State effects on labor exploitation: The INS and undocumented immigrants at the Mexico-United States border
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-1998
Abstract
The power of enforcing labor control and exploitation is often attributed to states. However, such claims need careful empirical and analytical verification. In order to do this, we should view states 'from below', involving state agencies, state workers, and the policed population, elements that are ignored in most state theories. In the case of undocumented immigrants who cross the United States-Mexico border to work, US state actions do add to exploitation. The smuggling, transportation and job arrangements required to overcome border and interior enforcement lead undocumented immigrants to enter conspiracies to avoid the law that are, in turn, used against them in workplaces. US undocumented immigration policy seen from below is not a deliberate system for labor control, but it follows a consistent pattern of stigmatizing immigrant labor, forcing it into an exploitative underworld. This analysis unites the current anti-immigration theme in US politics and the actual persistence of illegal, exploited labor in that nation.
Publication Title
Critique of Anthropology
Recommended Citation
Heyman, J.
(1998).
State effects on labor exploitation: The INS and undocumented immigrants at the Mexico-United States border.
Critique of Anthropology,
18(2), 157-180.
http://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X9801800203
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p/12844