Abstract

Over the past two decades United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have engaged in a series of workplace raids in small rural towns home to meat processing plants. Targeted enforcement operations such as workplace raids are indicative of a shifting spatiality of bordering practices as immigrant policing moves from the territorial borderline into the ‘everyday’ spaces where migrants and non-migrants live and work. Drawing upon a feminist geolegal framework, we examine how raids - as geolegal events - extend beyond the work site to shape spaces of encounters in small, rural towns home to poultry processing. In particular we consider the short and long term impact of a workplace raid at a poultry plant that took place a decade ago in Moorefield, West Virginia. Using interview data with white non-immigrant residents still living in Moorefield, we demonstrate how the workplace raid was not only acutely traumatic for immigrant targets, but also affected resident-bystanders’ perceptions of place and the legal geographies of migration with lasting effects on embodied, emotional and social relationships in spaces of encounters. We find that the raid reconfigured some white resident bystanders’ sense of humanitarian concern, responsibility, friendship and solidarity with immigrants who live in their community yet the legal rationale for the raid also normalized the discourse of racialized criminality performed through the raid itself. These insights, elucidated through feminist geolegal analysis, highlight the cascading effects of the state’s bordering practice in small towns as well as how resident-bystanders reconcile or may resist border enforcement.

摘要

在过去的二十年里，美国移民和海关执法局 (ICE) 在肉类加工厂所在的农村小城镇进行了一系列工作场所突袭。有针对性的执法行动，如工作场所突袭，表明边境实践的空间性正在发生变化，因为移民警察从领土边界转移到移民和非移民生活和工作的“日常”空间。借鉴女权主义地理法律框架，我们研究突袭——作为地理法律事件——如何延伸到工作场所之外，以塑造家禽加工所在地的农村小城镇的相遇空间。我们特别考虑了十年前在西弗吉尼亚州摩尔菲尔德的一家家禽工厂突袭工作场所的短期和长期影响。通过对仍居住在摩尔菲尔德的白人非移民居民的采访数据，我们证明了工作场所突袭不仅对移民目标造成了严重的创伤，而且还影响了居民旁观者对地方的看法和移民的法律地理，并对具体的移民产生了持久的影响。 ，相遇空间中的情感和社会关系。我们发现突袭重新配置了一些白人居民旁观者的人道主义关怀、责任感、友谊和与居住在他们社区的移民的团结，但突袭的法律依据也使通过突袭本身进行的种族犯罪话语正常化。通过女权主义地理法律分析阐明了这些见解，