Organized by Deborah A. Boehm and Sarah Horton

Presenters:
Deborah A. Boehm (University of Nevada-Reno)
Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz (Loyola University-Chicago)
Joe Heyman (University of Texas-El Paso)
Sarah Horton (University of Colorado-Denver)
Jonathan Xavier Inda (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Angela Stuesse (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Susan Bibler Coutin (University of California-Irvine)

In the weeks following the inauguration, executive orders that targeted non-citizens as “criminal” threats to national security transformed public rhetoric and official practice in regards to immigration. Under the banner of “border security” and “public safety in the interior,” the administration broadened the category of “criminal aliens” to include anyone who has crossed the border without authorization and even legal permanent residents suspected of a crime. Indeed, immigration and crime have become so sutured together in the public imagination that the U.S. security state—already robust—has taken on an intensity unlike any other moment in recent history. This roundtable brings together scholars of immigration in the U.S. and criminalization to consider the effects and implications of these changes—for the nation, for state and local jurisdictions, for migrant workplaces, and, above all, in people’s everyday lives.