Temple University Press Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants: Race, Gender, and Immigration Policy Post-9/11

Immigration politics has been significantly altered by the advent of America's war on terror and the proliferation of security measures. In her cogent study, Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants, Anna Sampaio examines how these processes are racialized and gendered and how they impose inequitable burdens on Latina/o immigrants. She interrogates the rise of securitization, restrictive legislation, and the return of large-scale immigration raids and describes how these re-articulate and re-inscribe forms of racial and gender hierarchy. Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants demonstrates how the ascendance of America as a security state serves as a template to scrutinize, harass, and encumber immigrants while also reconfiguring citizenship. Sampaio uses intersectional analysis coupled with theoretical and empirical approaches to develop a critical framework for analyzing current immigration politics. Sampaio provides a sustained and systematic examination of policy and enforcement shifts impacting Latinas/os. Her book concludes with an examination of immigration reform under the Obama administration, contrasting the promise of hope and change with the reality of increased detentions, deportations, and continued marginalization. Review "Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants is a wonderful addition to the literature on the social constructions of policy target populations. The sophisticated command of both case law and national and state policy is particularly helpful in understanding the complex trends in U.S. immigration policy in recent decades. Sampaio clearly and convincingly articulates her argument on the impact of federal-level anti-terror policies on the everyday experiences of Latinas/os, and her identification of a racialized/gendered set of discursive moves in the years surrounding 9/11 is especially strong." --Ange-Marie Hancock, Associate Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies, University of Southern California "Terrorizing Latina/o Immigrants makes a compelling case that government policies are thoroughly implicated in processes of racialization and gendering that mark some citizens as worthy of protection and others as dangerous threats to national security. In showing how recent immigration and securitization policies blur the boundaries between citizens and immigrants, and between immigrants and terrorist threats, Sampaio provides powerful lessons about the fragility of constitutional rights when Congress, the executive branch, and the courts concur that the nation's highest priority is security. This comprehensive empirical study sheds new light on the complex integration of immigration and securitization policies in the aftermath of September 11." -- Mary Hawkesworth, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University About the Author Anna Sampaio is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Political Science at Santa Clara University and co-editor (with Carlos Velez-Ibanez) of Transnational Latina/o Communities: Politics, Processes, Cultures.