Immigration Article of the Day: Immigration Militarization by Sheldon Evans

Immigration Militarization by Sheldon Evans

Abstract
Immigration enforcement has undergone a generational shift from a civil law enforcement regime to a militarized mission. The past forty years has set a foundation of militarizing federal immigration agents, deploying troops at the border, and sending the armed forces overseas to curb migration to the United States. Recent efforts to deploy the National Guard to American cities, to use the Navy to kill alleged smugglers on the high seas, and to use special forces to decapitate foreign regimes represent escalations in a larger militarization pattern that seeks to signal America’s war on immigration on the world stage.

This article describes the multiple inflection points where military logics have taken control of immigration enforcement. From this descriptive analysis, the article further argues that this type of militarization presents a host of problems that have ripened in the past few years, including threats to democratic norms, beginning a new forever war, and newfound deprivations of liberty in a police state. Focusing on the militarization of immigration law learns from the lessons of previous domestic war policies to explore underappreciated links between executive power, corporate interests, nation-building, and social movements. This article concludes by considering using this new framework to explore dismantling most pernicious dangers of militarized immigration policy.