UC Berkeley GAIA Books Title International Migration and Human Rights: The Global Repercussions of U.S. Policy Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89t5v399 Author Martínez, Samuel Publication Date 2009-11-15 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California International Migration and Human Rights The Global Repercussions of U.S. Policy Edited by Samuel Martínez Published in association with the University of California Press “This uniquely excellent contribution makes a powerful argument for adopting a human-rights perspective to understand the effect of U.S. policies on migration worldwide. It will be particularly useful for the scholarly and policy communities that are growing around homeland security, immigration, and civil liberties.” joHn TIRMan, author of The Maze of Fear: Security and Migration after 9/11 While debate about immigration rages within the United States, people worldwide are moving across na- tional borders with unprecedented intensity. In this timely volume, leading scholars in sociology, anthro- pology, history, and law examine how the actions of the United States as a global leader are increasing pressures on people to migrate, while simultaneously degrading migrant rights from East Asia to Mexico. Uniting such diverse issues as market reform, drug policy, and terrorism under a common framework of human rights, the book constitutes a call for a new vision on immigration more comprehensive than anything yet imagined in the U.S. immigration debate. SaMUel MaRTÍnez is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. ConTRIbUToRS: Susan M. Akram, Alexia Bloch, Leo R. Chavez, Christopher Dole, Tricia Gabany- Guerrero, Scott Harding. Julia Meredith Hess, Josiah McC. Heyman, Kevin R. Johnson, Kathryn Libal, Samuel Martínez, Douglas S. Massey, Carole Nagengast, Nancy A. Naples, María Teresa Restrepo-Ruiz, J. C. Salyer International Migration and Human Rights UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd i 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd iiii 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM International Migration and Human Rights The Global Repercussions of U.S. Policy edited by Samuel Martínez Global, Area, and International Archive University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd iiiiii 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM The Global, Area, and International Archive (GAIA) is an initiative of International and Area Studies, University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the University of California Press, the California Digital Library, and international research programs across the UC system. GAIA volumes, which are published in both print and open- access digital editions, represent the best traditions of regional studies, reconfigured through fresh global, transnational, and thematic perspectives. University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2009 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data International migration and human rights : the global repercussions of U.S. policy / edited by Samuel Martínez. p. cm. (Global, area, and international archive) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn: 978-0-520-25821-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Emigration and immigration — Government policy. 2. Immigrants — Civil rights. 3. United States — Emigration and immigration — Government policy. 4. Immigrants — Civil rights — United States. 5. United States — Foreign relations — 1989 – . I. Martínez, Samuel, 1959 – . JV6038.I616 2009 325.73 — dc22 2009023255 © Manufactured in the United States of America 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48 – 1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd iivv 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM In memory of Richard Rust, Nelson Enríquez, Daniel Zarrow, Joseph Danticat, and the uncounted thousands more who have fallen victim to immigration restrictionism UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd v 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd vvii 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Samuel Martínez Part I. The Political Economy of International Migration 1. The Political Economy of Migration in an Era of Globalization 25 Douglas S. Massey 2. Ports of Entry in the “Homeland Security” Era: Inequality of Mobility and the Securitization of Transnational Flows 44 Josiah McC. Heyman Part II. Historical Perspectives 3. The Treatment of Noncitizens after September 11 in Historical Context 63 J. C. Salyer 4. Mexicans of Mass Destruction: National Security and Mexican Immigration in a Pre- and Post-9/11 World 82 Leo R. Chavez 5. The Demonization of Persons of Arab and Muslim Ancestry in Historical Perspective 98 Susan M. Akram and Kevin R. Johnson UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd vviiii 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM Part III. Policing the Borders of the Security State 6. Security and Insecurity in a Global “War on Terrorism”: Arab-Muslim Immigrant Experience in Post-9/11 America 117 Christopher Dole 7. Policing the Borders in the Heartland 133 Nancy A. Naples 8. An Anatomy of Mexican Repatriation: Human Rights and the Borderlands of Complicity 151 Tricia Gabany-Guerrero Part IV. Beyond U.S. Borders 9. Discourses on Danger and Dreams of Prosperity: Confounding U.S. Government Positions on “Trafficking” from the Former Soviet Union 165 Alexia Bloch 10. “We Are Not Terrorists!” Uighurs, Tibetans, and the “Global War on Terror” 184 Julia Meredith Hess 11. The Impact of Plan Colombia on Forced Displacement 199 María Teresa Restrepo-Ruiz and Samuel Martínez 12. Challenging U.S. Silence: International NGOs and the Iraqi Refugee Crisis 216 Kathryn Libal and Scott Harding Conclusion 237 Samuel Martínez Afterword: Migration, Human Rights, and Development 253 Carole Nagengast Notes 271 References 293 Contributors 329 Index 333 UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd vviiiiii 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM Acknowledgments This book grows out of a project, sponsored by the Committee for Human Rights of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), to track the effects that the U.S. government’s response to the events of September 11, 2001, was having on immigrant communities in the United States as well as on would-be, bona fi de U.S. visa applicants and asylum seekers in other countries. At the time of the project’s inception it seemed natural to activate the anthropological community’s vast accumulated expertise, contacts, and geographical breadth of knowledge on international migration matters in the service of immigrant communities at risk. A fi rst effort to formulate an anthropological response to this particular aspect of the post-9/11 situation took the shape of a double panel at the 2003 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. The dialogue between anthropologists and practicing migrant-rights advocates was one highlight of that session, pointing toward the need for a multifaceted approach. Equally striking was the call from more than one panelist to consider post-9/11 policies not in isolation but in a much broader policy context, going far beyond U.S. borders and immigration policy per se. Based on fi eld research in countries near to and far from the United States, these panelists described pressures to emigrate and seek refuge eventuating from the effects of U.S.-backed policies on free-market reform, regional economic integration, offi cial U.S. government human rights and antitraffi cking initiatives, and the U.S. government’s overwhelming recourse to military might (at the expense of diplomatic, legal, and other channels of “soft power”) in response to the security challenges emanating from Islamism and the illicit drug trade. The unexpected message from the anthropologists at that panel, then, was to pay close attention to the personal and local microcosms of interna- tional migration, but then to theorize local migrant rights crises in terms ix UUC-Martinez-ToPress.inddC-Martinez-ToPress.indd iixx 110/22/20090/22/2009 44:11:47:11:47 PPMM x / Acknowledgments of large-scale forces and trends. At this scale, the United States remains the preeminent infl uence on the global policy environment. Thus, even those panelists at the 2003 meeting who could not in the end contribute a paper to this book (Linda Green, Mary Meg McCarthy, Ev Meade, Alison Werner, and our panel’s discussant, Josh DeWind) made a lasting contribu- tion to molding this volume’s distinctive approach. The book also evolved as immigration reform emerged from the shad- ows of 9/11 to become once more a major topic of national debate, though this time talk about immigration was tangled up as never before with concerns about national security. That return of public discourse to con- sideration of immigration’s economic and cultural impacts has made this book’s message if anything more timely. The present impasse between immigration liberals and restrictionists points to the simultaneous need for a broader frame and sharper terms. The essays in this volume urge us to think beyond U.S. borders and beyond the bounds of immigration policy, narrowly construed, in order to encompass the effects (intended and unintended) of many kinds of U.S. policies on the conditions under which migrants leave their homes and cross international borders.