Description
The Trump administration’s rapid expansion of immigration controls across the United States is often cast as exceptional. Taking a historical, transnational view reveals that this rising authoritarianism is intimately tied to the proliferation of walls and cages across Western states over a number of decades. Sustained efforts by politicians across the ideological spectrum to detain, deport, and criminalize migrants have reshaped societies, undermining democracy and contributing to a drift toward authoritarian forms of government. This is encapsulated by the present commitment to deportations, in which governments internationally are designing and implementing regimes to deport non-citizens to third states, permanently offshoring obligations to asylum or the settlement of particular non-citizens, while eliminating legal safeguards for those affected.
This paper traces the rise of authoritarian practices in the migration governance of the UK, the US and Australia throughout the 21st century, practices that predate Trump's second term in power and that, we argue, lead directly to our contemporary moment. This historical analysis reveals the ways that governments have long experimented with authoritarian practices in the realm of migration policies, and how these practices spill over to affect citizens and non-citizens.
Finally, we turn to the grassroots movements that confront this expanding carceral and xenophobic order. Against the backdrop of ethnonationalism and corporate profiteering, these networks of resistance articulate alternative political imaginaries—grounded in mobility justice, care, and collective autonomy—that challenge the authoritarian blueprint structuring contemporary governance.
