Resisting Federal–Local Immigration Enforcement Partnerships: Redefining ‘Secure Communities’ and Public Safety

Abstract

Constructing undocumented immigrants as a security threat has allowed the US government to justify extraordinary measures that have pushed immigration enforcement increasingly inward from the border to states, counties, municipalities, and sheriff and police departments. The Secure Communities program, which integrates federal criminal and immigration databases to identify and deport undocumented immigrants, represents only the latest attempt. Most of the academic literature on local immigration enforcement has elaborated on the diffuse, ubiquitous and often paralyzing nature of the biopolitical power of the state vis-a-vis undocumented immigrants. In contrast, in this article, we focus on the contestations that challenge and go beyond repressive state power. We conceive of these not simply as a reaction to state techniques of power, but as productive and affirmative power that promotes alternative imaginaries and institutional change. As the Obama administration has sought to roll out the program to ever...