Restoring Law and (Racial) Order to the Old Dominion

Abstract

In 2006, cities and counties across the USA began adopting ‘Illegal Immigration Relief Acts’ to relieve themselves of the economic and social burden that undocumented immigrants were allegedly presenting. By restricting the access of undocumented residents to housing, jobs and social services, local ordinances would encourage undocumented residents to ‘self-deport’ from the locality if not from the nation. Highly contentious, politically and juridically, local anti-illegal immigration laws have divided communities. Proponents maintain that such laws merely uphold the ‘rule of law’, while opponents see them as thinly veiled efforts to drive out Latin American residents, with immigration status serving as a proxy for race. A growing body of scholarship examines local anti-immigrant law and offers significant insights into the causes and undeniably racialized effects of these laws. Yet the issue of racism requires more scholarly attention. Critical race theory holds that all racisms are historically particular and must be examined as expressive of particular conjunctures. To that end, this essay develops a theoretically informed and historically grounded analysis of local anti-immigration law. It establishes local and national interests in local anti-immigrant law and explains how these interests converge. Through a case study of Prince William County (PWC), Virginia, I examine local anti-immigrant activism and connect them to larger political shifts in the contemporary USA. I argue that local white propertied interests converge with national conservative and federalist interests in the county's anti-illegal immigrant law. The essay seeks to demonstrate the value of bringing cultural studies methodology to bear on (local) immigration law.

Keywords:

• immigration law
• racism
• whiteness
• property
• conservatism
• federalism

Notes on Contributor

Pia Møller is the visiting assistant professor of cultural studies at the Honors College, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she teaches US immigration history, race and ethnic relations, globalization, gender and representation. Her research is concerned with the criminalization and racialization of undocumented immigrants in present-day USA. Her work has appeared in the anthology The Politics, Economy, and Culture of Mexican-US Migration: Both Sides of the Border (Palgrave Macmillan) and in ISLE (Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment).

Notes

1. In some cases, the language of these provisions is quite weak; rather than prohibit, some resolutions simply ‘ask’ police to refrain from enforcing immigration laws.

2. Bono and Campbell for MALDEF. Staff attorneys affiliated with IRLI (and FAIR) include Michael Hethmon and Kris Kobach (e.g. Hethmon 2004, Kobach 2007).

3. Prior to 1875, various state laws regulated and banned some migrants, see Gerald L Neuman (1993). For a discussion of immigration politics in colonial America, see Dan Kanstroom (2007).

4. ‘Our communities’ refer to the city of Manassas and the surrounding PWC, two separate legal jurisdictions which share some public services and in many ways make up one locality.

5. The blog's name is inspired by Letiecq's martial arts hobby. The spelling was changed from Bruce Lee to Bruce Li after legal representatives of the Bruce Lee estate contacted the blogger about possible trademark infringement (for more on that see the ‘History’ section of www.bvbl.net).

6. See, for example, the following blog posts on www.bvbl.net: ‘Call Your Supervisors Now’, 2 October 2007; ‘Only One More Vote Needed on Crackdown’, 15 October 2007; ‘Contact the Supervisors’, 29 June 2007; ‘Stirrup's Resolution on Illegal Aliens’, 27 June 2007; ‘Stirrup Proposes Revoking Sanctuary Policy’, 27 June 2007.

7. Although this clearly is a concern for some, such as resident ‘Dave in PWC’ who on Letiecq's blog shares his delight, after the adoption of the Resolution and the exodus of undocumented residents, that there was ‘not a brown face’ at the K-6 school bus stop, http://www.bvbl.net/index.php/2008/03/25/ice-nabs-34-illegal-aliens-in-manassas/.

8. Tanton is affiliated with other restrictionist organizations including US English, Zero Population Growth, and the US immigration Reform Political Action Committee, which is headed by his wife, Mary Lou Tanton.

9. Romney's stance on immigration has been inconsistent. When Romney courted Hispanic voters, he indicated support for a version of the DREAM Act to provide legalization for young undocumented persons serving in the military (Preston 2012).