Source: Final Review, Prof. Victoria Robinson | UC Berkeley
Tags: immigration, DREAM Act, border militarization, crimmigration, Prop 187, Chinese Exclusion Act, Page Act, xenophobia, neoliberalism, deportation, undocumented students, Secure Communities, Urban Shield
The course frames immigration enforcement not as neutral border management but as a racialised system of exclusion with roots stretching back over 500 years. Border militarization, deportation economics, and laws like Prop 187 and the Chinese Exclusion Act reveal how the state constructs categories of "deserving" and "undeserving" people along racial and economic lines. The DREAM Act debate exposes the limits of inclusion politics within a neoliberal framework.
Crimmigration
The merging of criminal law enforcement and immigration enforcement, including the sharing of resources between police and immigration agencies. Programmes like Secure Communities and the Urban Shield Initiative are examples.
Prop 187 (California, 1994)
A ballot initiative that denied public services (education, healthcare) to undocumented immigrants in California. Constructed the legal category of the "illegal alien body." Though largely struck down by courts, it shifted immigration enforcement from federal to state-level politics.
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
The first major US law restricting immigration by nationality. Framed economic worthiness as the criterion for entry: only admit people who are "economically beneficial." A foundational example of racialised exclusion law.
Page Act (1875)
The first restrictive federal immigration law, targeting Chinese women specifically. Preceded the Chinese Exclusion Act and is an early instance of gendered and racialised immigration control.
DREAM Act
Proposed legislation to provide a pathway to legal status for undocumented young people brought to the US as children. The course uses it to explore the politics of who counts as a "deserving subject."
Neoliberalism (in the context of immigration)
A value structure that ranks people by economic productivity and respectability, creating hierarchies of worthiness. Within immigration politics, neoliberalism produces the "deserving subject" – the model immigrant who earns inclusion through economic contribution.
Social death (immigration context)
The condition of being rendered politically and socially invisible. Advocacy groups that seek a "poster child victim" to represent undocumented people inadvertently reinforce social death for everyone who does not fit the sympathetic narrative.
Accumulation by dispossession
The process by which wealth and resources are extracted from marginalised populations. In the immigration context, this connects to how borders function to control labour and extract value.
Capital penetration
The movement of capital across borders (investment, trade, resource extraction) that precedes and drives the movement of people, connecting globalisation to migration patterns.
Mixed-status household
A family in which members hold different immigration statuses (citizen, permanent resident, undocumented). The 1986 reform laws and subsequent enforcement tore these households apart.
It costs approximately $23,000 to deport a single individual (attributed to "Terrance" in the notes).
There are 2.1 million undocumented students in the US.
Total taxpayer spending on immigration enforcement: $48 billion.
If the DREAM Act passes, beneficiaries can earn and spend more, generating an estimated $171 billion in economic activity and creating jobs.
The course uses these numbers to show that even on its own economic terms, the deportation regime is inefficient.
The DREAM Act debate operates within a "politics of inclusivity" that leaves most people with "crumbs of inclusivity."
Neoliberalism's value structure creates a hierarchy: people must prove they are economically productive, respectable, and "worthy" to be included.
This produces the "deserving subject" – the straight-A student, the military veteran, the taxpayer. Everyone else remains excludable.
"Social death" in this context: advocacy groups build campaigns around a sympathetic individual ("Terrance"), but if one person's humanity must be proven to earn rights, it implicitly reduces everyone else.
Connection to LGBTQ rights: similar dynamics of respectability politics shape which queer people are granted visibility and rights.
Xenophobia is not an irrational fear but a politically useful structure.
The "us and them" binary is maintained through legal categories (citizen/non-citizen, documented/undocumented) and cultural narratives.
The concept of "crime and category" – criminalisation creates the category of the criminal, which then justifies further enforcement.
Globalisation has operated for over 500 years. Before it was called globalisation, it was colonialism.
The racial underpinnings of globalisation are essential: the movement of capital, goods, and people has always been structured by racial hierarchies.
Border militarization and exclusion laws select for people who are "economically beneficial" – the Chinese Exclusion Act is the clearest historical example.
Capital penetration explains why people migrate: capital moves freely across borders, disrupting local economies, and people follow.
The US-Mexico border is not a natural boundary but a created corridor.
Prop 187 constructed the "illegal alien" category at the state level, and California then exported this framework to federal policy.
The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act created mixed-status households by offering amnesty to some while leaving others undocumented within the same family.
The Urban Shield Initiative merges police and immigration enforcement.
Secure Communities is a programme that shares databases between local police and ICE, so any police encounter can become an immigration enforcement action.
"Crimmigration" names this merger: the sharing of resources, databases, and enforcement priorities between criminal and immigration systems.
The criminalisation of immigration and the culture behind border militarism serve a "function of death."
The assumption that immigration is inherently linked to the border is "compelling and seductive" but misleading – the border is not simply failing to function; it is functioning exactly as designed.
The border creates a category of "foreigner" that did not previously exist in the same way.
"Refugee policy is a subject of foreign policy" – refugees are managed according to geopolitical interests, not humanitarian principles.
Judicial discretion has been removed from refugee decisions (attributed to "Bill Anking" in the notes).
The removal of judicial oversight raises the question: to whom is the state responsible when it comes to refugees?
Reference: Bill Moyers report (available on bCourses) interviewing members of the commission.
⚠️ Question 2 (DREAM Act and deportation economics) requires at least three readings. Know the specific figures ($23,000 per deportation, 2.1 million undocumented students, $48 billion, $171 billion potential).
⚠️ The professor wants you to connect economic arguments to a critique of neoliberalism, not simply argue that the DREAM Act is economically beneficial.
⚠️ "Crimmigration" is a key term that bridges immigration enforcement and carcerality – use it to connect across essay topics.
⚠️ Question 3 (globalisation) requires you to link 500 years of colonial history to present-day border enforcement. The Chinese Exclusion Act and Page Act are your historical anchors.
⚠️ Part B, Q2 and Q7 overlap with Part 1 content. Prepare material that can serve both the essay and short-answer sections.
⚠️ Use Kitty C.'s work (likely Kitty Calavita) on state and federal government and immigration for the racialized gender violence and immigration questions.
Q: How does the DREAM Act debate illustrate the limits of neoliberal inclusion politics?
A: The DREAM Act offers inclusion only to those who can prove economic productivity and respectability – the "deserving subject." This creates a hierarchy where a small number of undocumented people may gain status while the majority remain excluded. The course frames this as "crumbs of inclusivity": the structure of racial hierarchy and economic worthiness remains intact even as a narrow pathway opens.
Q: What is "crimmigration" and how does it operate through programmes like Secure Communities?
A: Crimmigration is the merging of criminal law enforcement and immigration enforcement. Secure Communities shares databases between local police and ICE, meaning any police encounter (a traffic stop, a noise complaint) can trigger immigration enforcement. This blurs the line between criminal and immigration law, extending the reach of deportation into everyday life.
Q: Why does the professor argue that globalisation is colonialism by another name?
A: Globalisation has operated for over 500 years, and its early forms were explicitly colonial: the extraction of resources, the movement of enslaved people, the imposition of economic systems by European powers. The professor argues that contemporary globalisation retains these racial underpinnings – border laws, exclusion acts, and labour exploitation continue to be organised along racial lines, even when the language shifts from "colonialism" to "free trade."
Q: How does Prop 187 illustrate the construction of the "illegal alien body"?
A: Prop 187 denied public services to undocumented immigrants in California, creating a legal and social category – the "illegal alien" – that could be excluded from civic life. By moving immigration enforcement from the federal to the state level, it made every public institution (schools, hospitals) a site of immigration policing. Though largely struck down, its framework was absorbed into federal policy.
Q: Explain "accumulation by dispossession" in the context of immigration.
A: Capital moves freely across borders, extracting resources and disrupting local economies through trade agreements and investment. The people displaced by this process then migrate, but the same borders that capital crosses freely are militarised against the movement of people. The wealth generated by dispossession accumulates in the Global North while the people it displaces are criminalised for following the capital.
immigration, DREAM Act, DREAMers, undocumented students, deportation, border militarization, crimmigration, Prop 187, Proposition 187, Chinese Exclusion Act, Page Act 1875, xenophobia, neoliberalism, deserving subject, respectability politics, social death, accumulation by dispossession, capital penetration, globalisation, colonialism, mixed-status household, 1986 Immigration Reform, Urban Shield Initiative, Secure Communities, ICE, Kitty Calavita, refugee policy, Bill Moyers, judicial discretion, ethnic studies, Prof. Victoria Robinson, UC Berkeley