TSOC 435 – Notes
March 11th, 2013

Final Review Notes

Avoid as much as possible talking about present day policies, practice and laws… the reason is coming up to the presidential election, I knew that President Obama wanted to talk about immigration reform… and there would be a lot of bizarre rhetoric.

Rooted in social and political grounds and economics.

Functions of poverty… not only immigration, but poverty in general.

Think in terms of docility and citizenship.

Temporary citizen or migrant worker, by virtue that they are not a citizen of America… they can be deported. They can be paid at a lower level of an American citizen.

When people talk about migration, people are talking primarily about Mexican migrants… South American migrants.

It’s a mistake to only think in low service sector jobs…

With weak or no citizenship rights comes at least a justification to pay people in those particular sectors less than people who have citizenship rights.

The real impact of the WTO, a lot of our political leaders are not being open about that.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush…. Senator McCain… Pres. Obama… when you’re looking at their particular immigration plans, not one of them is talking about our membership in the WTO. All they do is maybe say in their speeches or in their plans that they might say something about being open to free trade… but none of them talk about the impact of the WTO on the USA in and of itself.

Relating to the film… because of global trade, because of WTO, because of our membership in WTO, because of our policies and practices in place now… we will never ever ever ever have closed borders.

So when you hear anyone talking about closing our borders (ANYONE), you know that they can’t be serious because that’s a direct violation of our membership in WTO.

Hegemony. Nobody is ever going to close the borders.
As people who are trained now in functional analysis, why are people talking about closing the borders when we will never ever ever close the borders?

What is the function? Rhetoric of closed borders?

Several functions

Social, Cultural,
Sets public minds at ease and something to chew on… ease the fear that people have. (Nevins, creation of fear and easing the fear).

How is education funded?
Property taxes…
Who pays property taxes?
Renters, owners…
Who rents and who owns?
Anybody can rent (undocumented too)
- How can undocumented people own or rent?
People who came here did have papers, did have documents and became undocumented. Documented workers, stop working as a guest worker, become undocumented (Braceros).

How do you become illegal?
- You cross the border illegally and you become illegal.

The social function of undocumented migrants coming in and cramming our schools… the negative rhetoric is false, that they are taking advantage… because they are paying into the education system through property taxes and therefor paying for their children’s education.

What else is a function of this rhetoric of closing our borders?

What about political functions?
- At least politically, people use the fear generated through illegal immigration as their platform for getting into office and move up the ladder. Taking a stance against it, for example.

Nevins, politically, talked about… governor Pete Wilson, senators, congress people, etc… economically and politically benefiting by this production of fear by getting tax payers to be okay with building fences… such as Operation Gatekeeper along the borders of their states. It’s also helping their friends in the securitization industry because building that wall allows someone to benefit from that.

Nevins said we’re not only looking at security at the border but also inside the nation….
So what about here in Tacoma? About how securitization is impacting the lives of people here in Tacoma?

- Here in Tacoma…. Detention center. Remember that lack of documentation is a civil offense and not a criminal