Immigration law as a field of scholarly inquiry is largely critical of the status quo, with much of the literature describing inequities authorized by law and implemented through policy. An increasing number of these works foreground the work that race performs in perpetrating and perpetuating injustice in the immigration system. Yet there remains a profound silence around the question of blackness in migration. Modern Migrations, Black Interrogations begins to dismantle that silence, presenting the reader with “the unasked question” in the field of migration studies. (P.1.) This critique of antiblackness upends existing assumptions and presents important new directions for scholarly inquiry in immigration law.
As the Introduction to this edited volume explains, blackness should be the starting point for any study of mobility. But we cannot just “add blackness and stir”; the editors insist that we must begin by interrogating the antiblackness at the heart of the U.S. immigration system. (P. 11.) It is only through this more profound inquiry that we can begin to understand all borders and bordering processes, and to combat the antiblack violence enabled and obscured by the vast silence that greets questions of blackness and mobility. (Pp. 1, 14).
The critique of antiblackness offers a rich and productive vantage point from which to trouble questions of mobility and borders. As a “constantly regenerating and mutating feature of the present-day organization of social relations,” (P. 5) antiblackness is a necessary foundation for immigration scholars. One important aspect of this theoretical perspective is the understanding of societal progress as “movement towards a world expunged of blackness” (P. 6.) Blackness is defined in opposition, in “a painful, antithetical relationship,” to European modernity. (P. 65.) When it comes to immigration, blackness is situated outside the immigrant/citizen frame, beyond the path of progress toward citizenship. (P. 64.) This presents a vexing problem for the modern liberal state; while Blacks are viewed as unable to assimilate, at the same time, they cannot be deported. (P. 71.) Blackness can, however, be deployed as a “racial border to police other racialized groups,” with assimilation measured as one’s distance from blackness (Pp. 16-17.)
An antiblackness framing also offers a new lens on the history of U.S. immigration law. In one example, the editors offer connections between the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts and fears arising from Haitian revolution and potential support for slave revolt in the United States. (Pp. 8-9.) The motivation underlying these Acts, which were the first federal restrictions on immigration, have commonly been depicted as unrelated to race in that they limited the admission of French migrants. This case study presents just one example of how an antiblackness lens can open up new understandings of the history of immigration restrictionism.
In addition to the critical frame of antiblackness, the editors offer a far more complete understanding of Black mobility than is generally presented in the literature. They persuade the reader that blackness must be a starting point for analyzing bordering processes and understanding relevant concepts such as inclusion and exclusion. (P. 17.) Black mobility is a story, the editors remind us, of territorial alienation and forced hypermobility. (Pp. 80-81.) Blackness is “inextricably bound up with the ruptures that produce [the] radically depersonalized placeless condition,” without an understanding of which we cannot begin to comprehend, let alone theorize, migration. (P. 80.) Migration has been a “series of traumatic displacements” that prevent Black people from “experiencing time and occupying space on their own terms.” (P. 81.) This means that the only way out is “a flight from society itself” by “creating a rupture with a given structure of social relations.” (P. 92.) In other words, the only solutions are radical ones; tinkering with the status quo will simply reproduce antiblackness.
The book also reminds us that Black mobility is a story of resistance. The persistent mobility of Black people is nothing short of astonishing given the powerful and pervasive efforts to control Black movement. Unauthorized movement has been a potent form of resistance to enslavement and Jim Crow. (P. 10.) This Black mobility has consistently been received as a threat to the border itself and ultimately, “civilization.” (P. 16.)
By this point, it should not be hard for the reader to discern how the antiblackness critique presented by the book challenges the received wisdom on migration. The editors remind us that freedom of movement presupposes Black captivity, and that Black mobility is the “experience of being radically uprooted.” (P. 66.) This recognition provides a more complete picture of all borders, namely “the understanding that, in order for migration to be a decision, the right not to migrate must also be a valid option.” (P 12.) The book offers profound resistance to what has been labeled the “mobility bias” and the linear progress narrative of migration. (P. 13.) It is also a forceful reminder of the importance of interrogating silences around blackness and mobility, and of the powerful fruits of that inquiry.
