They Will Destroy Themselves Wanting Purely American: Labor and Carceral Immigration Enforcement in the US Pacific Northwest

This article examines the upheaval associated with the extension of carceral immigration enforcement into a particular rural county in Washington State. Migrant workers in shellfish, cranberry, and tourism industries began to leave the county, either through the forced mobility of deportation or quasi-voluntarily, to rejoin deported family or to avoid deportation. This process simultaneously constrained the agency of undocumented workers and presented employers with a destabilized race and labor regime that they represented as a labor shortage. In this situation, the local race and labor regime was destabilized, to the detriment of local capitals. This article extends the understanding of the regulation of labor via carceral immigration enforcement, arguing for an understanding of the place-specific and conjunctural nature of the articulation of immigration control and labor regimes. Such an approach reveals how immigration enforcement's many functions, including the sovereignty-producing and political capital-producing functions, can work in contradiction with the labor regulating, social control functions.

Automated summary

This article explores the impact of extending carceral immigration enforcement to a rural county in Washington State. As a result, migrant workers in shellfish, cranberry, and tourism industries began to leave the county voluntarily or forcefully due to deportation concerns. This disruption not only constrained the agency of undocumented workers but also destabilized the local race and labor regime, leading to labor shortages. The study argues for a nuanced understanding of the articulation between immigration control and labor regimes, highlighting the contradictions between their various functions.