Walls and Cages

The Trump administration’s rapid expansion of immigration controls across the United States is often cast as exceptional. Taking a historical, transnational view reveals that this rising authoritarianism is intimately tied to the proliferation of walls and cages across Western states over a number of decades. Sustained efforts by politicians across the ideological spectrum to detain, deport, and criminalize migrants have reshaped societies, undermining democracy and contributing to a drift toward authoritarian forms of government. In the face of this expanding carceral state and its corporate affiliates fueled by xenophobia and ethnonationalism, grassroots resistance offers an alternative vision of transnational politics.