Seminar
Abstract: Experimental federal initiatives to devolve immigration enforcement to nonfederal law enforcement agencies – for example through the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs – are widespread in the US South. As a result, immigrants' spaces of everyday labor as well as circuits of social reproduction have become saturated with immigration policing practices unlike at any other time in US history. However, this is not a uniform enforcement landscape. Rather, programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities accord to political, legal and biographical context, and as a result include a wide range of enforcement practices.
Based on qualitative and legal research in central North Carolina, this presentation explores the site-specific practices that constitute local immigration enforcement. Dr. Coleman calls these local "detention and deportation regimes". He concludes that although detention and deportation works very differently depending on the site in question, in general the goal of programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities is about the production of immigrant insecurity.