Spaces of Immigrant Advocacy and Liberal Democratic Citizenship

Abstract

Challenging representations of immigrants as victims of the biopolitical power of the state, and of citizenship as reinforcing such repression, this article interrogates how immigrant advocacy has been contesting the proliferation of exclusionary immigration policies in the United States and in the course of this pushing against the boundaries of formal liberal democratic citizenship. Using Washington, DC, as a case study, and deploying the concept of insurgent citizenship to theorize these actions, we examine the polyvalence of immigrant advocacy, paying particular attention to the spaces and scales of struggle and flexibly networked mobilizations. Insurgent citizenship creates new political spaces that exceed the national territorial framing of liberal democratic citizenship, that focus on civic action rather than simply relying on the electoral process, and that lay claim to new values and criteria for citizenship.

本文透过挑战移民做为国家生命政治权力的受害者, 以及公民权做为强化此一压迫的再现, 探讨移民倡议如何与美国激增的排他性移民政策和反对正式自由民主公民权疆界的进程相互竞争。我们以华盛顿特区做为案例研究, 并运用反叛公民权的概念, 理论化上述行动, 以此检视移民倡议政策的多面相关性, 并特别关注斗争的空间与尺度, 以及网络化的弹性动员。反叛公民权创造出新的政治空间, 并超越自由民主公民权中的国家领土框架, 其所关注的是公民行动, 而非单纯仰赖投票过程, 并且主张公民权的新价值与准则。

Cuestionando las representaciones que muestran a los inmigrantes como víctimas del poder biopolítico del estado, y a la ciudadanía como agente que refuerza tal represión, este artículo explora la manera como la defensa del inmigrante ha estado disputando la proliferación de políticas de inmigración selectivas en los Estados Unidos al tiempo que presiona contra los límites de una formal ciudadanía democrática liberal. Adoptando a Washington, DC, como un estudio de caso, y desplegando el concepto de ciudadanía insurgente para teorizar estas acciones, examinamos la polivalencia de la defensa del inmigrante, poniendo particular atención en los espacio y escalas de lucha y movilizaciones flexiblemente encadenadas. La ciudadanía insurgente crea nuevos espacios políticos que sobrepasan el marco territorial nacional de la ciudadanía democrática liberal, más enfocada en la acción cívica que dependiendo simplemente del proceso electoral, y que reclama nuevos valores y criterios de ciudadanía.

Key Words:

• immigrant advocacy
• insurgent citizenship
• liberal democratic citizenship
• local immigration policies

关键词:

• 移民倡议
• 反叛的公民权
• 自由民主公民权
• 地方移民政策

Palabras clave:

• defensa del inmigrante
• ciudadanía insurgente
• ciudadanía democrática liberal
• políticas locales de inmigración

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, Richard Wright, and Eric Sheppard for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. We are grateful to the immigrant rights advocates in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area for their support throughout the research process. The research for this article was supported by the Graduate Research Partnership Program from the College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Notes

1. Under the 287(g) program, local officials are trained in immigration enforcement and authorized to initiate deportation proceedings. The Secure Communities program is an information-sharing program that integrates criminal and immigration databases, allowing federal immigration officers to identify deportable immigrants when they are stopped, detained, or arrested by local police officers. Similarly, the Criminal Alien Program uses biometric data to scan inmates at all federal and state prisons and hundreds of local jails and then removes unauthorized immigrants from the country.

2. Liberal democratic citizenship is a legal status conferred by the state, defining individual membership in one nation-state that is associated with a bundle of individual rights and obligations.

3. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled several parts of Arizona's S.B. 1070 law unconstitutional but upheld the provision that requires police officers to request documentation of the immigration status of any person stopped, detained, or arrested if they are suspected of being in the country without authorization.

4. Immigration detainers are requests from ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to hold potentially deportable individuals in jails or prisons until immigration officials can remove them.