Counter Documents: Migrant Activists, Mobility, and the Politics of Visibility
a talk by
rebecca schreiber
This paper is based on a chapter of a book manuscript that I recently completed, The Undocumented Everyday: Migrant Lives and the Politics of Visibility (University of Minnesota Press, 2018). The book explores a set of strategies regarding visibility and documentation that undocumented Mexican and Central American migrants have used in response to the political context of the U.S. following 9/11. I argue that through their use of documentary media, these migrants center their subjectivity, presence, and mobility -- creating representations of themselves that challenge liberal attempts to “humanize” them for a broader audience or as part of efforts to gain the “gift” of citizenship or some other form of immigration status.[i] Their documentary projects also convey the significance of migrant organizing in the early twenty-first century, as the US government continues to create laws and policies that criminalize undocumented migrants without allowing them the space or place to contest them. While this book focuses on how Mexican and Central American migrants in the U.S. have used documentary media to contest the limits placed on their mobility, the issues that they face relate to struggles experienced by migrants and refugees across the globe.
In The Undocumented Everyday, I understand the aesthetic strategies deployed by Mexican and Central American migrants in their documentary projects as political strategies. My talk today focuses on migrant activists’ use of media tactics as part of the No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice campaign, and how it relates to their political organizing in the lead up to the U.S. Presidential election of 2012. As I will explain, the No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice campaign involved migrant activists organizing against anti-immigrant state and federal laws, policies, and programs. I argue that these activists utilized documentary media as a form of what I refer to as counter-visibility, in order to shield themselves from detention and deportation. They also produced counter-documents, which are videos of their actions that challenge the state’s ability to determine the parameters of political inclusion. I contend that these activists’ circulation of counter-documents through digital and social media relates to their adoption of mobility as a political strategy and as a means of mobilizing other undocumented migrants.
In the summer of 2012, the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) and the Puente Movement of Arizona organized the No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice, which included a group of forty undocumented migrant activists who rode on a bus from Phoenix, Arizona, to Charlotte, North Carolina. As part of the Ride for Justice, these activists stopped in locations where undocumented migrants were most surveilled and policed. In addition to organizing workshops during the Ride for Justice, activists planned and recorded their political actions that they later circulated on activist websites and on YouTube. The activists’ documentation of these actions exhibited how they have forged a politics based on reconfiguring self-representation and visibility.[ii]
At one stop on the Ride for Justice, in Birmingham, Alabama, four activists participated in an action at a US Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) field briefing that focused on the effects of state immigration laws after the Arizona v. US decision. This was a Supreme Court case involving Arizona Senate Bill 1070, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, otherwise known as SB 1070. SB 1070, which was proposed in 2010, required police to determine the immigration status of anyone arrested or detained, whenever law enforcement officials had a “reasonable suspicion” that they were not in the United States legally.[iii] Gerardo from the Puente Movement in Arizona was the first activist to disrupt the briefing, which he did during the testimony of Kris Kobach, the co-author of SB 1070.[iv] As part of this “unauthorized act” in which Gerardo interrupted the goings-on of the state, he declared that he was “undocumented and unafraid,” as he held up a sign that read “UNDOCUMENTED.” Through his physical presence at the USCCR briefing, Gerardo directly challenged Kobach’s legislative efforts of “attrition through enforcement” to create fear in undocumented migrants so that they would leave states with these laws in place or “self deport.”[v] Gerardo later described his experience listening to Kobach’s testimony, which differed from how SB 1070 had affected undocumented migrants in Phoenix, Arizona, where he lived.[vi] In the context of anti-immigrant state laws, Gerardo commented that, “people [are] without freedom to move around freely in their own neighborhoods.”[vii] As he explained, the overall effect of these laws is a limit placed on the physical presence of undocumented migrants and the freedom that comes with their mobility. In discussing the “No Papers, No Fear” Ride for Justice Tour, I argue that migrant activists deliberately countered the policing of undocumented migrants in the U.S. through strategies of mobility and mobilization.[viii] Their assertion of migrant mobility counters detention--of being punitively fixed in place--which is narrated in their actions and given further capacity to circulate by the distribution of these actions through forms of digital and social media that radiate outward to audiences, including other undocumented migrants.
My paper today explores these migrant activists’ use of media tactics, examining how they have used digital and social media in order to organize against state-based and federal immigration laws.[ix] In analyzing two videos produced by migrant activists involved in the “No Papers, No Fear” Ride for Justice tour at the USCCR field briefing in Birmingham, Alabama, I focus not only on the activists’ representation of their disruption of this briefing, but also the way in which they made this action public by embedding these videos within various online media platforms. The circulation of these videos exemplifies how these activists are using new technologies to make their campaigns visible to other undocumented people, as well as their allies, and a broader public.
Further, in these videos, migrant activists use documentary forms to represent their performances of unauthorized acts, which defy the machinations of the US state. These activists produce what I refer to as counter-documents, which combine documentary aesthetics with performance elements that are part of their actions in which they demand social justice for undocumented migrants. In creating counter-documents they draw upon modes of documentary practice to challenge the state’s ability to determine the parameters of political inclusion and to mobilize other undocumented migrants. The video excerpts that activists circulate through social media have analogous functions to elements of traditional documentary film, such as testimony or vérité-style sequences. The politics of visibility for these activists is at once similar to the traditional reformist ethos of documentary making public and put in the service of more far-reaching agendas, which challenge the meaning of political inclusion.
First, I will speak briefly about previous campaigns involving the National Day Labor Organizing Network, and the Puente movement. Then I'll discuss the No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice Tour. Finally, I will analyze two videos produced by migrant activists as part of the No Papers, No Fear Campaign.
The No Papers, No Fear Ride for Justice Tour was shaped by previous organizing efforts involving NDLON and the Puente Movement, which together formed ¡Alto Arizona! a campaign to protest the passage of SB 1070. From the beginning of this campaign in April 2010, NDLON and the Puente Movement organized against SB 1070 through mass protests, as well as within migrant communities. These protests included a march held on May 1, 2010 in which migrant activists in Phoenix protested at the capital. Once there they divided into groups with undocumented migrants speaking about how SB 1070 would impact their communities.[x] As a result of their discussions, they formed Barrio Defense Committees (Los Comités de Defensa del Barrio), which are neighborhood organizations that enabled them to challenge the coordination between local police and federal immigration agents in criminalizing undocumented migrants.[xi] Within these committees (comités populares), undocumented migrants discussed their rights and organized so that in case of arrest or detention, neighbors could pick up their children from school, as well as their paychecks. As part of the ¡Alto Arizona! campaign, NDLON created a website, AltoArizona.com, which includes an action center, press releases, as well as photographs and videos of protests, and forms of “creative resistance” including posters, videos, music, and poetry that activists uploaded onto the website. One of the main goals of the ¡Alto Arizona! campaign was also to stop SB 1070 before it spread across the country in the form of copycat laws.
These approaches to organizing within the ¡Alto Arizona! campaign were incorporated into the “No Papers, No Fear” campaign which NDLON, and the Puente Movement developed in the summer of 2012. Migrant activists organized the “No Papers, No Fear” Ride for Justice tour, which involved a multigenerational group of 40 people, ranging in age from 19 to 65, traveling on a bus (referred to by activists as the “UndocuBus”), through 11 states from Phoenix, Arizona to Charlotte, North Carolina. The goal of the tour was to publicly oppose and organize against the spread of SB 1070 copycat laws, and to protest against the federal government’s immigration policies at the Democratic National Convention held in September 2012. The campaign and tour focused on locations that had introduced SB 1070 copycat laws, including Alabama’s HB 56: The “Beason-Hammon Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act” and Georgia’s HB 87: The “Illegal Immigrant Reform and Enforcement Act of 2011.” The name of the campaign – “No Papers, No Fear” -- was developed to challenge state laws such as SB 1070, HB 56 and HB 87 that allowed police to ask for the “papers” of those who they believed to be undocumented migrants.
The “undocubus” left Phoenix on July 29, 2012, the first anniversary of Arizona’s implementation of SB 1070. According to the organizers, the No Papers, No Fear campaign drew upon initiatives from the Turning the Tide summit, held in New Orleans in 2010, which emphasized what activists call a “trans-local” approach to organizing.[xii] This trans-local approach was a response to the localization of federal immigration policy, which began with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996, which through Section 287 (g) involved local law enforcement in policing and reporting on migrants’ immigration status.[xiii] This translocal approach also contributed to the decentralized structure of the contemporary migrant justice movement. Unlike mainstream immigration rights organizations, which function through a centralized “top-down” structure, migrant activists in NDLON, the Puente Movement and other migrant-led organizations, developed a decentralized infrastructure in their organizing. This strategy involves networks in which activists located in states with more support for undocumented migrants organized with those in states with anti-immigrant laws--including Arizona, Alabama, and Georgia--as well as in counties with 287(g) agreements.[xiv]
This trans-local approach was central to the organization of the Ride for Justice tour, as activists stopped in locations that had SB 1070 copycat laws or 287(g) agreements in place--in order to work with local activists to organize against these laws. In this sense, these activists utilized mobility as a political strategy, which enabled them to appropriate spaces and places where immigration laws were most punitive and restrictive by training other undocumented migrants in those locations about how to challenge these laws. The activists on the Ride for Justice Tour collaborated with migrant activists in a variety of localities who planned actions against anti-immigrant state laws, while emphasizing the cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials in detaining and deporting undocumented migrants.[xv] In protesting the effects of state and federal immigration policies on their communities, these activists were disruptive and represented themselves in ways that were oppositional. They also highlighted the consequences of these laws by organizing workshops to address issues faced by undocumented migrants, such as how to contend with being in deportation proceedings.[xvi] In addition, activists recorded their political actions--at which time they risked being arrested, detained, and deported--which they later circulated on activist websites and on YouTube.[xvii]
These political actions developed in response to the Obama administration’s immigration policies and programs, which intentionally concealed or minimized publicity around its policing of undocumented migrants.[xviii] Migrant activists made their actions public to counter this concealment, such as by publicly declaring their immigration status while protesting the effects of state and federal immigration policies on their communities.[xix] (Mention undocumented youth?) These activists also found that publicizing their actions through the dissemination of videos that documented these actions could protect them from being deported.[xx] The media strategy involved in publicizing the actions in Alabama were modeled on one that activists had developed after a civil disobedience action that had taken place in Knoxville, Tennessee. As a result of this action, migrant activists had been arrested and faced deportation. However, other activists from the “No Papers, No Fear” campaign posted videos of those arrested on the website, which included a message to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to release them. Organizers of the “No Papers, No Fear” campaign who had built an e-mail list, and a Facebook and Twitter following, were thus able to mobilize on behalf of those arrested. As a result, all of those arrested were released.[xxi] This approach was seen as a model for actions that followed, including the one in Alabama, as organizers believed that if these actions were publicized, the activists would not face arrest or deportation. Thus, the circulation of videos provided a form of visibility—what I term a “counter-visibility” --which protects undocumented migrants against state violence.
The strategies of migrant activists who were part of the No Papers, No Fear campaign thus emphasized mobility and mobilization through the Ride for Justice, as well as by the circulation of videos of their actions, which were also forms of publicity and visibility. The campaign had its own volunteer media crew comprised of individuals who documented these actions through photography and video.[xxii] While these media makers filmed many actions, I will now discuss two videos that contain highlights of those held at the USCCR field briefing in Birmingham, Alabama, which focused on the effects of state-based immigration laws after the Arizona v. US decision.[xxiii]
During this briefing, the USCCR, which describes itself as “an independent, bipartisan, fact-finding federal agency,” determined who would speak, which meant that those present who were not on the agenda were not given an opportunity to publicly share their perspectives with members of the Commission.[xxiv] Meanwhile, the USCCR chose speakers who ran anti-immigrant organizations--such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies--to testify at this briefing. While they also invited representatives from Appleseed and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) - not one undocumented person was included on the agenda. This reflects how, as Lisa Marie Cacho argues, undocumented migrants are treated as members of groups who are “subjected to laws but refused the legal means to contest those laws . . . [and] denied both the political legitimacy and moral credibility necessary to question them.”[xxv] In response, migrant activists disrupted the USCCR field briefing, to assert their undocumented status, and to testify themselves about the effects of both state-based and federal immigration laws. Through their presence at the field briefing, these activists contributed their perspectives and experiences to a discussion that was initially based on their absence. [xxvi] These actions, as well as the videotaping of these actions, are examples of the activists’ strategies of counter-visibility and counter-documentation.
Previous to their interruption of the USCCR briefing, activists with the No Papers, No Fear campaign held a protest in front of the building, which included a performance by a group of migrant activists. As part of the protest, some of the activists gave speeches in which they stated that they were "fearless" in "standing up to power,” and in doing so were providing a model for local migrant activists. There were a significant number of local activists at the event, including some who critiqued the legitimacy of the USCCR briefing for inviting individuals such as Kris Kobach, the author of SB 1070 and Dan Stein, the President of FAIR, to testify.[xxvii] In addition to filming the protest, media makers also videotaped a performance in which a group of activists drove up in what looked to be a Department of Homeland Security van and parked in front of the building. As part of the action, one of the activists pushed others wearing prisoners’ uniforms out of the van. After that, the activists threw handcuffs onto the ground and ripped off their prison garb to reveal campaign T-shirts underneath that featured an image of a monarch butterfly--the official symbol of the Ride for Justice Tour. The activists then opened a cardboard box filled with live butterflies, which they set free. Following this action activists marched into the building where the USCCR briefing was taking place while chanting “No papers, no fear. Dignity is standing here.”
This action outside the building where the USCCR briefing was taking place brought attention to the effects of these anti-immigrant laws on undocumented migrants. It was also a performance, which activists--like “artivists” (artists-activists)--use “to intervene in political contexts, struggles and debates.”[xxviii] The monarch butterfly – which migrates annually across North America --was an important symbol for the tour. As activists noted in a blog post on the No Papers, No Fear website, releasing butterflies as part of the action was a means to confront Kris Kobach but also to demand "inclusion at the hearing about us."[xxix] The symbolic figure of the monarch butterfly as representing the Ride for Justice Tour relates to these activists’ perspectives that people who are undocumented should be free to move around within the United States and between the United States and other countries without the fear of arrest, detention, and deportation.
Although the USCCR attempted to make the perspectives of undocumented migrants absent in the briefing, these activists emphasized their presence by speaking out against anti-immigrant laws. Once inside the building, four of the activists challenged the dictates of whom the USCCR considered to be acceptable speakers. This action involved “interventionist tactics,” which are used as a means to “disrupt . . . spaces where social conflict” is “rendered invisible.”[xxx] The activists established their presence not only by physically being there, but also by what they said and how they said it, as well as by their signs and the organized actions of the group. Their action was planned with the intention that it would be filmed, and that it would be distributed as a counter-document in order to mobilize other undocumented migrants. During the action, four activists disrupted the briefing with two testifying regarding the effects of state and federal anti-immigrant laws on themselves, as well as their families, friends and members of their communities. The activists who interrupted the briefing stood up to speak individually, holding signs indicating that they were “undocumented.” These signs brought added significance to their physical presence at the briefing, drawing attention to the risks they faced to speak out against these laws.[xxxi]
In addressing the Commission, Mari Cruz and María H. were “fearless” in “standing up to power,” not only by interrupting the briefing but also for “shouting their truths.” In delivering their testimony, both women were angry and defiant, as they shouted loudly at Kobach and the USCCR staff in Spanish. By declaring “Aquí estoy” (Here I am), these women claimed their presence during the hearings, at which anti-immigrant state laws were being discussed without the input from people affected by them. Further, they both directly challenged the USCCR - stating that the Commission did not respect their human or civil rights. Maria H. also accused them of being corrupt, dismissing the Commission briefing as “trash.” Their statements--in which they spoke on behalf of family and community members--exemplify how, as some scholars argue, narratives of family “serve as a site of collective identity” within migrant activism.[xxxii] For example, Amalia Pallares contends that highlighting the family “challenges the divisions and categorizations of the state” and specifically the way in which the state views undocumented adults as less “deserving” of citizenship or some other official “legal” status than undocumented children and young adults.[xxxiii] However, it is also important to contextualize these activists’ statements in relation to the way in which, as Lisa Marie Cacho notes, “mobilizing support for undocumented immigrants’ rights requires negotiating accusations of criminal intent.”[xxxiv]
In addition to their disruption of the briefing, in making these statements, activists challenged the format of the USCCR briefing, which was dependent on their absence. The team of media makers on the tour used documentary media to capture these performances of unauthorized acts, which they distributed as counter-documents on activist websites. Although activists addressed Kobach and members of the USCCR during the briefing, the video was also directed toward undocumented migrants--as a means of political mobilization.[xxxv] Thus, uploading the video onto the No Papers, No Fear website and YouTube publicized the action to other undocumented migrants.
The recording of the action and the circulation of the video on a range of media platforms brought attention and visibility to how these laws affected undocumented migrants, as well as to the deliberate exclusion of these individuals from the briefing. However, this video was more than the recording of a disruption of the briefing, rather, it was purposely shaped for circulation through the staging of the protest, the location of the cameras, and the process of editing. The video also has its own formal elements, and its own address to spectators, mainly other undocumented migrants.[xxxvi] (Ex. Gwen’s narration in Video 1 and Gerardo’s narration at the end of Video 2.) In this video, media makers employ documentary aesthetics, but also performative elements that are part of actions in which activists demand social justice for undocumented migrants. While actions are performances that, as Diana Taylor suggests, offer “a way to transmit knowledge by means of the body,” in the case of the activists’ videos, knowledge is transmitted through virtual space, as opposed to “real” space.[xxxvii] As such, migrant activists used the videos to frame their own depictions and to make public political claims.[xxxviii] Although a small number of people witnessed the action live during the USCCR briefing, many more could watch it after the video was uploaded onto various websites.
Returning to my opening comments, what I would like to draw attention to in analyzing this video is not just that migrant activists recorded this action at a USCCR field briefing. What I would instead like to emphasize is that the activists’ circulation of the video does certain kinds of political work. The activists’ decision to document the protest, and to post this video on the “No Papers, No Fear” website and on YouTube, was a means both to publicize the action to other undocumented migrants, as well as to inform a broader public about how they have been affected by anti-immigrant laws.[xxxix] The use of media within the “No Papers, No Fear” campaign, including the Internet and forms of social media, was thus a significant aspect of these migrant activists’ political organizing. “No Papers, No Fear” had its own website (IMAGE PPT), which describes the campaign, and information for those not already involved regarding how to “engage,” “endorse,” and “converge” with the campaign. In addition, there is a section that features press coverage of the campaign, as well as a blog and gallery that includes music, photographs, poetry, posters, videos and instructions on how to submit work. There is also information about how to donate to “No Papers, No Fear,” and to receive information about the campaign through e-mails, Facebook and/or Twitter. The website is thus an archive of counter-documents, which provide visibility for the campaign and that enabled these activists to contribute to counter-networks comprised of migrant activists and their supporters.
In the context of the action in Alabama, the “No Papers, No Fear” website was a platform for political action, as the videos served as a means to document activists who challenged state law, mobilized in support of the “No Papers, No Fear” campaign, and protected undocumented migrants who took part in the action from being detained or deported. In examining the use of digital and social media by migrant activists, it is important to attend both to the ways in which their videos circulate and how they address different publics and make possible forms of political action. For supporters, allies and the broader public, these videos may be the only access they have to the political actions of these activists. As such, it is the broad circulation of these videos that is what makes these protests public. Thus, it is not just the interruption of the USCCR field briefing that can be viewed as a political act in this context, but also the ways in which representations of the protest circulate. By intervening in a USCCR field briefing on state-based anti-immigrant laws, and by circulating the video of their action on the “No Papers, No Fear” website, Youtube, and elsewhere, these migrant activists were able to share what political acts were possible for undocumented migrants.
These activists used documentary media to record their political actions, in which they interrupt the activities of the state. Their use of performative elements within these counter-documents make visible the effects of state practices on undocumented migrants and provide a critique of state forms of policing and surveillance. This approach also draws out the implications of documentary in certain spaces--both personal and political--for those involved in its creation. Through strategies of counter-visibility, migrant activists publicize their actions to shield themselves from detention and deportation. They also create counter-documents as a form of evidence that challenges state policies on immigration. The activists’ distribution of counter-documents connects to their activism and their use of mobility as a political strategy--to appropriate and remake space, to counteract detention, and to mobilize politically.
As representations of their public activism, these videos serve as a means for migrant activists to articulate the terms of their depiction and make public political claims. While the general liberal claim about “visibility” is frequently touted as necessary in order for certain marginalized groups to have a “voice” and be fully included in U.S. society, these activists’ emphasis on the production and circulation of visual media is specific to the context of immigration policies that can render visibility a form of surveillance linked to detention and deportation. Specifically, these activists have used documentary media as part of a strategy to publicize the actions of undocumented migrants who engage in direct action and is not geared towards reaffirming the norms of inclusion. These tactics are a response to the ways in which U.S. governmental agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have removed or threatened to remove undocumented migrants through detention and deportation. As such, I argue that these migrant activists are not making general claims about the importance of being “visible” as an abstract form of empowerment and inclusion, but instead are publicizing their political actions as a means to draw attention to the effects of these laws on undocumented migrants and to mobilize supporters while also shielding themselves from possible detention and deportation. The activists’ documentation of these actions exhibits how they have forged a politics based on reconfiguring self-representation and visibility.[xl]
In conclusion, I have argued that through their political activism and their production of counter-documents, migrant activists challenge the state’s ability to determine the parameters of political inclusion. Activists’ recording of their actions--in which they contest anti-immigrant laws--relate to their strategies to mobilize other undocumented migrants. Circulating videos that represent their performing “unauthorized acts”– through digital and social media is a means for activists to provide a model of organizing for other undocumented migrants. The documentation and circulation of activist interventions enables undocumented migrants to view what is possible, and for these ephemeral actions to be integrated into a broader history of migrant activism.
Today, I have also examined how migrant activists have created alternatives to liberal tropes of visibility through their use of documentary forms of self-representation. As opposed to linking visibility with empowerment, migrant activists deploy strategies of visibility and invisibility within specific contexts that expose the relations of power at work in the terms of visibility itself. I have suggested that the politics of visibility for these activists entailed an argument against the terms of political inclusion of so-called “deserving” migrants, which the state always opposes to those who are deemed to be “undeserving.”[xli] Further, I contend that these activists used documentary media to frame their own depictions, to make public political claims, and to create forms of protection. In their rejection of liberal claims to the transformative capacity of visibility, the strategies practiced by these migrant activists defy conventions of representation (in relationship to the state) that demand inclusion as a normative imperative. Thank you.
NOTES
[i] I am drawing the idea of the “gift” of citizenship from Nguyen’s notion of “the gift of freedom,” which she defines “as the workings of liberalism in its imperial form and as a metaphor and a medium for grasping continuities and innovations between operations of power and violence.” Mimi Thi Nguyen, The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), 6.
[ii] I describe these individuals as “undocumented youth activists,” to distinguish them from DREAM and migrant activists who are not eligible for the DREAM Act or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) due to their age. However, I am aware that it is problematic to use the term youth to describe activists whose ages span from teenagers to young adults. Activist and scholar Unzueta Carrasco describes this group as “undocumented 1.5 generation activists,” who are “immigrants, born abroad yet raised and educated in the United States.” Tania A. Unzueta Carrasco and Hinda Seif, “Disrupting the Dream: Undocumented Youth Reframe Citizenship and Deportability through Anti-Deportation Activism,” Latino Studies 12:2 (2014), 287.
[iii] See http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/summary/s.1070pshs.doc.htm.
[iv] Due to the current political context, I am including the first names (but not surnames) of individuals who may be undocumented.
[v] Inda and Dowling describe policies that advocate “attrition through enforcement”--such as SB 1070 and the SB 1070 copycat laws--as “tactic[s] that seeks to incapacitate immigrants, Latinos in particular, in order to wear down their will to work and live in the United States.” Further they note that “Attrition through enforcement is not an official government policy, but it does appear to be the de facto way that undocumented immigration is being governed.” Jonathan X. Inda and Julie A. Dowling, “Introduction,” in Governing Immigration through Crime: A Reader, Jonathan X. Inda and Julie A. Dowling, eds., (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), 23.
[vi] Gerardo, “Fearless and Speaking for Ourselves,” No Papers No Fears (blog), August 18, 2012, http://nopapersnofear.org.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] In arguing that the No Papers, No Fear campaign utilized mobility as a political strategy, I refer to Dimitris Papadopoulos and Vassilis Tsianos’s understanding that mobility is “not just about movement, but is about the appropriation and remaking of space.” Papadopoulos and Tsianos, “The Autonomy of Migration: the Animals of Undocumented Mobility,” in Deleuzian Encounters: Studies in Contemporary Social Issues, Anna Hickey-Moody and Peta Malins, eds. (New York: Palgrave, 2008), 224.
[ix] In this paper I use “migrant” as opposed to “immigrant” so as not to privilege permanent settlement over other kinds of migration.
[x] Author’s interview with B. Loewe, National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), September 12, 2012.
[xi] Altogether there were 10 groups formed in Phoenix. Author’s interview with B. Loewe, NDLON, September 12, 2012.
[xii] B. Loewe, phone interview with author, September 26, 2012. According to the website, “The Turning the Tide Campaign is a collective effort of communities and organizations across the country unified to confront the growing wave of criminalization and separation of immigrant families. The campaign is rooted in local organizing that seeks to resist and move away from bigotry, hatred, and attrition in order to advance human rights, tolerance, and inclusion.” See http://altopolimigra.com/. As opposed to how I defined translocal in chapter 2, here I use trans-local to refer to organizing across localities that are facing similar restrictive immigration laws within the United States
[xiii] Monica W. Varsanyi, “Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” in Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010).
[xiv] In the spring of 2011, for example, activists involved in the Immigrant Youth Justice League (IYJL) traveled from Chicago to Georgia to join local activists to protest against SB 1070 copycat law HB 87: The Illegal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Act. On June 28, 2011, these activists collaborated with local groups to stage a civil disobedience action at the state capitol. The action was streamed online, and supporters watched from across the country. Although undocumented youth involved in civil disobedience risked being arrested, detained, and deported, they still chose to participate. These activists believed that making their political action visible would inspire other undocumented migrants to act.
[xv] For more about the Barrio Defense Committees in Arizona, see Walter Nicholls, The DREAMers: How the Undocumented Youth Movement Transformed the Immigrant Rights Debate (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003), 162.
[xvi] Interview with Carlos, executive director, Puente Movement, by members of Generation Justice, KUNM, Albuquerque, New Mexico, broadcast September 16, 2012.
[xvii] NIYA was “an undocumented youth-LED network of grassroots organizations, campus-based student groups and individuals committed to achieving equality for all immigrant youth, regardless of their legal status.” See NIYA’s Facebook page. For more information on the NDLON and the Puente Movement, see the introduction.
[xviii] One example is the E-verify Program, https://www.uscis.gov.
[xix] Legal scholars Rose Cuison Villazor and Elizabeth Glaser wrote about the decision of those on “Ride for Justice” Tour to “come out” as undocumented, noting that the effects of this action would vary from person to person. For some, becoming public about their undocumented status might mean deportation, whereas for others, it might lead to “discretionary relief from removal (temporary or permanent) and the possibility of adjusting their status to permanent legal resident.” Rose Cuison Villazor and Elizabeth Glaser, “A First Step,” New York Times, August 1, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/08/01/is-getting-on-the-undocubus-a-good-idea/a-first-step-to-understanding-the-challenges-of-illegal-immigrants.
[xx] Sarah Lai Stirland, “Website Yes, Legal Status, No: ‘No Papers, No Fear’ Hopes to Build a Movement for Undocumented Immigrations,” August 31, 2012, TechPresident.com.
[xxi] Ibid.
[xxii] These individuals included Barni Axmed Qaasim, Jorge and Perla, all of whom worked on videos, and Fernando, who documented the actions through photography. For biographies, see http://nopapersnofear.org/; and Barni Axmed Qaasim, phone conversation with author, September 8, 2015.
[xxiii] Ganando el derecho de hablar por nosotros mismos and Si No Nos Invitan, Nos Invitamos Solos: No Papers, No Fear Protest in Alabama were filmed on August 20, 2012.
[xxiv] However, the press release indicated that “members of the public and interested organizations are invited to submit written statements for the record on the specific topic of the briefing by sending them to immigration 2012@USCCR.gov.” http://www.usccr.gov/press/2012/PR_07-26-12_Immigration.pdf.
[xxv] Lisa Marie Cacho, Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 6.
[xxvi] It should be noted that following their interruption of the briefing, the activists were escorted out of the room by security. They then proceeded to speak to the media who were stationed outside the building. At the end of the briefing, the activists returned to the room where the action had taken place. Two undocumented immigrants, one from Arizona and one from Alabama, were allowed to testify before the USCCR regarding the effects of state laws on the civil rights of migrants.
[xxvii] Kobach helped author SB 1070 with Arizona state senator Russell Pearce, so it is not surprising that activists planned an action to coincide with Kobach’s testimony.
[xxviii] Diana Taylor, Performance (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016), 147.
[xxix] Further, they commented that migrant butterflies have been around for thousands of years, and “were here when our ancestors used to migrate freely and are still with us today even though now we have borders, politicians’ prejudice, the poli-migra and prisons dividing us. “The meaning of the Mariposa,” No Papers No Fears (blog), August 2012, http://nopapersnofear.org.
[xxx] Rozalina Borcilă with Katarzyna Marciniak and Imogen Tyler, “The Political Aesthetics of Immigrant Protest” in Immigrant Protest: Politics, Aesthetics, and Everyday Dissent, Katarzyna Marciniak and Imogen Tyler, eds. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2014), 48.
[xxxi] Since those who presented at the briefing spoke in English, the activists brought a translator so they could hear a Spanish translation of the testimony.
[xxxii] Amalia Pallares, Family Activism: Immigrant Struggles and the Politics of Noncitizenship (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015), 2. As Pallares notes, however, “the immigrant rights movement does not share one collective identity stemming from a singular process of identification among movement participants,” Ibid.
[xxxiii] Pallares, Family Activism, 131. According to the National Immigration Law Center, “A ‘mixed-status family’ is a family whose members include people with different citizenship or immigration statuses.” See https://www.nilc.org/issues/health-care/aca_mixedstatusfams/.
[xxxiv] Cacho, Social Death, 117. She notes further that is that it is impossible for “undocumented immigrants to follow ‘the rule of law’ in their country of residence because their status, their presence, is illegal and therefore always already in violation of the ‘rule of law.’” Thus, “to prove they are law-abiding, undocumented immigrants must reinforce the laws that mark them as always already criminal.” Ibid, 131. In the conclusion of the chapter, Cacho points out that “Decentering the state’s sole authority over legitimate power and recognized personhood requires being willing to be critical of what makes us vulnerable to state violences and what makes us susceptible to the state’s seductions, and that “The alternative actions, politics and ways of knowing that emerge from or are inspired by social death are not without fault.” Ibid, 145.
[xxxv] Barni Axmed Qaasim, phone conversation with author, September 8, 2015.
[xxxvi] Yates McKee and Meg McLagan, “Introduction,” in Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism, (New York: Zone Books, 2013), 15.
[xxxvii] Taylor, Performance, 36.
[xxxviii] McKee and McLagan, “Introduction,” 17–18.
[xxxix] This approach to documenting and publicity also demonstrates how those involved in this action have been influenced by strategies employed by undocumented youth activists. Undocumented youth activists were some of the first to use digital and social media technologies, such as texting, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to organize locally and nationally.
[xl] I describe these individuals as “undocumented youth activists,” to distinguish them from DREAM and migrant activists who are not eligible for the DREAM Act or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) due to their age. However, I am aware that it is problematic to use the term youth to describe activists whose ages span from teenagers to young adults. Activist and scholar Unzueta Carrasco describes this group as “undocumented 1.5 generation activists,” who are “immigrants, born abroad yet raised and educated in the United States.” Unzueta Carrasco and Seif, “Disrupting the Dream,” 287.
[xli] As Cacho notes, presenting some undocumented migrants as “deserving” and others as “undeserving” involves “rendering the violences of the law invisible,” while also “concealing the forces of transnational capital.” Cacho, Social Death, 130–31.
