The Browning of Threat: The “Unintended” Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement in a New Destination Community

Abstract

My dissertation is a mixed-methods approach to investigate how local law enforcement implements federal immigration enforcement programs throughout the state of North Carolina. I’ve spent time as a participant observer as well as conducted formal and informal follow-up interviews with attendees at 287(g) Steering committee meetings and/or persons previously involved with each program in each of the following counties: 1) Henderson County, 2) Gaston County, 3) Cabarrus County, 4) Wake County, and 5) Mecklenburg County. I’ve supplemented this information with archival data from counties during their adoption phase of the 287(g) program and incorporated related immigration information when relevant. In this research, first, I document how various entities became crimmigration entities. Second, I theorize how these partnerships became normalized in order to protect a variety of white interests. Lastly, I focus on how this one program might be situated within a broader framework, which attempts to define immigration enforcement practices at the local level.