Comparing Movement Approaches: The Relationship Between Movements Against Policing/Prisons and Those Against ICE/Detention.

• In Event: Roundtable: Activism and Social Movements

Abstract

While aggressive policies and practices against immigrants and immigration have been emboldened by the second Trump presidency, they have simultaneously faced resistance and contention. In the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings, followed by popularized calls to abolish police and prisons, some may wonder how current organizing against ICE, immigrant detention, and deportations might relate to or interact with the social justice organizing that gained traction in 2020. At the intersection of critical criminology and social movement studies is where this issue lies. This research aims to bridge concepts from social movement theory and critical feminist theory to understand the dynamics of organizing against ICE and immigrant detention compared to those organizing against policing and prisons. Through in-depth qualitative interviews and participant observation with advocates and within advocacy spaces, this study will compare approaches (tactical, ideological, etc.), meaning-making processes, and goals of movements against imprisonment to movements against detention. Some of the questions this study will ask are: "What can movements towards police/prison abolition and movements for ICE/border/detention abolition learn from one another?", "How do their approaches (tactics, goals, ideology, identities) interact and/or diverge?", and "What are the dynamics (i.e. benefits/ drawbacks and barriers/facilitators) of collaboration between movements?"

Author

• Libby Vigil, University of New Mexico