Underground railroads: citizen entitlements and unauthorized mobility in the antebellum period and today

Abstract

In recent years, some scholars and prominent political figures have advocated the deepening of North American integration on roughly the European Union model, including the creation of new political institutions and the free movement of workers across borders. The construction of such a North American Union, if it included even a very thin trans-state citizenship regime, could represent the most significant expansion of individual entitlements in the region since citizenship was extended to former slaves in the United States. With such a possibility as its starting point, this article explores some striking parallels between the mass, legally prohibited movement across boundaries by fugitive slaves in the pre-Civil War period, and that by current unauthorized migrants to the United States. Both were, or are, met on their journeys by historically parallel groups of would-be helpers and hinderers. Their unauthorized movements in both periods serve as important signals of incomplete entitlements or institutional protections. Most crucially, moral arguments for extending fuller entitlements to both groups are shown here to be less distinct than may be prima facie evident, reinforcing the case for expanding and deepening the regional membership regime.

Keywords:

• immigration
• transnational citizenship
• NAFTA
• Underground Railroad
• North American Union

Acknowledgements

I thank Christien van den Anker, Michael Stancliff, Gloria Cuadraz, Christine DiStefano, Terence Ball, Michael Mitchell, Neil Roberts and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Earlier versions of this paper were presented to audiences at Arizona State University-Tempe, Rio Salado College, the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association and the British International Studies Association special workshop on Global Justice, Borders and Migration.

Notes

The author conducted more than 50 in-depth, semi-structured interviews in southern and central Arizona with members of the No More Deaths and Samaritans humanitarian patrol groups, and more than 40 interviews with members of the civilian border patrol Minuteman Project, from March 2005 through June 2007. Insights presented here from the current context are drawn from interviews and extended field observations. For full findings, see Cabrera (2010, Ch. 4).

We can note also the current ‘New Sanctuary Movement,’ in which a small number of churches have sheltered individuals who are under threat of deportation (Innes 2008).

The main Arizona group, Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, was dissolved by its board of directors in early 2010, after longtime leader Chris Simcox had departed to pursue a political career (McCombs 2010). Various Minuteman splinter groups continued to operate, along with others inspired by or pre-dating the Minuteman Project.

In May 2009 in the town of Arivaca, Arizona, located about 10 miles north of the border, a Hispanic man and his 9-year-old daughter were shot and killed in a home invasion by members of a small, radical anti-immigration group calling itself Minuteman American Defense. Two of those arrested in the slayings had previously been affiliated with the larger Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, but that group's leaders denied any ongoing ties and criticized the killings (Christie 2009).

This does not, of course, directly address arguments for giving priority to compatriots in social distributions, including ones that would seek to justify restrictive immigration regimes. For a detailed engagement with some such arguments, see Cabrera (2010, Chs 2 and 3).