Trump's Immigration Policies and it's Relation To The State Of Exception

President Trump has fortified his administration to exterminate “illegals” by having the federal government find, arrest, and deport those with criminal backgrounds. This is proven by his executive order which removed the restrictions placed on ICE during the Obama administration. In addition, Trump pledged to have as many as 3 million undocumented immigrants with criminal records deported, and in recent months ICE agents have deported nearly 161 immigrants in Los Angeles only in a week.

            All of these recent reports point to the justification for these anti-immigration policies which is the control of the sovereign. The linguistic purpose of having a “citizen”, “undocumented” or “illegal” propagates the power of the sovereign by having a state of exception to those that are deviant to the sovereign. This is particularly noticed within latinx and Muslim immigration, where both have been criminalized to an extreme degree in recent years. Yet recent research indicates that immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than native born citizens. We must finally ask the question: if the purpose of anti-immigration policies is to protect those inside the border, and there is no harm present from immigration, why do we promote these anti-immigrant policies?

            One answer can be found in critical literature in the book “State of Exception” by Giorgio Agamben. In the text, Agamben depicts how the state creates an exception to protect the sovereign through allowing legal presence for preserving politically valuable life, and then retracting the law from sites of exclusion. By applying these ideas to the current debate about immigration allows one to uncover the ideas between the purpose of a citizen, and its relation to the state. I will outline multiple ideas that critique and realize the cruelty in anti-immigration policies.

            The first idea that relates to the state of exception is the illusion of safety. Calls to safety like Trumps enforcement of the “wall” to keep people out that are bringing “drugs, crime, and rapists” exemplifies the securitization rhetoric. However, as noted before, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than those who are native, which proves that this overcriminalization of immigrants has no basis. Yet the rhetoric alone regardless of the statistics has created a fear and vision that these people are criminal. This allows for the violence we see inside and outside the border, where undocumented individuals must live in the shadows, and people on the border are taking it in their own hands by killing migrants. The illusion of safety as we have seen in the status quo continues to justify the violence in order to preserve the rights and safety of the sovereign. Without deconstructing this notion no further progress can be made.

Another idea Agamben outlines that relates to the current debate about immigration is the current artificial crisis created by the state. The war on terror is one example of the state creating a crisis in order for it to gain its own control. The United States after rolling into Iraq in 2003 gained control of oil, overthrew governments, and supported rebels for their own change, all in the name for those lost by one terrorist attack. Sovereign lives will always be protected at a higher value than those who are not. While many see it as a justifiable action, was it really a larger crisis than those who die from not having health insurance, access to food, and evicted from homes? The answer simply is no. In fact, the risk of an American perishing from a foreigner is 1 in 3.6 million. In addition to this microscopic risk, according to Abu Jamal every fifteen years, on the average, as many people die because of relative poverty as would be killed in a nuclear war that caused 232 million deaths. Sure, we cannot alleviate all of poverty, but why isn’t poverty seen as a crisis? It has to do with the power of the sovereign and its relation to the state. Western sovereign nations constantly produce points of crisis in order to define the limits of their sovereignty. This renders those in the way of the state’s project as externalities- either as friends or allies. Those that fall in the out group must be eliminated to maintain political order. The Muslim travel ban is one example of this crisis being applied to an externality that the west perceives as a threat. However as noted above, the likelihood of any terrorist attack is very small, while the structural violence on a daily basis continues going unnoticed.

            In sum, the two different ways we can analyze the impact of anti-immigration policies through the lens of Agamben confesses the dirty secret of the state and its purpose. Agamben proposes that in order to deconstruct the concept of citizenship we could engage in the ‘whatever’ being, but first demystifying the propaganda that follows the state sovereignty is a necessity. Without any realization, these fallacious policies the status quo of immigration will only continue.

Works cited:    

"The Criminalization of Immigration in the United States." American Immigration Council. November 29, 2016. Accessed April 11, 2017. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states

"Deportations Rise As ICE Embarks On ‘Enforcement Surge’." The Daily Caller. Accessed April 11, 2017. http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/10/deportations-surge-as-ice-embarks-on-enforcement-surge/.

Michael. "New Trump Deportation Rules Allow Far More Expulsions." The New York Times. February 21, 2017. Accessed April 11, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/us/politics/dhs-immigration-trump.html

Rein, Lisa, Abigail Hauslohner, and Sandhya Somashekhar. "Federal agents conduct immigration enforcement raids in at least six states." The Washington Post. February 11, 2017. Accessed April 11, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-agents-conduct-sweeping-immigration-enforcement-raids-in-at-least-6-states/2017/02/10/4b9f443a-efc8-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html?utm_term=.c19b808f50b9

Alex Nowrasteh September 13, 2016, and PDF (568.46 KB) EPUB (217.07 KB) MOBI (759.7 KB). "Terrorism and Immigration: A Risk Analysis." Cato Institute. September 13, 2016. Accessed April 11, 2017. https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/terrorism-immigration-risk-analysis

Agamben, Giorgio. State of exception. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Abu, Jamal. “A Quiet and Deadly Violence”. http://www.flashpoints.net/mQuietDeadlyViolence.html