Citation: Inda, Jonathan Xavier. 2011. “Borderzones of Enforcement: Criminalization, Workplace Raids, and

Immigrant Counter-Conducts.” In The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity. Vicki J. Squire,

ed. Pp. 74-90. London: Routledge.

Chapter 4

Borderzones of Enforcement: Criminalization, Workplace Raids, and Migrant Counter-

Conducts1

Jonathan Xavier Inda

On December 12, 2006, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (also known as ICE) raided

Swift & Company meatpacking plants in six states: Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Utah, Iowa, and

Minnesota (US ICE 2006). Taken into custody were 1282 suspected undocumented migrants,

most of whom were Latino (that is, of Latin American origin). A majority of these individuals

simply faced deportation for being present in the United States without authorization (see the

essay by Susan Bibler Coutin in this volume). However, 65 were charged with criminal

violations related to identity theft or other infractions (i.e., reentry after deportation). Not only

were these migrants looking at deportation, they also potentially faced time in prison.

The arrestees were not the only ones affected by the raid. There was plenty of collateral damage.

Migrant families were particularly hard hit. Many lost their primary breadwinner. Husbands were

separated from wives, parents from children, and siblings from each other. The broader migrant

community in the towns where the raids took place also suffered. The city of Marshalltown,

Iowa, for example, witnessed a decrease in its Latino population as a result of ICE’s operations

(Perkins and Piller 2007). Not only did the arrestees leave, but so did other migrants who were

2

fearful of further raids. Some left Marshalltown to pursue jobs in other states while others

returned to their home countries, mainly Mexico and various Central American nations. These

departures greatly impacted on those migrants who stayed behind. For example, Latino

businesses suffered heavily. As Marcela Hernandez, an employee at La Guadalupana bakery, put

it: ‘[The raid has] affected the restaurants, the stores and other businesses.... People keep leaving,

even a year later.... People have fear because they don't know what will happen. They don't have

any security. Every day, they hear about more raids in other states and they are reminded of the

raid last year’ (Perkins and Piller 2007).

The raids that took place against Swift & Co. are not unique. In fact, raids became rather

commonplace in the United States during the presidency of George W. Bush and have continued,

to some extent, under the new Obama administration. In this chapter, I focus on the increased

salience of workplace raids in the management of irregular migrants in the US. Specifically, I

locate such raids as part of a broader practice of government that has aggressively criminalized

undocumented migrants (see De Genova, 2002; Coutin, 2005; Rosas, 2006; Inda 2006a;

Hernandez 2008; Heyman 2009). I call this practice governing immigration through crime.

Basically, to govern immigration through crime is to make crime and punishment the

institutional context under which the efforts to guide the conduct of migrants takes place. The

objective is to shape the comportment of the undocumented in such a way as to incapacitate them

and contain the ‘threat’ they and their actions putatively pose to the security the nation. The most

notable form that this way of governing has assumed over the last twenty years or so is that of

intensified law enforcement at the nation’s borders. More recently, however, governmental

authorities have also placed a strong emphasis on the interior policing of the United States. Since

3

the early 2000s, for example, criminal prosecutions of immigration violations have increased;

local and state law enforcement agencies have become progressively more involved in policing

immigration matters; the number of undocumented migrants incarcerated in county jails, federal

prisons, and immigration detention centers has surged; and, most significantly for our purposes,

immigration raids have become commonplace. What we have witnessed, then, is the progressive

criminalization of migrants and a significant expansion in the space of policing. Essentially, the

boundaries of immigration policing have migrated inwards, turning countless spaces in the

interior of the United States – from workplaces and homes to public spaces – into borderzones of

enforcement where governmental authorities endeavor to regulate ‘dangerous’ cross-border

illegalities.

I also want to propose, however, that interior borderzones are not simply spaces of

criminalization and policing. They are also political sites of struggle. Indeed, while workplace

raids and the policing of immigrants may have escalated, the undocumented have not simply

accepted the new status quo. Rather, the effort to govern immigration through crime has been

actively resisted by migrants and their allies. They have engaged in what could be called migrant

‘counter-conducts’ (Gordon 1991; Foucault 2007). These are acts or forms of comportment that

contest the criminalization and exclusion of irregular migrants. The counter-conducts that

migrants have been involved with include labor strikes, hunger strikes for justice, advocating for

legalization and political rights, the occupation of churches as a way of gaining sanctuary, public

demonstrations, and fighting for legal redress for unpaid wages (McNevin 2009). Here I

specifically examine anti-raid public protests and legal challenges to the criminalization of

4

migrants. Such counter-conducts, I suggest, ultimately speak to the political becoming of

irregular migrants and their enactments of citizenship.

GOVERNING IMMIGRATION THROUGH CRIME

Since the 1970s, crime and punishment have become an increasingly central means through

which political authorities in the United States seek to govern the conduct of individuals and

populations, a development that Jonathan Simon (1997) refers to as ‘governing through crime.’

This way of governing is intimately connected to the decline of the social and the rise of

neoliberal rule (see Inda 2006a; Pratt 2005). Put briefly, the ideal of the social-welfare state,

dominant for much of the twentieth century in the US, has generally yielded to that of the

neoliberal state. This new ideal is such that the political apparatus no longer appears obligated to

safeguard the well-being of the population through maintaining a sphere of collective security.

Social insurance – as an ensemble of state mechanisms that sought to insure individuals against

the insecurities of social life – has thus largely given way to the privatized and individualized

government of risk. Individuals are now asked to take upon themselves the primary

responsibility for managing their own security and that of their families. They are expected to

adopt an entrepreneurial disposition towards life and insure themselves (using market

mechanisms) against the vicissitudes of ill health, accidental loss, unemployment, and anything

else that could potentially threaten their contentment. Significantly, in placing such a strong

emphasis on individual responsibility, neoliberal rule has tended to draw a rather marked

distinction between the proper neoliberal citizen who secures his/her own well-being through

active self-promotion and the deviant anti-citizen – the criminal, the homeless, the welfare

recipient – who is deemed incapable of managing his/her own risks and thus lies outside the

5

nexus of responsible activity. While the government of the former has largely taken place

through the mechanisms of market and outside the formal political apparatus, the regulation of

the latter has increasingly occurred through the widening reach of the repressive arms of the

state. Indeed, law and order measures have become the preferred institutional contexts through

which the government of marginal subjects is effected.

Governing through crime in the United States has come to be instantiated in a number of specific

practices. This facet of neoliberal rule is clearly visible, for instance, in the widespread

popularity of tough on crime sentencing regimes of just desserts, deterrence, and retribution.

These regimes include such measures as quality of life campaigns and zero tolerance policing,

harsher penalties and the extensive utilization of imprisonment, three strikes and compulsory

minimum sentencing policies, redress in juvenile court and the incarceration of minors, and more

extensive parole restrictions (Garland 2001: 12). Governing through crime is further visible in

the common practice of securitizing private spaces as a way of dealing with crime risks and

insecurities. The most notable manifestations of this practice are undoubtedly fortified enclaves

(i.e., gated communities) (Blakely and Snyder 1997). These enclaves are segregated spatial

enclosures designed to provide a safe, orderly, and secure environment for those who dwell

within them. The rationale for governing through crime seems to be twofold. On the one hand,

the thinking is that irresponsible individuals must be held accountable for their misdeeds: that

they must be made to shoulder the burden of their lifestyle decisions. The calculus of punishment

thus serves to press upon the offending (and potentially offending) agent the importance of being

prudent and governing oneself responsibly. And on the other, it is that responsible citizens must

protect themselves and be protected from the hoards of anti-citizens who threaten their security

6

and quality of life. The containment of the few therefore becomes a prerequisite for the freedoms

of the many.

This neoliberal emphasis on governing through crime has had a significant impact on how

irregular migration is problematized and managed. In fact, irregular migration has come to be

seen largely as a law and order issue in the contemporary United States. Since the early 1990s,

the US has witnessed a rather strong wave of anti-immigrant sentiment – a trend that has only

intensified in the post-9/11 context. From social scientists, immigration officials, and policy

analysts to immigration reform organizations and the public at large, it has been common for

individuals and groups to cast irregular migrants – typically imagined as Mexican – as threats to

the overall well-being and security of the social body (Inda 2006a; Chavez 2008). The

fundamental problem with the undocumented has been deemed to be their illegality. For some, to

be an ‘illegal immigrant’ is to be inherently a lawbreaker. It is to be necessarily a criminal. The

criminality of irregular migrants is generally attributed to the idea that they do not have a legal

right to be in the United States. Take, for example, a basic government definition of unauthorized

persons: ‘An illegal alien is a person who is in the United States in violation of US immigration

laws’ (US GAO 1995: 1). Or consider the following statements drawn from policy and mass

media documents:

Illegal aliens are of concern to law enforcement officials, urban planners, and

policymakers, first, because they are lawbreakers. (US GAO 1993: 10)

7

The effect illegal immigration has on the economy is irrelevant. Whether illegal

immigration stimulates or burdens economic growth is of no importance to the residual

fact that the law is being broken. Illegal immigration is illegal. Period. (Olson 1994:

Commentary 5)

One of the most common and devastating crimes committed in America is committed by

people who are not even American citizens. To many, it is not even considered a crime,

even though its name, illegal immigration, makes it clear that it is. . . . People who enter

or stay in this country illegally are criminals by definition. (Coleman 1994: B11)

In addition to being constructed as lawbreakers, irregular migrants have routinely been linked to

a host of other problems. For example, they have been associated with such cultural, social, and

economic maladies as overpopulation, deteriorating schools, urban crime and decay, energy

shortages, and national disunity. Furthermore, they have been accused of displacing American

workers, depressing wages, spreading diseases, and burdening public services. All of these

‘problems’ are seen as compounding the fundamental problem of immigrant criminality (see

essay by Susan Bibler Coutin in this volume).

In the wake of 9/11, while irregular migrants continue to be constructed as criminals, the threat

they represent has come to be refigured in terms of homeland security (see essay by Nicholas De

Genova in this collection). ‘Homeland security’ is a way of thinking and acting that developed in

the wake of the September 11, 2001 ‘terrorist’ attacks. It has been defined as ‘a concerted

national effort to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, reduce America’s

8

vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur’

(OHS 2002: 2). What has basically happened is that, subsequent to the 9/11 attacks, terrorism has

generally become regarded as the greatest threat facing the nation. Focusing on the fact that the

9/11 hijackers were foreigners who somehow managed to get into the United States, the

movement of people in and out of the country has been seen as indissociable from this threat. It

is thus commonly expressed in policy and public rhetoric that there is an ever-present possibility

that foreigners might seek to enter the US in order to commit acts of terrorism. Moreover, this

discourse strongly articulates the need to protect against the threat of terrorism and safeguard the

homeland. Notably, the attitude of protecting the homeland has significantly influenced the

governing of immigration: whether terrorists or not, migrants have generally come to be seen as

threats to the security of the homeland. Protecting the nation thus not only involves preventing

terrorist attacks, but also mitigating the dangers posed by irregular migrants (defined as ‘illegal

immigrants’). Indeed, the undocumented have come be seen as threats to national security. The

homeland on this reading must be protected from these irresponsible ‘criminals’.

Given that irregular migrants have largely been constructed as criminal ‘illegal immigrants’ who

harm the well-being of American citizens and threaten the security of the nation, the measures

employed to govern them have been extremely exclusionary and punitive. Put otherwise,

irregular migrants have come to be governed through crime. Governing immigration through

crime has taken numerous forms in the United States. The most notable form it has undoubtedly

taken is that of enhanced border policing (Inda 2006b). Since the early 1990s, the US federal

government has undertaken a major boundary control offensive, one that aims to shape the

conduct of ’illegal immigrants’ in such as way as to deter them from entering the US. Federal

9

authorities have essentially determined that one of the best ways to deal with the ‘problem’ of

illegal immigration is through expanding its border policing operations. The expansion of the

border policing as a way of governing illegal immigration has been most conspicuous along the

US-Mexico border. It is this border that has historically been seen as the primary source of the

undocumented immigrant problem. This expansion actually dates back to late 1970s. But it really

burgeoned in the early 1990s. That’s when the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) put

into effect a broad plan to gain control of the southwest border and reduce the flow of illicit

immigration. As articulated in the Border Patrol Strategic Plan: 1994 and Beyond, National

Strategy, this comprehensive border control scheme was based on a strategy of ‘prevention

through deterrence’ (US Border Patrol 1994). The objective was to increase fencing, lighting,

personnel, and surveillance equipment along the main gates (or hot spots) of illegal entry – such

as San Diego, California and El Paso, Texas – in order to raise the probability of apprehension to

such a high level that unauthorized aliens would be deterred from crossing the border. Now, in

the post-9/11 context, the policing of the border as a way of managing unauthorised migration

has only accelerated as the fight against immigrant illegality has become conflated with the ‘war

on terror’. A primary solution to the illegal immigration ‘problem’, then, has been to turn the US

into a fortified enclave of sorts. It has been to cast a wide net of control and surveillance over the

border in order to discourage illegal incursions and thus keep troublesome individuals out of the

body politic. As with the government of crime more generally, the rationale for managing

irregular migrants through police measures is that the public must be protected from the would-

be criminals who threaten their security and contentment.

10

While the policing of the border continues unabated, the Federal government has since the early

2000’s intensified its policing of the nation’s interior. Indeed, interior policing, led by the

Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement

(ICE), has become a central component of the border fight against ‘terror’ and illegal

immigration. What has basically happened is that the border, as a regime of security and

immigration control (Cunningham 2009), has been deterritorialized and projected into the

nation’s interior (Euskirchen, Lebuhn, and Ray 2009). As part of this border respatialization,

certain spaces of everyday life – most notably workplaces but also individual homes and variety

of public spaces – have been identified as strategic sites and become subject to intensified

policing. As such, numerous locales across the interior of the United States have been turned into

borderzones of enforcement.

The increased preoccupation with policing the interior of the United States was notably signaled

with the DHS’s publication of Endgame: Office of Detention and Removal Strategic Plan, 2003-

2012 (US DHS 2003). The Office of Detention and Removal (DRO) is the primary enforcement

arm of ICE. It is responsible for promoting ‘public safety and national security’ through the

‘identification, apprehension, and removal of illegal aliens from the United States’ (US ICE

2009). Endgame essentially lays out DRO’s vision for a secure homeland. The stated goal is to

develop ‘the capacity and capability to remove all removable aliens’ (US DHS 2003: 1.3),

focusing on those with criminal records and/or outstanding orders of deportation. The rationale

here is that striving for 100 per cent removal allows ICE to provide the level of immigration

enforcement necessary to ‘thwart and deter continued growth in the illegal alien population’

(2003: 4.4) and thus ‘to keep American secure’ (2003: 2.9). This prioritization of removing

11

aliens from the country was reiterated in the DHS’s master plan for controlling the border,

Secure Border Strategic Plan (US DHS 2006). This text places a strong emphasis on enhancing

‘interior enforcement and compliance with immigration and customs law’ (2006: 6) as a way to

stop the illicit flow of people into the US. In line with Endgame, one of the goals articulated in

the Strategic Plan is the need ‘to identify, apprehend, and expeditiously remove the criminal

alien and fugitive population’ (2006: 6). However, this text goes further and also highlights the

importance of investigating and punishing ‘employers who systematically employ or exploit

aliens unauthorized to work’ (2006: 6). ICE’s targets would thus be not just individual aliens but

also places of work.

One of the main mechanisms ICE has employed to carry out its interior policing mission is the

raid. A raid is a practice whereby immigration authorities, sometimes with the help of other

policing agencies, descend en mass on homes, places of work, and other spaces with the express

purpose of apprehending individuals believed to be in the country without authorization. Like

border policing, the raid is a practice that seeks to securitize the nation through the abjection and

exclusion of individuals and populations deemed threatening to the social body. ICE’s initial

targets were people whose criminal or other actions had rendered them deportable (see US ICE

2008a; Mendelson, Strom, and Wishnie 2009). But more recently it has also focused on worksite

enforcement. Indeed, over the last few years, this agency has pursued an aggressive program of

policing of the nations workplaces. Between 2006 and 2008, ICE apprehended about 14,000

irregular migrants through worksite raids (US ICE 2008b: 3). This compares to only about 2,700

arrests between 2002 and 2005 (US ICE 2008b: 3). Worksite enforcement is a priority, according

to ICE, because: ‘Employment is a primary driving force behind illegal immigration. By working

12

with employers to ensure a legal workforce, ICE is able to stem the tide of those who cross our

borders illegally or unlawfully remain in our country to work’ (US ICE 2008b: 2). ICE deems

the hiring of undocumented migrants a problem for several reasons. First, the agency suggests

that: ‘illegal aliens often turn to criminal activity: including document fraud, Social Security

fraud or identity theft, in order to get jobs’ (US ICE 2008b: 2). Such crimes are seen to

negatively impact the lives of the US citizens and legal residents whose identities are stolen.

Second, the need of irregular migrants for fraudulent documents is said to create thriving

criminal markets. Third, there is a perception that every job taken by an undocumented migrant

means one less job for lawful US residents. Fourth, employers are believed to exploit

undocumented workers through ignoring wages laws and safety standards. And finally, irregular

migrants are seen ‘as easy targets for criminals who want to use them to gain access to sensitive

facilities or to move illegal products’ (US ICE 2008b: 2). Worksite enforcement, then, is deemed

necessary in order to stem the tide of illegality purportedly produced by undocumented migrants.

The conviction seems to be that ‘illegal immigration’ generally erodes respect for authority – that

the toleration of lawlessness undermines consideration for law and order. For not only do the

undocumented fail to conduct themselves responsibly, they also compel others to follow suit. As

such, they are seen to represent a danger to the social body. Their disregard for the rule of law is

understood to pose a threat to the general welfare of the population.

The workplace raids conducted by ICE have focused on both large and small businesses. On the

larger side, I have already mentioned the raids targeting Swift and Company meatpacking plants.

But there have been plenty of others (US ICE 2008c). On April 19, 2006, for example, ICE

agents apprehended over 1,100 employees of IFCO Systems North America at more than 40

13

locations across the nation. On March 6, 2007, ICE raided Michael Bianco, Inc., a textile product

company in New Bedford, Massachusetts. This action resulted in over 300 arrests. On May 12,

2008, ICE raided the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa (Rhodes 2008).

Around 389 undocumented migrants were arrested that day. And the list goes on.... On the

smaller side, there have also been plenty of raids. David Bacon, a writer for The Nation, gives

the following snapshot of select small-scale raids that took place over a three-month period in

2008:

In June among those arrested were 160 workers at Action Rags in Houston, 32 farm

workers for Boss 4 Packing in Heber, California, and nine workers at water parks in

Arizona. In May ‘cops and guns and badges and everything’ were used to detain 16

workers at San Diego’s French Gourmet bakery, according to Rod Coon, company vice-

president. The same month, 25 construction laborers were picked up in Florida working

on the Lee County Jail. April saw raids detaining 28 landscapers in El Paso, 24

construction workers in Little Rock, 63 taco makers at El Balazo restaurants in the San

Francisco Bay area, 22 restaurant workers on Maui, 33 laborers on the federal courthouse

project in Richmond, Virginia, 20 workers at Shipley’s Do-Nuts in Texas, and 45

workers at a Mexican restaurant chain in several states. (Bacon 2008)

Large or small, then, it appears that no worksite is safe. And thus irregular migrants cannot be

completely sure that they will escape ICE’s attention.

14

Typically, irregular migrants apprehended by ICE are sent to detention centers and processed for

deportation. Depending on the particular case, an individual may spend days, weeks, months, or

even longer in custody before being removed from the United States. ICE reports that the

average stay in 2008 was 30.49 days (US ICE 2008d). Not all migrants are sent to detention

centers, however. In some cases, those arrested are placed into removal proceedings and then

released on humanitarian grounds (pending their eventual deportation). These migrants are most

often sole caregivers or women with young children. It is also important to note that while the

majority of ICE apprehensions are simple administrative arrests (meaning that individuals are

only accused with being unlawfully present in the US), some apprehended migrants have also

faced criminal charges. Until a 2009 Supreme Court decision rendered the practice

unconstitutional (see below), migrants were sometimes charged with aggravated identity theft

and Social Security fraud. In 2008, more than 960 migrants were charged with such criminal

offenses, including 306 people apprehended at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant (US ICE,

2008b, 3). Speaking in reference to the Agriprocessors raid, Deborah Rhodes, Senior Associate

Deputy Attorney General for the US Department of Justice, articulates the rationale for

criminally charging immigrants as follows:

Most – but not all – of the 306 workers faced charges of aggravated identity theft because

they were using immigration or Social Security cards with a number belonging to

somebody else. These were not victimless crimes; there were real people whose identities

were stolen. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that since 2005, 8.3 million

Americans have been victims of identity theft. Even in cases in which an identity theft

victim does not suffer out-of-pocket losses, significant time and frustration can be spent

15

in re-securing one’s personally identifying information. Identity theft strikes at one’s

sense of security and privacy. Post 9/11, we also recognize that identity theft poses a

security risk to all of us. Because of the concern for identity theft, the harm it causes to

individuals and the risk to our security as a nation, Congress has mandated a two-year or

five-year sentence for anyone who knowingly transfers, possesses or uses the

identification of another person in relation to certain specified felonies. (Rhodes 2008:

49)

For a time, then, migrants were not simply apprehended and deported. They also faced time in

prison for using false or stolen identities.

While the number of migrants caught in worksite raids, including the figure on those who face

criminal charges, is rather small in relation to the estimated 10.8 million undocumented migrants

residing in the United States (Hoefer, Rytina, and Baker 2010), the effects of the raids have

nevertheless been rather profound. The most palpable impact of the raids has been on the

families, particularly the children, of the individuals who have been apprehended and deported.

Recently, The Urban Institute released a report titled Paying the Price: The Impact of

Immigration Raids on America’s Children (Capps et al. 2007). The report focused on the

aftermath of large-scale ICE raids in three communities: Greely, Colorado; Grand Island,

Nebraska; and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Greely and Grand Island were two of the sites hit as

part of the Swift & Company meatpacking raids. New Bedford was the location of the raid on

Michael Bianco, Inc. The authors detail how the children and families of apprehended

immigrants experienced significant hardship, ‘including difficulty coping with the economic and

16

psychological stress caused by the arrest and the uncertainty of not knowing when or if the

arrested parent would be released’ (2007: 3). Moreover, they note that:

Hardship increased over time, as families’ meager savings and funds from previous

paychecks were spent. Privately funded assistance generally lasted for two to three

months, but many parents were detained for up to five or six months, and others were

released but waited for several months for a final appearance before an immigration

judge – during which time they could not work. Hardship also increased among extended

families and nonfamily networks over time, as they took on more and more responsibility

for taking care of children with arrested parents.

After the arrest or disappearance of their parents, children experienced feelings of

abandonment and showed symptoms of emotional trauma, psychological duress, and

mental health problems. Many lacked stability in child care and supervision. Families

continued hiding and feared arrest if they ventured outside, increasing social isolation

over time. Immigrant communities faced the fear of future raids, backlash from

nonimmigrants, and the stigma of being labeled ‘illegal’. The combination of fear,

isolation, and economic hardship induced mental health problems such as depression,

separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal thoughts.

However, due to cultural reasons, fear of possible consequences in asking for assistance,

and barriers to accessing services, few affected immigrants sought mental health care for

themselves or their children. (2007: 3-4)

17

By removing a parent and breadwinner from the home, then, worksite operations have significant

consequences for families and children. Not only does the removal of a breadwinner reduce a

family’s income and increase their material hardship, it also creates a rather unstable home

environment. Moreover, the fear and stigma produced by a raid can lead to the social isolation of

immigrant families and have an adverse psychological effect on children.

Worksite raids, and the broader anti-immigrant climate that has spawned them, have also had a

significant impact on the larger migrant community in the United States, Latinos in particular. A

recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center paints a rather grim picture of the psychological state

of US Latinos – legal residents, US citizens, and irregular migrants alike (Lopez and Minushkin

2008). Latinos generally report feeling anxious and discriminated against amid public immigrant

bashing and enhanced immigration enforcement. Among the survey’s general findings were the

following: that one-in-ten Latinos reported being stopped by the police or other authorities in the

past year to be asked about their immigration status; that one-in-seven said that they have had

trouble finding or keeping a job because they are Latino; and that one-in-ten reported difficulties

finding or keeping housing. Significantly, the survey also found that a majority of Latinos worry

about deportation. Approximately 40 per cent report being worried a lot that they, a family

member, or a close friend could be deported, while 17 per cent say they worry some. Not

surprisingly, immigrants are particularly concerned about deportation, with 72 per cent reporting

being worried either a lot or some. Immigrant raids, then, and immigration enforcement more

generally, have helped to create a sense of unease among Latinos, and Latino migrant

communities in particular. As such, the effectivity of raiding, as well as of other policing

mechanisms deployed against migrants, resides not in the number of migrants being arrested but

18

in the creation of apprehension and fear amongst migrant communities. This is a policy of

attrition through enforcement. It is ‘aimed at wearing down the will of immigrants to live and

work in the United States’ (Immigration Policy Center 2008).

MIGRANT COUNTER-CONDUCTS

There is no doubt that the respatialization of the border, that is, the expansion of immigration

policing into the interior of the United States, has had a negative impact on the conduct of

irregular migrants. Indeed, it is clear that one of the effects of raiding has been to incapacitate

undocumented migrants – through expulsion, the induction of fear, and so forth. But interior

borderzones of enforcement cannot be reduced to mere spaces of policing. They are also most

certainly sites of political struggle, as indicated in the introductory chapter to this volume.

Migrants have not stood idly by and accepted the highly punitive treatment to which they have

been subjected. Rather, they and their allies have actively sought to challenge the practice of

raiding and the governing of immigration through crime. In his Collège de France lectures on

security, territory, and population, Michel Foucault suggests that there is a strategic reversibility

to power relations such that any governmental effort to shape the conduct of individuals and

populations is interwoven with dissenting counter-conducts (Gordon 1991: 5), that is, with

‘struggle[s] against the processes implemented for conducting others’ (Foucault 2007: 201). This

is precisely the case with respect to the government of immigration through crime. This way of

governing immigrants has elicited dissenting counter-conducts or what I have called migrant or

immigrant counter-conducts. These struggles against the punitive practices employed to direct

the conduct of migrants range from street protests and marches to legislative interventions and

19

court challenges. Such counter-conducts seek to call into question the criminalization and

marginalization of irregular migrants.

One of the most visible counter-conducts that irregular migrants and their allies have engaged in

is public protesting (see the essays by Nicholas De Genova, Sandro Mezzadra, Peter Nyers and

Enrica Rigo in this volume). Across the country, unions, religious institutions, immigrant rights

groups, Latino organizations, and the general public have banded together in varying

assemblages to publically protest the raids and their drastic effects on migrants and their

communities. Irregular migrants themselves have played an active role in these acts of protest.

Take the case of Postville, Iowa, for example. Postville was the site of the raid on the

Agriprocessors kosher meet packing plant. At that raid, ICE apprehended about 389 suspected

undocumented migrants, mainly of Guatemalan and Mexican origin (Rhodes, 2008). A ‘lucky’

few, mostly mothers, were released on humanitarian grounds pending their removal from the

United States. The vast majority however, 306 people, were detained on criminal charges. They

were accused of using fraudulent Social Security documents and false or stolen identities.

Ultimately, most of these individuals pleaded guilty to Social Security fraud and were sentenced

to five months in prison. Following their jail sentences, they were to be deported. The effects of

the raid proved to be highly disruptive. Not only were the lives of numerous migrants shattered,

but the larger community of Postville also suffered. In the immediate aftermath of the raid, the

town (with a population of 2,273) lost about a third of its population. As a consequence,

businesses were virtually empty, schools littered with unfilled seats, and those still left were

asking themselves, ‘What happened?’ A whole community was in shambles. As one observer put

20

it, ‘The humanitarian impact of this raid is obvious to anyone in Postville. The economic impact

will soon be evident’ (Cited in Camayd-Freixas, 2008).

A couple of months after the raid, on Sunday, July 27, 2008, over 1,000 people marched down

the streets of Postville to protest against ICE’s actions. The protestors were mainly Latino

migrants, local citizens, immigrant rights advocates, and members of the Jewish, Catholic, and

Lutheran communities (AFP 2008; Standing Firm 2008). They were marching in Postville not

only to speak out against the raid, which tore apart the local community and devastated migrant

families, but also to call for the just treatment of workers and for comprehensive immigration

reform legislation that included a path to citizenship for irregular migrants (Bobo 2008). They

marched carrying signs saying, ‘An injury to one is an injury to all. Immigrant Rights Now!’,

‘Born in the USA. Why are you taking our families away?’, and ‘Stop destroying families’. And

they chanted, ‘No more raids!’, ‘No justice, no peace’, and ‘Yo no soy terrorista, ni criminal. Y

ningun ser humano es illegal. Basta, basta!’ – ‘I’m neither a terrorist nor a criminal. And no

human being is illegal. Enough, enough!’ Significantly, among the marchers were 43 women

who had been apprehended during the raid but released on humanitarian grounds to take care of

their children (APF 2008). Still under house arrest, these women wore electronic monitoring

bracelets around their ankles. Two of them spoke at a rally. Maria L. Gomez bore witness to the

post-raid suffering of her family: of her sister’s detention and the painful trips to visit her in

prison (Cullen 2008: 1). And Cruz Rodriguez asked everyone to ‘Stand together for our families,

be a voice for those who cannot speak, who are detained.... Remain with us through this process’

(Cullen 2008: 1).

21

As well as being involved in such protests, migrants have been engaged in legal challenges to the

practice of raiding and the criminalization of the undocumented. Examples of such counter-

conduct abound. For instance, as a result of the Swift & Co. raids, the United Food and

Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) filed a lawsuit on behalf of several members,

including migrants, to put a stop to workplace raids. The complaint contended that during:

the December 12th raids workers were denied access to telephones, bathrooms and legal

counsel. Citizens and legal residents also were deprived of the opportunity to retrieve

documents to establish their legal status. Some workers were handcuffed. Others were

shipped out on buses. Families, schools and daycare centers could not be contacted to

make arrangements for the children of detained workers. Families were left divided and

scared – not knowing where or when they might see a missing family member again.

(UFCW 2007)

At a press conference announcing the lawsuit, UFCW International president Joe Hansen

stressed the importance of protecting the constitutional rights of workers. ‘Work is not a crime,

and workers do not leave their constitutional rights at the plant gate’, Hansen said. ‘To inflict this

kind of enforcement on innocent workers – to arrest and illegally detain massive numbers of

people against their will, to treat them as criminals – is not just unacceptable, it is un-American’

(UFCW 2007). At the time of writing this lawsuit was still pending.

Similarly, we can take the case of Ignacio Flores, an undocumented migrant from Mexico. In

2000, he used a false name, birth date, Social Security number, and alien registration card in

22

order to secure employment at a steel plant in Illinois (Liptak and Preston 2009). Neither the

Social Security number nor the alien card belonged to real people. A few years later, however, in

2006, Flores informed his employer that he wanted to use his real name and provided a new

Social Security number and alien registration card. The employer reported this change of name

request to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE discovered that Flores’s new

documents actually belonged to other people. The United States government consequently

indicted Flores with, among other things, aggravated identity theft. Flores was charged under

Federal statute 18 U. S. C. §1028A (a)(1), which imposes a mandatory two-year prison term on

any person convicted of certain predicate crimes if, during or in relation to the commission of

those other crimes, the offender ‘knowingly . . . uses, without lawful authority, a means of

identification of another person’ (Fernandez 2009). The law was meant to stop credit card

thieves and would-be ‘terrorists’, but the Bush administration interpreted it broadly and used it to

criminally charge migrants caught using a Social Security number or identity belonging to

someone else. They were charged regardless of whether or not they had intent to defraud another

individual. Rather than accepting the identity theft charge, Flores fought be acquitted. He argued

that the US government needed to prove that he knew the numbers on his documents belonged to

other people. Flores was initially convicted of identity theft. But he appealed his case all the way

to the US Supreme Court. The Court determined that it was not okay to eliminate the element of

intent in the law. In other words, it was not enough to simply catch a person with a stolen

identity or Social Security number. The government also had to show that migrants were

knowingly (and with the intent to defraud) using someone else’s identity. As a consequence,

Flores was acquitted of the aggravated identity theft charge. And since most migrants who use

false Social Security number are simply looking to procure a job and are not out to defraud

23

others, ICE is no longer able to indiscriminately charge undocumented migrants with identity

theft.

The counter-conducts migrants and their allies have engaged in are significant in various

respects. First, they speak to the political becoming of irregular migrants. As Peter Nyers (2006)

has pointed out, there is an expectation of docility on the part of refugees and the undocumented.

Their life tends to be represented in popular and legal discourse as the inverted image of political

life. Whereas the citizen is expected to speak and act politically, the irregular migrant is

supposed to remain silent. But in the context of the raids, irregular migrants have refused to be

quiet. They have spoken out against the dehumanizing effects of raiding. And they have

demanded dignity and recognition, asking to be seen not as criminals who harm the larger

society but as human being who contribute to it (Beltrán 2009). The fact that irregular migrants

stand up and speak thus represents an important act of symbolic resistance. They are speaking

out in a context that does not recognize migrants, in particular irregular or undocumented

migrants, as legitimate speaking subjects. Second, migrant counter-conducts amount to non-

citizen ‘acts of citizenship’ (Nyers 2003; Isin and Nielsen 2008). Irregular migrants are not

simply speaking out, they are actually claiming and exercising rights. A main message of the

anti-raid public protests, as well as of the legal challenges to the criminalization of migrants, is

that irregular migrants are legitimate members of US society and deserve the right to work, to

raise families, and to be free from the fear of persecution (see also essays by Sandro Mezzadra

and Enrica Rigo in this volume). In other words, they are asking to be recognized as legitimate

political subjects with social, civil, and political rights. In making such claims, irregular migrants

are, in effect, enacting citizenship. Indeed, through their engagement in a variety of democratic

24

processes, from collective protesting and campaigning for rights to court battles, the

undocumented are basically acting as citizens. In the process, citizenship is transformed from a

strictly juridical condition to a practice one can engage in regardless of legal status.

CONCLUSION

To the extent that irregular migrants have been constructed as subjects who harm the well-being

of American citizens, the measures employed to govern them have become extremely

exclusionary and punitive. Much like the government of the poor and of other anti-citizens,

undocumented migrants have increasingly been regulated through crime and police measures.

Indeed, crime and punishment have become the occasions and the institutional contexts in which

the undocumented are governed. Irregular migrants, in short, have effectively been criminalized

and treated as delinquent subjects – with rather unfortunate (if not downright horrific)

consequences for many migrant families and communities.

The picture is not all bleak however. Migrants and their allies have forcefully fought back

against the practice of raiding and the expanded boundaries of enforcement. For one, they have

gone to court and filed lawsuits to stop ICE from conducting large-scale raids like the ones that

took place at Swift & Company, as well as to end the practice of charging undocumented

workers with identity theft. Furthermore, irregular migrants themselves have taken to the streets

and marched to claim rights and voice their rejection of the dehumanizing effects of workplace

raids. While the border might have been respatialized and the enforcement climate stepped up,

then, migrants and their allies have kept hope alive and mounted political campaigns bent on

gaining rights and recognition for the undocumented. The workplace as a borderzone of

25

governing immigration through crime is, in other words, also a site around which exclusionary

and punitive techniques of control are subject to resistance and contestation.

26

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1 Special thanks go to Leo Chavez, Julie Dowling, the anonymous reviewers at Routledge, and my colleagues in Latina/Latino Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. They all, in different ways, contributed greatly to this chapter. I would also like to thank audiences at the institutions and conferences where I presented versions of this work: the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Missouri; the 2008 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting; and the 2010 International Studies Association Annual Convention. Finally, many thanks go to Vicki Squire for her wonderful suggestions and for all her hard work in putting this volume together.