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In recent years, hundreds of North Carolina counties have worked with federal law enforcement to criminalize immigration, or “crimmigration.” Felicia Arriaga discusses

Image courtesy of interviewee. February 7, 2024

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This video video is an introduction to a book that explores the intersection of immigration enforcement and local law enforcement in North Carolina, drawing on the author's personal experiences and academic research.

The author, coming from a mixed-status family with undocumented members, was motivated to study the criminalization of immigrants and the fear of deportation through conversations with family and community organizers during graduate school. The research focuses on the collaboration between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local law enforcement, particularly sheriff's offices, and examines how immigration policies are enacted at the local level.

Methodologically, the author employed various techniques, including community observations, participant observations, public records requests, and analysis of city council and county commissioner agendas. The book argues that immigration enforcement should be viewed as a local issue rather than solely a federal one, emphasizing that local government entities play a significant role in these dynamics.

The author traces the historical context of increased Latinx immigration to North Carolina in the 1990s and highlights the overtly racist origins of local enforcement efforts against immigrant communities. This video video discusses the normalization of these enforcement measures post-2009 and the realization among community leaders that such programs are still active, often with a lack of awareness from the broader public.

Furthermore, it emphasizes moments of resistance from communities, particularly during the 2018 electoral cycle, where Latinx organizers campaigned against punitive sheriffs. This video video concludes that accountability at the local level is crucial, stressing the need for transparency and better conditions for those impacted by immigration enforcement practices.

Overall, the book aims to reframe the discussion around immigration as a community issue, advocating for local accountability and resistance against oppressive policies.

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The motivation for the book really came from conversations

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with my family and conversations with community organizers

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that I was in relationship during grad school with.

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Um, I come from a mixed status family, meaning that plenty

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of people in my family are undocumented.

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And so the issue of,

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criminalizing immigrants,

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and also the sort of fear of deportation is something

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that was personal to me.

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And then when I started

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to do my dissertation research in graduate school,

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I also realized that it was also under understudied,

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and specifically the way that I wanted to look at it,

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which was actually trying to understand

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who else was responsible

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for actually ushering in these kinds of partnerships

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where immigration and customs enforcement was able to come

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and actually, be in communication

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with local law enforcement in North Carolina

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and where I was, where I grew up,

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but also where I was studying and doing my PhD work.

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The data that I use in the work,

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there's a few different approaches that I took.

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I first, started to do community observations,

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and participant observations.

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I was fortunate during graduate school to be able to work

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with community organizers, on different kinds

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of state legislation.

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And so that allowed me to go to a bunch of different kinds

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of community meetings as a participant observer.

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Um, and from those conversations, I also, realized

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that the time that, immigration, customs enforcement

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or what many of us refer to as ice,

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that ICE was also having these kinds of community meetings

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that are called steering committee meetings throughout

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different parts of the state.

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And so I would also go to those meetings

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and observe as a researcher be able to ask questions

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of ice officials as well as some

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of the law enforcement officers who are there.

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The law enforcement agency that I mostly research is,

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they're called sheriff offices.

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Um, and that's a little bit different than like city police.

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They sheriffs typically are, are, law enforcement

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that govern, counties much bigger sort

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of areas than just cities.

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And also typically,

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across the United States are the ones

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who also operate the jails.

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Um, and so it's in the jail setting where I

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was really interested to learn more about what was going on.

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And so I was able to do some public records requests

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to get some of that information too.

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So I definitely use administrative data in that way.

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Um, and then the, probably the most useful thing

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that is accessible to anyone

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who would be interested in them, is actually looking at,

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city, council

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and county commissioner, agenda meetings, as well

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as budget documents.

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So I spent some time looking at about 10 years

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of budget documents and city

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and county records,

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for about five counties throughout the

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state of North Carolina.

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Um, and that's was approach that allowed me

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to look at the public sort of facing components

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and also then identify key people

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that I wanted to learn more about.

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Um, and I was able to do some interviews with those people.

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Um, but other times, a lot

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of the book really traces their public, the public sort

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of, comments that they're making about the,

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the actual program that I'm interested in throughout the

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book, ation is the criminalization

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of immigration law and procedure.

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The term itself really comes out of legal scholarship.

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Um, and I draw on some of that legal scholarship.

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Uh, but I, what I also wanted

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to add was a sociological perspective

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and also a bit more of understanding about

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what our immigration entities.

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So I think in the legal scholarship, we often look at,

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the sort of ice officials, the local law enforcement

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as immigration entities.

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And in the book, I really wanted to expand

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that understanding to be able

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to actually identify these local government agencies,

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the county commissioner, the city councils, as really part

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of this conversation too.

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Um, one of the things throughout the book

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that I really want people to take away is the ability

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to really think about, immigration as a local issue.

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I think often we are really thinking about it at a federal

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or even an international level.

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Um, but when it comes to immigration enforcement,

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it really is something

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that we should be looking at more locally.

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And that's something that I wanted to expand the term so

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that we could better understand

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that it's not just the law enforcement agents,

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it's not just the ice officials

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that are participating in this, CRI immigration

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or the sort of where we're seeing that,

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immigration law is, is sort of trickling

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or has its fingers in criminal justice and vice versa.

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Um, and so I really wanted to be able to expand

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and think about the sort of overreaching, pieces,

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across different agencies beyond those sort of two

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that we typically think of.

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The argument of the book, really I think takes,

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a sort of a approach to looking at about 10 years

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of information and,

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and sort of the context of what's happening.

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Um, so in 1990 around sort of the late,

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or the early 1990s, North Carolina,

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like many places in the South, starts

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to see an increase in the Latinx or Latina population.

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Um, and my family is a testament to that.

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So my, parents are both farm workers, in Florida

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and in North Carolina.

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And so we were part of this group of people

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that were coming back and forth, for a while.

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And so during this time period, there is a,

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a large group of immigrants

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and migrants who are coming to North Carolina.

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Um, and unfortunately there's places across the state where,

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community members, local

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Governments, really didn't like that.

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Um, and so in the book, I try to at least pull out,

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these moments, in the different counties where,

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not just the sheriff,

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but also, other, community members, other,

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local government officials really start to pay attention

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to this and want to take a,

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more enforcement heavy approach to that.

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And so throughout the book, I also focus on

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what I term the racist beginnings of these programs.

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It wasn't what we sometimes think about as,

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covert racism, meaning that it's maybe hidden.

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Um, this was very over the language that was being used,

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the sort of accusations, against, immigrants

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that were being made.

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They were very out in the open.

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So sometimes some of these individuals were,

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were giving comments to press.

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Um, but also, again, going back to the, the,

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the city council and county commissioner agendas,

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you can actually see that this was very much the rhetoric.

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And so, I really see that as this, moment

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where these officials were coming together to try

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to think about how do we actually

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deport these people, right?

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Um, and so in that instance, you can see

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that there's very clearly an intention behind it.

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Um, I think the other part of the argument is that while

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that sort of happens between like 2006, 2009,

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where we see this very explicit types of, wanting to,

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to deport people and wanting to make it hard for people

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or discourage people from coming to North Carolina

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and other places across the south,

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there also becomes this normalization of it.

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And so while there isn't this sort of in your face type

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of enforcement happening, post that moment,

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what is happening is that it's still continuing,

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but some of the sort of, emphasis, the awareness

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is actually no longer there.

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And so I talk about the normalization,

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of these programs, the collective amnesia.

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So once I started doing some of these interviews

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with community members, with law enforcement officials,

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with, city council members, with county commissioners,

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some of them would say to me, well,

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this program doesn't exist anymore.

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This kind of immigration enforcement doesn't exist.

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And I would often have to tell them, well, it does according

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to the numbers from ice, databases, from,

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federal agencies.

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Um, this is still happening.

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It's just there isn't this sort of,

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a a big concern from certain individuals within the

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community, although I I say throughout the book

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that the people who knew this was happening are the people

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who are most impacted, which are immigrants, people

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who are subject to deportation.

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Um, and so I really try to trace that normalization,

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and then towards the end of the book, think about the,

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the moments of resistance,

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because I think throughout this whole entire, book

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and throughout this whole entire time period

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that I'm looking, looking at in North Carolina,

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communities are resisting.

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And sometimes that's a daily resistance.

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And in other ways they come together,

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and actually, take on electoral fights.

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And that's something that I think is, is instructive

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and is important for us to always be thinking about is

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where there is resistance during these moments of,

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of oppression to, in the book, I I focus on a few counties,

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where there's small community groups that come together

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and really start to make this an issue during the 2018,

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electoral cycle, in the United States

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and North Carolina.

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Um, in most states, the sheriff is an elected official,

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and that is the person who really has the responsibility,

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to either, accept the immigration enforcement,

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and customs enforcement is gonna come into their county,

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or reject them.

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And so in 2018,

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Latinx community organizers really put together these

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campaigns, to push back against this normalization.

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And so, there was a lot of different tactics

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that were used, a lot of them being culturally based.

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Um, and so some of the, organizations,

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particularly in Wake County

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and in Mecklenburg County,

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they really created these flyers, these billboards,

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that were meant to focus on, how terrible the sheriff

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who was in office, was.

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Um, and in that moment, they're able

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to bring in more community members to bring attention

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to some of these issues.

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And ultimately, in two of those counties,

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the sheriff loses that election

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and the new sheriff who comes in

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ends those local enforcement partnerships.

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And so in, in North Carolina, it's very much seen as this,

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shifting of the tide in some ways

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where those two counties were responsible for the majority

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of deportations out of the state of North Carolina.

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And so, that's just one example.

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Uh, this kind of model, I think,

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has happened a lot throughout the south, in particular

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where we see, very large Latinx communities.

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Um, and I do think it's a, it's an example of resistance,

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community sort

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of grassroots organizing coming together

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with these like traditional electoral politics

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that we often think about when we're thinking about,

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sort of the political realm of things.

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The objective for the book has always been to think local.

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I think that unfortunately,

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if you know anything about immigration policy

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as particularly immigration enforcement at the federal

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level, we know that unfortunately, not much has moved,

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especially not any kind of, amnesty

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or any kind of legalization for people.

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And so what we have to deal with at the local level is,

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trying to really communicate, try to sort

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of create these models locally where we can

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At least, stop people from being

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fearful of deportation.

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Um, and so I think for me, it's always been about

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how do we hold these local entities accountable,

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for not just immigration enforcement.

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I think that the sort of end of the book really, I,

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I'm really trying to push that it's not just

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around this one policy,

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but it's actually that, sheriffs, as part

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of this larger push

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for law enforcement accountability often are overlooked.

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And so some of the new research I'm focused on is really

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trying to make sure that we're,

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understanding these particular agencies,

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and particularly statewide sort of associations

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that represent sheriffs as important aspects

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of this broader push for,

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police law enforcement accountability.

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And so I really want us

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to be thinking locally about what that looks like.

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Um, and this is just sort of one example of a policy

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where we can actually have some, more transparency

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where there are opportunities for people to,

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improve those conditions.

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Uh, for the people who are most impacted by them.

Personal Motivations Behind Immigration Research

00:00:00 - The motivation for the book really came from conversations with my family and conversations with community organizers that I was in relationship during grad school with. I come from a mixed status family, meaning that plenty of people in my family are undocumented. And so the issue of, criminalizing immigrants, and also the sort of fear of deportation is something that was personal to me. And then when I started to do my dissertation research in graduate school,
00:00:37 - and specifically the way that I wanted to look at it, which was actually trying to understand who else was responsible for actually ushering in these kinds of partnerships where immigration and customs enforcement was able to come and actually, be in communication with local law enforcement in North Carolina and where I was, where I grew up, but also where I was studying and doing my PhD work. The data that I use in the work,
00:01:08 - I first, started to do community observations, and participant observations. I was fortunate during graduate school to be able to work with community organizers, on different kinds of state legislation. And so that allowed me to go to a bunch of different kinds of community meetings as a participant observer. and from those conversations, I also, realized that the time that, immigration, customs enforcement
00:01:38 - that ICE was also having these kinds of community meetings that are called steering committee meetings throughout different parts of the state. And so I would also go to those meetings and observe as a researcher be able to ask questions of ice officials as well as some of the law enforcement officers who are there. The law enforcement agency that I mostly research is, they're called sheriff offices. and that's a little bit different than like city police.
00:02:09 - that govern, counties much bigger sort of areas than just cities. And also typically, across the United States are the ones who also operate the jails. and so it's in the jail setting where I was really interested to learn more about what was going on. And so I was able to do some public records requests to get some of that information too. So I definitely use administrative data in that way. and then the, probably the most useful thing
00:02:39 - who would be interested in them, is actually looking at, city, council and county commissioner, agenda meetings, as well as budget documents. So I spent some time looking at about 10 years of budget documents and city and county records, for about five counties throughout the state of North Carolina. and that's was approach that allowed me to look at the public sort of facing components and also then identify key people

Local Perspectives on Immigration Enforcement Policies

00:03:11 - and I was able to do some interviews with those people. but other times, a lot of the book really traces their public, the public sort of, comments that they're making about the, the actual program that I'm interested in throughout the book, ation is the criminalization of immigration law and procedure. The term itself really comes out of legal scholarship. and I draw on some of that legal scholarship. but I, what I also wanted
00:03:42 - and also a bit more of understanding about what our immigration entities. So I think in the legal scholarship, we often look at, the sort of ice officials, the local law enforcement as immigration entities. And in the book, I really wanted to expand that understanding to be able to actually identify these local government agencies, the county commissioner, the city councils, as really part of this conversation too.
00:04:13 - that I really want people to take away is the ability to really think about, immigration as a local issue. I think often we are really thinking about it at a federal or even an international level. but when it comes to immigration enforcement, it really is something that we should be looking at more locally. And that's something that I wanted to expand the term so that we could better understand that it's not just the law enforcement agents, it's not just the ice officials that are participating in this, CRI immigration
00:04:46 - immigration law is, is sort of trickling or has its fingers in criminal justice and vice versa. and so I really wanted to be able to expand and think about the sort of overreaching, pieces, across different agencies beyond those sort of two that we typically think of. The argument of the book, really I think takes, a sort of a approach to looking at about 10 years of information and, and sort of the context of what's happening.
00:05:20 - or the early 1990s, North Carolina, like many places in the South, starts to see an increase in the Latinx or Latina population. and my family is a testament to that. So my, parents are both farm workers, in Florida and in North Carolina. And so we were part of this group of people that were coming back and forth, for a while. And so during this time period, there is a,
00:05:47 - and migrants who are coming to North Carolina. and unfortunately there's places across the state where, community members, local Governments, really didn't like that. and so in the book, I try to at least pull out, these moments, in the different counties where, not just the sheriff, but also, other, community members, other, local government officials really start to pay attention

Racist Foundations and Resistance in Immigration Enforcement

00:06:19 - more enforcement heavy approach to that. And so throughout the book, I also focus on what I term the racist beginnings of these programs. It wasn't what we sometimes think about as, covert racism, meaning that it's maybe hidden. this was very over the language that was being used, the sort of accusations, against, immigrants that were being made. They were very out in the open. So sometimes some of these individuals were,
00:06:49 - but also, again, going back to the, the, the city council and county commissioner agendas, you can actually see that this was very much the rhetoric. And so, I really see that as this, moment where these officials were coming together to try to think about how do we actually deport these people, right? and so in that instance, you can see that there's very clearly an intention behind it. I think the other part of the argument is that while
00:07:22 - where we see this very explicit types of, wanting to, to deport people and wanting to make it hard for people or discourage people from coming to North Carolina and other places across the south, there also becomes this normalization of it. And so while there isn't this sort of in your face type of enforcement happening, post that moment, what is happening is that it's still continuing, but some of the sort of, emphasis, the awareness
00:07:52 - And so I talk about the normalization, of these programs, the collective amnesia. So once I started doing some of these interviews with community members, with law enforcement officials, with, city council members, with county commissioners, some of them would say to me, well, this program doesn't exist anymore. This kind of immigration enforcement doesn't exist. And I would often have to tell them, well, it does according to the numbers from ice, databases, from, federal agencies.
00:08:24 - It's just there isn't this sort of, a a big concern from certain individuals within the community, although I I say throughout the book that the people who knew this was happening are the people who are most impacted, which are immigrants, people who are subject to deportation. and so I really try to trace that normalization, and then towards the end of the book, think about the, the moments of resistance, because I think throughout this whole entire, book and throughout this whole entire time period
00:08:56 - communities are resisting. And sometimes that's a daily resistance. And in other ways they come together, and actually, take on electoral fights. And that's something that I think is, is instructive and is important for us to always be thinking about is where there is resistance during these moments of, of oppression to, in the book, I I focus on a few counties, where there's small community groups that come together and really start to make this an issue during the 2018,

Local Resistance Against Immigration Enforcement

00:09:31 - and North Carolina. in most states, the sheriff is an elected official, and that is the person who really has the responsibility, to either, accept the immigration enforcement, and customs enforcement is gonna come into their county, or reject them. And so in 2018, Latinx community organizers really put together these campaigns, to push back against this normalization. And so, there was a lot of different tactics
00:10:03 - and so some of the, organizations, particularly in Wake County and in Mecklenburg County, they really created these flyers, these billboards, that were meant to focus on, how terrible the sheriff who was in office, was. and in that moment, they're able to bring in more community members to bring attention to some of these issues. And ultimately, in two of those counties,
00:10:33 - and the new sheriff who comes in ends those local enforcement partnerships. And so in, in North Carolina, it's very much seen as this, shifting of the tide in some ways where those two counties were responsible for the majority of deportations out of the state of North Carolina. And so, that's just one example. this kind of model, I think, has happened a lot throughout the south, in particular where we see, very large Latinx communities.
00:11:07 - community sort of grassroots organizing coming together with these like traditional electoral politics that we often think about when we're thinking about, sort of the political realm of things. The objective for the book has always been to think local. I think that unfortunately, if you know anything about immigration policy as particularly immigration enforcement at the federal level, we know that unfortunately, not much has moved,
00:11:39 - or any kind of legalization for people. And so what we have to deal with at the local level is, trying to really communicate, try to sort of create these models locally where we can At least, stop people from being fearful of deportation. and so I think for me, it's always been about how do we hold these local entities accountable, for not just immigration enforcement.
00:12:10 - I'm really trying to push that it's not just around this one policy, but it's actually that, sheriffs, as part of this larger push for law enforcement accountability often are overlooked. And so some of the new research I'm focused on is really trying to make sure that we're, understanding these particular agencies, and particularly statewide sort of associations that represent sheriffs as important aspects of this broader push for,

Promoting Local Transparency for Impacted Communities

00:12:58 - And so I really want us to be thinking locally about what that looks like. and this is just sort of one example of a policy where we can actually have some, more transparency where there are opportunities for people to, improve those conditions. for the people who are most impacted by them.

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