Black Lives in Limbo: Liberian Refugees, Migrant Justice, and the Narration of Antiblack U.S. Border Politics

Yatta Kiazolu ()
Additional contact information
Yatta Kiazolu: Department of Global and International Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: The Trump administration’s attacks on immigrant communities, especially undocumented people, produced major policy reversals on temporary humanitarian relief programs, such as the termination of Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). While these policies have had wide-reaching impacts across communities of color, within the broader immigration debate, the experiences of Black migrants have often been overlooked. This paper asks the following questions: How did extremist policies impact Black migrants under the Trump administration? What vulnerabilities did these policies produce or exacerbate? What do these efforts tell us about the “turn” toward authoritarianism in U.S. politics? Applying antiblackness as a theoretical framework, this paper conducts a content analysis of media outlets to examine the impact of extremist policies on Liberian DED beneficiaries. The ramifications of these policies intensified pre-existing antiblack dynamics of belonging and exclusion within the state by reinforcing racial hierarchies, producing social exclusion and vulnerability to state violence, and maintaining constrained access to citizenship. In assessing the many ways that antiblack racism manifests for citizens and non-citizens alike, we can extend our understanding of migrant justice, racial justice, and anti-imperialism as interdependent struggles in the face of rising authoritarianism.

Keywords: immigration; racial justice; migrant justice; black politics; border politics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/9/495/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/9/495/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:13:y:2024:i:9:p:495-:d:1480518

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().