The Unchilding of Migrant Children

• In Event: 30264 - Witnessing the Violences in and of Empire

Abstract

Scapegoating has always been an effective tactic and Republican governors, senators, and President Trump, made immigration the leading issue in all his campaigns even though US citizens decry issues unrelated to immigration: the rate of homelessness has skyrocketed as housing costs have surpassed middle-class salaries; the health system and lack of adequate coverage; the climate crisis experienced as extreme weather events, rising temperatures, leading to natural disasters, food and water insecurity, wildland fires and environmental degradation. Media coverage, human rights reports, and social science research of immigration law
enforcement, particularly immigration law enforcement in Arizona, has exposed the cruelty and demonization of immigrant children and other related children. Some as migrants, asylum seekers, and migrants ‘sons and daughters born in the US. Immigration law enforcement and anti-immigrant sentiment extends to children of US citizens with ancestry south of the border and other non-European countries. Reflecting on the work of Professor Kevorkian, the Director of the Gender Studies Program and professor at the Faculty of Law, Institute of Criminology and School of Social work and Public Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, suggest a framing of childhood experience of these children in the US. Her groundbreaking analysis of the politics of unchilding forces us to acknowledge the political work of violence aimed at
constructing these racialized children as dangerous, barbaric, and future gang members and terrorists. The politics of unchilding established images that successfully normalized their treatment as adults and excluded them from childhood itself. This presentation will examine the
impact of US policy on children and the ways the politics of unchilding are being used.

Author

• Mary Romero, Arizona State University