Paret, Marcel. 2014. "Legality and exploitation: Immigration enforcement and the US migrant labor system", Latino Studies (2014) 12, 503–526. doi:10.1057/lst.2014.53,
Abstract: This article theorizes a fundamental shift in the US migrant labor system as it pertains to migrants from Mexico and Central America. It identifies three different periods, each defined by the way immigration law and enforcement constitute migrant workers as cheap and flexible labor. Between 1942 and 1964, the legalization period, immigration law and enforcement secured the exploitation of migrant workers by reinforcing their legal attachment to coercive farm labor contracts. The late 1960s to the mid-1980s was a transition period, characterized by the diffusion of migrant workers throughout the economy, debate over the future of immigration law and the emergence of an enforcement approach centered on the US–Mexico border. Between 1986 and the present, the illegalization period, immigration law and enforcement secured the exploitation of migrant workers by reinforcing their “illegality” and vulnerability to deportation. I argue that the post-2001 increase in internal surveillance and deportations, in particular, may be understood as a deepening of the illegalization process through the reincorporation of enforcement tactics used during the legalization period.
