A Clarification of Racism in the Contemporary Anti-Immigrant Movement.

The issue of racism is at the forefront of the debate over immigration and the legitimacy of the anti-immigrant movement. The anti-immigrant movement recognizes only overt racism, which the anti-immigrant movement mostly avoids. However, contemporary racism has largely adapted to the post-Civil Rights and post-Holocaust norms of civil society and presents itself in a covert fashion. Still, covert racism has the same long term effects as overt racism. The problem is that the more covert nature of contemporary racism generally leaves the explanation for why the anti-immigrant movement is racist at bay. Left unanswered, racism goes unchecked and the debate over immigration boils ever hotter with neither side budging. Based on over 25 long interviews with anti-immigrant activists conducted from 1999 - 2008, as well as literature reviews of racism, immigration, political economy of globalization, this paper demonstrates how contemporary racism has blossomed within the anti-immigrant movement, using the political and legal systems as their primary tools of racialization and associated subordination. The research includes interviews with the infamous "Minutemen," along with participant observation at multiple post-9/11 anti-immigrant conferences (2002 - 2008). In short, the criminalization of immigrant labor combined with a perceived terrorist threat since 9/11/01 has caused the fomentation of the contemporary anti-immigrant movement which uses the American political and legal systems to wage a racialized war on immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]