Citizenship in Twenty-First-Century U.S. Latinx Children's Literature by Maya Socolovsky

The publisher's description of the book:

"Immigration is at once a personal, immediate, and urgent issue that plays a central role in the United States’ perception of itself. In The Documented Child, scholar Maya Socolovsky demonstrates how the portrayal of Latinx children has shifted over the first two decades of the twenty-first century in literary texts aimed at children and young adults and looks at how these shifts map onto broader changes in immigration policy and discourse.

Through a critical inquiry into picture books and middle-grade and young adult literature, Socolovsky argues that the literary documentations of—and for—U.S. Latinx children have shifted over the decades, from an emphasis on hybrid transnationalism to that of a more American-oriented self. Socolovsky delves into texts written from 1997 to 2020, a period marked by tremendous changes in U.S. immigration policies, amplified discourses around nationhood, and an increasingly militarized border. The author shows how children’s and young adult books have shifted their depictions of the border, personal and national identity, and sovereignty.

For students, scholars, and educators of Latinx studies and children’s literature, this work shows how the creators of children’s literature reflect new strategies for representing the undocumented Latinx child protagonist. While earlier books document the child as a transnational (sometimes global) subject, later books document her as both a transnational and U.S. national subject. The Documented Child explores this change as a necessary survival strategy, reflecting current awareness that cultural hybridity and transnational identity are not sufficient stand-ins for the stability and security of legal personhood."

KJ

From the Bookshelves: Handbook on Sport and Migration

Handbook on Sport and Migration

Edited by Joseph Maguire, Emeritus Professor of Sociology of Sport, Loughborough University, UK, Katie Liston, School of Sport, Sport and Exercise Sciences Research Institute, Ulster University, Belfast, Northern Ireland and Mark Falcous, School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand.  2024 

 

Here is the publisher's pitch:

 

"This insightful Handbook explores how sport intersects the experiences of asylum seekers, refugees, workers and migrants. Editors Joseph Maguire, Katie Liston and Mark Falcous bring together esteemed experts who draw on globally diverse cases studies to capture the complexities surrounding sport and migration, revealing how it is embedded in the wider power struggles that characterize global sport."

 

KJ

From the Bookshelves: The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers by Zeke Hernandez (2024).

The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers by Zeke Hernandez (2024).

Here is the publisher's pitch for the book:

 

"The go-to book on immigration: fact-based, comprehensive, and nonpartisan.

Immigration is one of the most controversial topics in the United States and everywhere else. Pundits, politicians, and the public usually depict immigrants as either villains or victims. The villain narrative is that immigrants pose a threat—to our economy because they steal our jobs; our way of life because they change our culture; and to our safety and laws because of their criminality. The victim argument tells us that immigrants are needy outsiders—the poor, huddled masses whom we must help at our own cost if necessary. But the data clearly debunks both narratives. From jobs, investment, and innovation to cultural vitality and national security, more immigration has an overwhelmingly positive impact on everything that makes a society successful.

In The Truth About Immigration, Wharton professor Zeke Hernandez draws from nearly 20 years of research to answer all the big questions about immigration. He combines moving personal stories with rigorous research to offer an accessible, apolitical, and evidence-based look at how newcomers affect our local communities and our nation. You'll learn about the overlooked impact of immigrants on investment and job creation; realize how much we take for granted the novel technologies, products, and businesses newcomers create; get the facts straight about perennial concerns like jobs, crime, and undocumented immigrants; and gain new perspectives on misunderstood issues such as the border, taxes, and assimilation.

Most books making a case for immigration tell you that immigration is good for immigrants. This book is all about how newcomers benefit you, your community, and your country. Skeptics fear that newcomers compete economically with locals because of their similarities and fail to socially assimilate because of their differences. You'll see that it's exactly the opposite: newcomers bring enduring economic benefits because of their differences and contribute positively to society because of their similarities. Destined to become the go-to book on one of the most important issues of our time, this book turns fear into hope by proving a simple truth: immigrants are essential for economically prosperous and socially vibrant nations."

 

KJ

Throwback Thursday: Aftermath by Daniel Kanstroom

It's Throwback Thursday and on deck for today is Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora by Daniel Kanstroom (BC). Published in 2012, here's the pitch for the book:

Since 1996, when new, harsher deportation laws went into effect, the United States has deported millions of noncitizens back to their countries of origin. While the rights of immigrants-with or without legal status--as well as the appropriate pathway to legal status are the subject of much debate, hardly any attention has been paid to what actually happens to deportees once they "pass beyond our aid." In fact, we have fostered a new diaspora of deportees, many of whom are alone and isolated, with strong ties to their former communities in the United States.

Daniel Kanstroom, author of the authoritative history of deportation, Deportation Nation, turns his attention here to the current deportation system of the United States and especially deportation's aftermath: the actual effects on individuals, families, U.S. communities, and the countries that must process and repatriate ever-increasing numbers of U.S. deportees. Few know that once deportees have been expelled to places like Guatemala, Cambodia, Haiti, and El Salvador, many face severe hardship, persecution and, in extreme instances, even death.

Addressing a wide range of political, social, and legal issues, Kanstroom considers whether our deportation system "works" in any meaningful sense. He also asks a number of under-examined legal and philosophical questions: What is the relationship between the "rule of law" and the border? Where do rights begin and end? Do (or should) deportees ever have a "right to return"? After demonstrating that deportation in the U.S. remains an anachronistic, ad hoc, legally questionable affair, the book concludes with specific reform proposals for a more humane and rational deportation system.

I've been thinking about this book since this summer. When I showed up to the housing for my week with the Rhizome program in Guadalajara (I think there's still room in the January program!), this was the only book left out for students to peruse. There were other reports and handouts, but just this one paperback. And it makes sense. Rhizome's mission focuses on deportees from the US rehomed in Mexico.

It also strikes me as relevant to the present political moment when candidate Trump is pledging to undertake "Mass Deportations Now!"

-KitJ

Book Event: We Thought It Would Be Heaven: Refugees in an Unequal America by Blair Sackett & Annette Lareau

 

MIGRATION SPEAKER SERIES

Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative (BIMI) in partnership with UCSD’s Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UCLA’s Center for the Study of International Migration, presents the next talk of Migration
Speaker Series.

BOOK TALK
WITH AUTHOR BLAIR SACKETT
FRIDAY, OCT 25, 2024
12:00 PM PST

COMMENTATOR:
HELEN MARROW, PROFESSOR, SOCIOLOGY, TUFTS
UNIVERSITY

Through the lived experiences of families resettled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Blair Sackett and Annette Lareau reveal how a daunting obstacle course of agencies and services can drastically alter refugees’ experiences of a new life in America. 

Please mark your calendars for this upcoming book event (via zoom) on 10/25/24.  This event may be recorded.  Please note that the time listed is Pacific Time.  Registration links here and here.

The event will discuss We Thought It Would Be Heaven: Refugees in an Unequal America (paperback – August 2023) by Blair Sackett & Annette Lareau.  One of the authors, Blair Sackett, will participate in the discussion.

The publisher describes the book as follows:

"Resettled refugees in America face a land of daunting obstacles where small things—one person, one encounter—can make all the difference in getting ahead or falling behind.

 Fleeing war and violence, many refugees dream that moving to the United States will be like going to Heaven. Instead, they enter a deeply unequal American society, often at the bottom. Through the lived experiences of families resettled from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Blair Sackett and Annette Lareau reveal how a daunting obstacle course of agencies and services can drastically alter refugees’ experiences building a new life in America.
 
In these stories of struggle and hope, as one volunteer said, “you see the American story.” For some families, minor mistakes create catastrophes—food stamps cut off, educational opportunities missed, benefits lost. Other families, with the help of volunteers and social supports, escape these traps and take steps toward reaching their dreams. Engaging and eye-opening, We Thought It Would Be Heaven brings readers into the daily lives of Congolese refugees and offers guidance for how activists, workers, and policymakers can help refugee families thrive."

KJ

From the Bookshelves: Inside Asylum Appeals Access, Participation and Procedure in Europe by Nick Gill, Nicole Hoellerer, Jessica Hambly & Daniel Fisher

From the Bookshelves: Inside Asylum Appeals Access, Participation and Procedure in Europe by Nick Gill, Nicole Hoellerer, Jessica Hambly & Daniel Fisher was just published by Routledge.

Here is a copy of the book description from the publisher:

Appeals are a crucial part of Europe’s asylum system but they remain poorly understood. Building on insights and perspectives from legal geography and socio-legal studies, this book shines a light on what takes place during asylum appeals and puts forward suggestions for improving their fairness and accessibility. Drawing on hundreds of ethnographic observations of appeal hearings, as well as research interviews, the authors paint a detailed picture of the limitations of refugee protection available through asylum appeals. Refugee law can appear dependable and reliable in policy documents and legal texts. However, this work reveals that, in reality, myriad social, political, psychological, linguistic, contextual and economic factors interfere with and frequently confound the protection that refugee law promises during its concrete enactment. Drawing on evidence from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom, the book equips readers with a clear sense of the fragility of legal protection for people forced to migrate to Europe. The book will appeal to scholars of migration studies, legal studies, legal geography and the social sciences generally, as well as practitioners in asylum law throughout Europe and beyond.

IE

The Immigrants Who Oppose Immigration

Latina/os may determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.   What explains Latina/o support for Donald Trump?  "The Immigrants Who Oppose Immigration: A desire to prove their Americanness has driven more and more Latinos to turn against newcomers," by Paola Ramos in The Atlantic is adapted from Ramos's new book Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America.

I found the article most interesting.  Ramos writes that

"[m]any Latinos have shifted to the right on immigration in recent years, warming up to the ideas of building a wall, shutting down the southern border, and even conducting mass deportations. Support for Donald Trump among Latino voters grew by 8 percentage points from the 2016 to the 2020 presidential election, and polls suggest that Trump continues to make inroads with Latino voters leading up to the 2024 election. Anti-immigrant sentiment often comes from a place of fear. People may be afraid that immigrants will take something from them: jobs, opportunities, or, perhaps more profoundly, a sense of their own national and cultural identity. But I have come to understand that anti-immigrant Latinos aren’t just afraid of loss. Unlike white Americans, they also have something to prove: that they, too, belong in America." (bold added).

Food for thought?  Are Latina/os embracing Donald Trump and his anti-immigrant views in an effort to assimilate into the mainstream?

KJ

From the Bookshelves: Forever 17: Coming of Age in the German Asylum System by Ulrike Bialas

From the Bookshelves: Forever 17: Coming of Age in the German Asylum System by Ulrike Bialas was published in 2023 by the University of Chicago Press.

Here is the abstract from the publisher:

In Forever 17, Ulrike Bialas follows young African and Central Asian migrants in Germany as they navigate that system. Without official paperwork or even, in many cases, knowledge of their exact age, migrants must decide how to present their complicated life stories to government officials. They quickly realize that their age can have an outsized effect on the outcome of their cases. A migrant under 18, for example, can’t be deported, but might instead be placed in a youth home, where they will be subject to strict curfew laws. An 18-year-old adult, on the other hand, can get permission to work, but not opportunities to go to school.

Regardless of their age—actual or assumed—migrants face great difficulties. Those classified as minors must live with the psychological burden of being treated like children, while those classified as adults must live without the practical support and legal protections reserved for minors. The significance of age stands in stark contrast to the ambiguities inherent in its determination. Though Germany’s infamous bureaucracy is designed to issue clear statements about refugees and migrants, the truth is often more complicated, and officials are forced to grapple with the difficult implications of their decisions. Ultimately, Bialas shows, policies surrounding asylum seekers fall dramatically short of their humanitarian ideals. Even those policies designed to help the most vulnerable can lead to outcomes that drastically limit the possibilities for migrants in real need of protection and keep them from leading fulfilling lives.

IE

 

 

Throwback Thursday: Detain and Punish: Haitian Refugees and the Rise of the World's Largest Immigration Detention System

Detain and Punish has already been a Throwback Thursday feature. In 2021, I offered it up as a throwback read after a series of headlines regarding Haitian migrants at the Southern border here, here, here, and here.

Now, of course, the U.S. turns its attention to Haitian migrants once more. For the first time in memory, a mainstream vice presidential candidate (amplified by his presidential running mate) is spreading outright lies about Haitian migrants. See Kevin's excellent coverage here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here. 

Once again, our current crisis must be viewed through the lens of our nation's historical treatment of Haitian asylum seekers. And on that front, I can think of no better Throwback Thursday recommendation than Carl Lindskoog's 2018 book Detain and Punish: Haitian Refugees and the Rise of the World's Largest Immigration Detention System.

If you're unfamiliar with it, here's the pitch:

Immigrants make up the largest proportion of federal prisoners in the United States, incarcerated in a vast network of more than two hundred detention facilities. This book investigates when detention became a centerpiece of U.S. immigration policy, revealing why the practice was reinstituted in 1981 after being halted for several decades and how the system expanded to become the world’s largest immigration detention regime. From the Krome Detention Center in Miami to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and to jails and prisons across the country, Haitians have been at the center of the story of immigration detention. When an influx of Haitian migrants and asylum seekers came to the U.S. in the 1970s, the government responded with exclusionary policies and detention, setting a precedent for future waves of immigrants. Carl Lindskoog details the discrimination Haitian refugees faced and how their resistance to this treatment―in the form of legal action and activism―prompted the government to reinforce its detention program and create an even larger system of facilities. Drawing on extensive archival research, including government documents, advocacy group archives, and periodicals, Lindskoog provides the first in-depth history of Haitians and immigration detention in the United States. Lindskoog asserts that systems designed for Haitian refugees laid the groundwork for the way immigrants to America are treated today. Detain and Punish provides essential historical context for the challenges faced by today’s immigrant groups, which are some of the most critical issues of our time.

My topic of the week in Crimmigration has been "immigration detention." And to explain to students how Haitian migrants inspired modern detention practices--in the shadow of the attacks on Haitian migrants in Ohio--well, it's a new kind of depressing. Sure, I can analogize to other repeated immigration stories--the 1880s fears that Chinese migrants wouldn't assimilate and would take American jobs compared to modern rhetoric regarding Latin/x migration. But the abject fear of/distaste for Haitian migrants is so clearly grounded in race and colorism. It is disheartening.

-KitJ

The KKK and U.S. Immigration Law

 

I have been looking at the role of the KKK in supporting federal immigration legislation, including the Immigration Act of 1924 and its national origins quotas system.  Two relatively recent books lay out important history of the Klan in the 1920s, an era in which the KKK was a legitimate political player and deeply integrated into the political and social fabric of many communities, north and south.

Linda Gordon, The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition (2017)

The KKK of the 1920s had millions of members outside the South. It targeted Catholics and Jews as well as Blacks, and had great success at electing governors and congressmen. It passed immigrant restrictions that remained in effect until 1965.  Historian Linda Gordon explains HERE her book The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan and the American Political Tradition. 

 

A Fever in the Heartland:  The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Eagan (paperback – June 2024)

 Here is the publisher's summary of the book:

"The Roaring Twenties--the Jazz Age--has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. They hated Blacks, Jews, Catholics and immigrants in equal measure, and took radical steps to keep these people from the American promise. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson.

Stephenson was a magnetic presence whose life story changed with every telling. Within two years of his arrival in Indiana, he’d become the Grand Dragon of the state and the architect of the strategy that brought the group out of the shadows – their message endorsed from the pulpits of local churches, spread at family picnics and town celebrations. Judges, prosecutors, ministers, governors and senators across the country all proudly proclaimed their membership. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman – Madge Oberholtzer – who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.

A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND marries a propulsive drama to a powerful and page-turning reckoning with one of the darkest threads in American history."

 

KJ

From the Bookshelves . . .Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum

Michele Waslin and Carol Cleaveland have a forthcoming book, Private Violence: Latin American Women and the Struggle for Asylum.

The book presents the stories of 46 women from Central America who were forced to flee their homes because of horrific domestic or gang violence and are in the midst of the asylum process in the United States. The book tells the women’s histories prior to crossing the border, and the legal strategies they use to convince immigration judges that rape and other forms of “private violence” should merit asylum despite laws built on Cold War era assumptions that persecution occurs in the public sphere by state actors. The book also relies on interviews with immigration judges and attorneys and court observations.

The book will be published by NYU Press on October 15, 2024.

Private Violence can be pre-ordered through NYU Press here. 

IE

From the Bookshelves: Responses to Sea Migration and the Rule of Law by Katia Bianchini

Responses to Sea Migration and the Rule of Law by Katia Bianchini

The publisher's abstract:

"In the current debates on sea migration there is a dearth of works drawing on the rule of law. This important book addresses this failing.

Considering the question from that conceptual framework, it is able to broaden the sometimes fragmented and incomplete perspective of existing scholarship. The book takes as its central case study the experience of Italy, exploring the legal issues at play there and its institutional practices and policies. From here its focus broadens out to the wider EU experience, looking in particular at those problems common to southern EU states, such as failures and delays in assisting migrants in distress at sea and contested legal grounds and practices concerning interceptions at sea. It combines both legal and empirical data, charting both the black letter law and how it operates in practice.

In a field as complex as this, this clarity is key; it allows lawyers, political scientists and policymakers to truly engage with the challenges sea migration poses today.

Table of Contents

Part 1
1. Introduction and Scope of the Book
2. The Rule of Law as a Critical Lens
3. International and EU Legal Frameworks Relevant to Sea Migration
Part 2
4. Failures and Delays in Assisting Migrants in Distress at Sea
5. Contested Legal Grounds and Practices Concerning Interceptions at Sea
6. Legal Provisions, Policies, and Case Law on NGOs Engaged in Search and Rescue Activities
Part 3
7. Final Reflections
List of Interviews
List of NGOs Engaged in Search and Rescues in the Mediterranean
Glossary
Bibliography"

 

KJ

Immigration Article of the Day: Nonrefoulement: Responding to Asylum-seekers through the Prism of Subversive Stories: A Study of Three Trials of Innocence by Craig Mousin

“Nonrefoulement: Responding to Asylum-seekers through the Prism of Subversive Stories: A Study of Three Trials of Innocence,” a chapter in Furthering Interfaith Biblical Scholarship, A Festschrift in Memory of André LaCocque (Wipf & Stock, 2024), links biblical scholarship to asylum and refugee law to engage the critical issue of how nation-states respond to the contemporary demands of asylum-seekers.  The chapter focuses on Dr. LaCocque’s contention that the biblical narrative calls all who follow it to respond to a daily trial of innocence to do well or to not do well.  The first trial briefly explores the world’s failure to respond to refugees prior to and during World War II.  Subsequently, with the advent of the Refugee Convention of 1951 and the United States Refugee Act of 1980, the adopting nations established the second trial as individual asylum-seekers present their cases to determine eligibility for asylum and resettlement.   The initial promises of the Convention and the Refuge Act undergo a third trial as increased numbers of asylum-seekers flee conditions unanticipated by the drafters of the Convention including the consequences of climate change and exploitive extractive industries that frequently corrupt governments that repress their citizens. Extensive biblical scholarship regarding immigration and refugees focuses on the biblical call to welcome the stranger.  Although this chapter recognizes that imperative, it further explores the subversive stories that can encourage asylum-seekers, those who work with them, and rebut some of the arguments that white Christian nationalists employ to support policies of exclusion and deportation. 

 

KJ