Georgetown Law & UBN Life on Hold

Black Immigrants: Targeted, Harmed, Erased, and Ignored Racism and Anti-Blackness in the United States

Racism and anti-Blackness in the United States predate the country’s founding, beginning with the colonization and slaughter of indigenous persons living on the continent, followed by centuries of enslavement of Black people who had been kidnapped and transported from their homes. Black people have been present in the United States since prior to 1776, but the United States is commonly and culturally considered to be a country exclusively founded for and by white people. U.S. white supremacy operates fluidly through time. It has been adapted throughout the centuries to fit contemporary conditions while always maintaining a strict racial hierarchy where whiteness is considered to be the apex of the country’s race-based caste system. Criminalization of Black Immigrants Black immigrants face unique challenges, mirroring those faced by Black Americans: Because of their Blackness, Black immigrants are disproportionately racially profiled, stopped, and arrested by law enforcement agencies of all kinds. Black immigrants are targeted and penalized by both criminal and immigration law enforcement, leading to a double punishment and a life in the crosshairs of racist policing and immigration practices. 7 For example, Black Caribbean immigrants are twice as likely as other immigrants to be detained due to an immigration violation. 8 Black immigrants are also more likely than immigrants of other racial groups to be deported due to an underlying criminal conviction. 9 This “intersection of vulnerability,” 11 as Jodi Ziesemer, Director of the Immigrant Protection Unit at the New York Legal Assistance Group calls it, is responsible for Black immigrants facing greater legal obstacles than their non-Black immigrant counterparts. The rise in enforcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other government agencies against immigrants dovetails with imposed poverty and structural biases constructed against Black people in the United States, leading to outsize impacts on many Black immigrants. Furthermore, Black immigrants and their experiences are often willfully erased from discussions about immigration and the criminalization of immigrants. Racialized domestic criminal laws result in dire immigration consequences for many undocumented Black people in the United States. These phenomena make up a complex, cruel legal system within which many Black immigrants find themselves entrapped. 7 Peniel Ibe, Immigration is a Black Issue, American Friend Serv. Comm. (Feb. 18, 2021), https://www.afsc.org/blogs/news-and- commentary/immigration-black-issue. 8 Breanne J. Palmer, Note, The Crossroads: Being Black, Immigrant, and Undocumented in the Era of #Blacklivesmatter, 9 Geo. J. L. & Mod. Critical Race Persp. 99, 102 (2017). 9 Id. 10 Shamira Ibrahim, Ousman Darboe could be deported any day. His story is a common one for black immigrants, Vox (Feb. 5, 2020, 11:58 PM), https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/30/20875821/black-immigrants-school-prison-deportation-pipeline. 11 Id. An overwhelming 76% of Black immigrants are deported on criminal grounds, compared to only 45% of immigrants of all races. 10

Life On Hold: Black Immigrants & the Promise of Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness

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