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The “Local” Migration State: The Site‐Specific Devolution of Immigration Enforcement in the U.S. South
Author(s) -
COLEMAN MATHEW
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.2011.00358.x
Subject(s) - enforcement , immigration , devolution (biology) , context (archaeology) , law enforcement , politics , state (computer science) , political science , public administration , work (physics) , law , geography , engineering , mechanical engineering , archaeology , algorithm , computer science , human evolution
This article examines the implementation of 287(g) authority and Secure Communities by several law enforcement agencies in Wake County and Durham County, North Carolina. I argue that despite being federally supervised programs, 287(g) and Secure Communities take shape within specific political, legal, policing, and biographic contexts, and, as such, take on a site‐specific form. I conclude that although site specificity is a characteristic of devolved immigration enforcement in the U.S. context, devolution also predictably relocates interior immigration enforcement to immigrant populations' spaces of social reproduction. Accordingly, programs like 287(g) and Secure Communities work at a suprasite level to amplify immigrant populations' everyday insecurities.