Session 6: Deconstructing Borders

Key Questions

  • What is the relationship between abolition and calls to abolish borders?

  • How do we think about notions of citizenship/noncitizenship through an abolitionist lens?

  • How is ending deportation a necessary part of abolitionist politics?

  • What are some abolitionist practices that immigrant communities already implement?

Required Readings

Supplementary Materials

Recommended Materials

Exercise

  1. Walia analyzes how border imperialism creates a “two-tiered apartheid of citizenship” (76) that relies on and reproduces a series of dualisms/dichotomies. Dualisms work by valuing one side while devaluing the other. Analyzing dualisms and how they support (implicitly and explicitly) different hierarchies is a critical part of challenging divide-and-conquer modes of rule. For this exercise, use a blank sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle to divide the page in half. Label one side “citizen” and the other side “non-citizen.” Brainstorm the terms that are associated with each side of the dualism (within border imperialism). How are these dualisms associated with racialized and gendered ideas? What are some ways that activists/organizers/writers/artists can challenge these dualisms?

  2. The Rustbelt Abolition Radio podcast with Aly Wane and Abraham Paulos discusses sanctuary cities. Abraham Paulos answers important questions as he speaks on the dangers of using this terminology. Who is the sanctuary for? Does sanctuary encompass everyone in a city or only those who are deemed worthy of saving? Paulos argues that a city cannot say it is a sanctuary city when it does not provide sanctuary for Black and brown people. What, then, would a sanctuary city look like? To answer this question, brainstorm with your group and create a list of ideas or draw a picture of your sanctuary city that reflects your group’s vision.

Reading Guide

  1. Kelly Lytle Hernández’s chapter “Not Imprisonment in a Legal Sense” places immigration control as a central part of carceral control. What racial capitalist dynamics were at play in the lead up to the establishment of migration controls? Who advocated for restrictionist policies, who organized against them, and whom did they benefit?

  2. What is the significance of deportation being defined by the Supreme Court as an administrative process? How does this idea build on settler colonial ideas of sovereignty? What are the effects of this decision for people who are held in immigration detention or subject to deportation?

  3. What does Harsha Walia mean by “border imperialism”? What racial capitalist (colonial, and imperialist) dynamics does she identify at work in displacement of people around the world and the securing of national borders?

Questions for Supplementary Readings:

  1. How does the Border Patrol strategy of Prevention through Deterrence (PTD) that De León describes exemplify Walia’s concept of border imperialism? How does this policy use the environment of the Sonoran borderlands against people who try to cross an international boundary? Drawing on O’odham Solidarity Project, how does PTD violate Native lands and sovereignty?

  2. The Rustbelt Abolition Radio podcast with Aly Wane and Abraham Paulos and the article by Tania Unzueta, Maru Mora Villalpando, and Angélica Cházaro both discuss the interconnections between the criminal legal and migration systems. Why is it important to recognize these interconnections? What are their critiques of organizing strategies that focus on “good immigrants” while ignoring those with criminal convictions? How has this analysis informed abolitionist organizing strategies?