Deepening Divides : How Territorial Borders and Social Boundaries Delineate Our World by Didier Fassin

Author:Didier Fassin [Fassin, Didier]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780745340425
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2019-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

Conclusion

The main problem with the Muslim ban, according to its most voluble critics, is not that it harms vulnerable people or that it perpetuates inequalities rooted in European colonialism or American imperialism. Instead, the main problem is that it appears as a form of barely concealed racism reminiscent of slavery or Japanese internment, as Judge James Wynn conveyed in his Fourth Circuit opinion:

Invidious discrimination that is shrouded in layers of legality is no less an insult to our Constitution than naked invidious discrimination. We have matured from the lessons learned by past experiences documented, for example, in Dred Scott and Korematsu. But we again encounter the affront of invidious discrimination—this time layered under the guise of a President’s claim of unfettered … authority to control immigration and his proclamation that national security requires his exercise of authority to deny entry to a class of aliens defined solely by their nation of origin. Laid bare, this Executive Order is no more than what the President promised before and after his election: naked invidious discrimination against Muslims.42

The problem with the Muslim ban, in other words, is not that it is “an insult” to Muslims, but that it is insult to “our Constitution.” It is an “affront” not to others but to the United States’ self-image. The wrong identified over and over is the “naked” display of the old racial animus, a breach of the new racial etiquette. But by focusing outrage at the spectacle of racism, legal advocates—who have played an outsized role in shaping public debates about the Muslim ban—obscure the ways in which nativism and nationality discrimination pervades the legal immigration system.

In numerous opinions, lower court judges offered a meticulous review of Trump’s rhetoric during the campaign and as president, strenuously connecting the executive order to expressions of racial animus. While the Supreme Court limited its analysis to the text of the executive orders, Judge Wynn refused, arguing that the “world is not made brand new every morning, nor are we able to awake without the vivid memory of these statements. We cannot shut our eyes to such evidence when it stares us in the face.”43 Nor were judges satisfied by the administration’s assertions that the executive orders were justified by national security. In the words of Judge Roger Gregory, chief judge of the Fourth Circuit, the text recites “vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination.”44 Again, the apparent harm is that the harm itself is too apparent: the administration’s shabby attempts at masking not just its discriminatory motives but also the government’s extraordinary power over immigration policy undermines the perceived integrity of US immigration laws, and the supposed impartiality of law itself. The harm, in other words, is not the harm dealt to individuals affected by the ban, but the shattering of appearances, of our most guarded national illusions.

This preoccupation with appearances is betrayed, for instance, by media coverage that turned swiftly from a sympathetic focus on travelers affected by the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.