Economic Nomads, Transnational Citizens, and Unwelcome Vagabonds: A Theoretical Deconstruction of the Illegal Immigration Debate

• In Event: Theoretical Perspectives in Critical Criminology

Abstract

The resurgent hysteria surrounding the illegal immigration issue in the United States is grossly distorted by myths circulated via mass media and ambitious politicians. Among these are the myths that illegal immigrants do not pay taxes, are highly involved in crime, threaten available jobs, undermine American values, and are a drain on social services. Irregular immigration is a multi-dimensional problem whose analysis requires a critical re-reading so that attention to several of the problem's under-examined and thus under-theorized spheres of influence (i.e., the symbolic, linguistic, material, and cultural realms) can be better specified and more fully interrogated. This paper endeavors to undertake such a provisional task by resituating the illegal immigration debate within a theoretical framework that both de/reconstructs the various spheres of constitutive influence that form, reform, and discursively reify this debacle. As we demonstrate, reliance on an interdisciplinary approach to and an integrative assessment of these influences yields a more complete portrait of the immigration issue. Therefore, a multi-dimensional analysis allows us to critically re-problematize the otherwise static (as opposed to dynamic) construction of the social person. This includes the unexamined (and thus under-theorized) possibilities in the phenomenology of perception, choice, and action.

Authors

• Brian Gregory Sellers, Eastern Michigan University

• Bruce Arrigo, University of North Carolina at Charlotte