This Note situates the U.S. immigration system itself as a negative social determinant of health that threatens the health and well-being of immigrants—particularly laborers and agricultural workers—through racialized expropriation and exploitation of their labor. Section I uses the Chinese Exclusion Act and Bracero Program as examples to demonstrate how U.S. immigration laws can create racialized patterns of economic disparities both within and across immigrant groups. Section II exposes the role of the carceral apparatus and criminalization of immigrants in maintaining the racialized economic hierarchy. Finally, Section III highlights how the racialized expropriation and exploitation of labor creates and sustains long-standing health disparities across generations of immigrants.

Continue reading Deportable Until Essential: How the Neoliberal U.S. Immigration System Furthers Racial Capitalism and Operates as a Negative Social Determinant of Health