Immigration Article of the Day: This Border Called My Skin by Jaya Ramji-Nogales

This Border Called My Skin by Jaya Ramji-Nogales

Abstract

Immigration law in the United States constructs and perpetuates racist imaginaries of national security that locate the border on people of color, including and extending beyond migrants. This chapter engages with the concept of “foreignness,” a label that contains within it race, religion, and language, enabling and obscuring their use as mechanisms of control. Immigration law performs the work of racial, religious, and linguistic discrimination through distinctions facially based on nationality. This exclusion based on foreignness is amplified through the invocation of national security. Examining several points in the historical development of the concept of national security in immigration law, the chapter illustrates the work that foreignness performs in defending White supremacy and justifying the unequal distribution of political and economic power. By recovering that history and surfacing the roles of foreignness and national security, this chapter aims to begin unraveling the power of these concepts and the harm that they inflict on people of color.

KJ