Introduction: The Places and Spaces of Latinx Cultures

Abstract

IntroductionThe Places and Spaces of Latinx Cultures Alberto Varon, Issue Editor (bio) As promised during his campaign, President Trump made immigration central to his administration's goals, aiming to restrict the influx of those who immigrate to the United States through either legal or extralegal means. Almost immediately after taking office in January 2017, President Trump issued an executive order instructing the Department of Justice to prioritize the criminal prosecution of immigration offenses. The current attack on immigrants took further shape in September 2017, when President Trump chose to rescind protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) afforded to the estimated 800,000 people brought to the US as minors. Despite widespread and bipartisan support for the Dreamers, as DACA recipients are often called, President Trump directed the agencies under his purview to phase out the program that enabled DACA recipients to avoid deportation and to work legally in the country. Ending DACA put hundreds of thousands of child immigrants at risk, deliberately undermining these young Americans' chance of success and preventing their inclusion as members of society. The changes to DACA were a clear attack on the social incorporation of a vulnerable segment of the population, paving the way for the immigration crisis the following summer. These attacks deliberately racialize and exclude Latinx people, demanding a collective and concerted response. The immigration crisis requires us to imagine how Latinx communities can engage, resist, and reshape the spaces that structure our lives. ________ From the fall of 2017 into the summer of 2018, under the direction of the Trump administration, the offices under the Department of Homeland Security altered their policies on how to process undocumented immigrants to the United States. On May 7, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions publicly declared a "zero-tolerance policy" for those entering the country without authorization. [End Page 8] Whereas previously authorities working in US border control and enforcement had several options and could exercise discretion, the Trump administration has taken a hardline stance, demanding full criminal prosecution of those entering the country without appropriate documentation and prioritizing deportation as quickly as possible, often at the cost of due process. As part of the drive to criminally prosecute unauthorized immigrants, the administration instituted a "family separation" policy that facilitated the rapid deportation of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers deemed unworthy or undesirable by authorities. Minors, some as young as toddlers, were torn from their families and travel companions, forced into state custody or detained until foster care arrangements could be made. This practice peaked in the summer of 2018, when over two thousand children remained in detention separate from their families and travel companions. Such practices come with untold costs to the mental and material well-being of those being held, and have direct implications for the immigrants' pending cases. Following an international outcry and national protests, the family separation practice was ended by executive order on June 20, 2018, and a federal judge gave the US government thirty days to reunite families. Nonetheless, in order to remain in compliance with the law, officials have shifted immigration strategy so that families are now detained together. While this shift restores some of the basic human rights and dignity to the detained families, immigration enforcement officials continue to treat migrants as criminals. While there is no official US government policy requiring the separation of families, this is precisely what makes this policy especially pernicious. The decision whether or not to separate families relies on prosecutorial discretion. Should an unauthorized immigrant be held for immigration proceedings, they remain in detention centers united with their kin. However, under the revised directive, adult immigrants are to be tried as criminals, and thus sent to prisons separate from the minor children. Although immigration rates have remained relatively stable year after year, by late summer 2018 an estimated 12,000 migrant children were held in government-contracted detention centers and shelters, with over a thousand others expected to join those ranks.1 Mr. Sessions, who in his announcement of the family separation policy expressed skepticism over the legitimacy of a majority of asylum cases, has long maintained a cynical position regarding American race relations. His record on these...