Volume 36
Issue
2
Date
2022

The Particular Harms of the “Good Immigrant” versus “Bad Immigrant” Construction on Black Immigrants in the United States

by Sophia DenUyl

In the fall of 2021, video and images surfaced of Border Patrol agents on horseback corralling and whipping Haitian migrants with their reins along the U.S.-Mexico border in Del Rio, Texas. These migrants were being rounded up for deportation under Title 42, a Trump-era provision invoked during the COVID-19 pandemic under the guise of public health. These events triggered outrage, including from the President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who pointed out that the images are disturbingly reminiscent of some of the darkest moments in our nation’s history.

This abuse was yet another wake-up call to the disproportionate obstacles and cruelty inflicted on Black immigrants by the U.S. government. This Note will examine the ways in which the U.S. immigration system has long led to disparate outcomes for Black immigrants, whether under an administration that openly espouses xenophobia and hate, or one which purports to be building a fair and humane immigration system. It will argue that the voices and stories of Black immigrants have long been ignored by the media, politicians, and even mainstream immigration advocates, and that this decentering can be traced, at least in part, to the harmful “good immigrant” versus “bad immigrant” myth that has come to overwhelm the national immigration debate.

Continue reading The Particular Harms of the “Good Immigrant” versus “Bad Immigrant” Construction on Black Immigrants in the United States

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