Limits of solidarity: immigration enforcement, labour control and im/mobility in Washington State.

This paper examines the entanglement of mobility, immobility, labour control, and immigration control in Washington State in the US. I analyse two cases: first, one where aggressive immigration enforcement has destabilized a local labour regime, impacting workers' im/mobilities in ways that employers felt made their businesses vulnerable. In this case, employers responded with a politics of protection that involved cooperation with immigrant rights groups, but not in ways that challenge immigrant marginalization. Next, I analyse the H2A visa programme, a temporary foreign worker programme that concentrates power over labour's mobility with the employer in ways that have made workers vulnerable to unfree work conditions. Together, these cases demonstrate how state control of im/mobilities can do different kinds of work in the context of the struggle between employers and workers. I apply this lens to reimagining labour solidarity that centres the freedom to move rather than the protection of workers' marginality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]