Far-Right Alignment of County Sheriffs and the Violent Policing of Immigrant Communities
The inhumane treatment and deportations of Haitian refugees from our southern border underscores what we already suspected: that the U.S. anti-immigration movement, which thrived under President Trump, has yet another champion in President Biden and his administration. And in hundreds of elected county sheriffs across the United States, this nativist movement has armed agents of the state working in concert to further support and expand systems of racialized social control and expulsion.
Watch our conversation with panelists Ethan Fauré, Felicia Arriaga and Luis A. Fernandez on right-wing aligned sheriffs and the far-right movements organizing them under the Biden administration.
This webinar is the second of four in PRA’s ongoing series Subverting State Violence.
Watch the recording here.
For this roundtable discussion, we were joined by:
Dr. Felicia Arriaga: Visiting Research Scholar at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs teaching Race, Power, & Inequality and Race & Public Policy, tenure-track Assistant Professor of Sociology in the criminology concentration at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC, PRA research fellow, and coordinator of the North Carolina Statewide Police Accountability Network. Her research interests are in the areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, and crimmigration (criminalization of immigration policy and procedure). She is a public-sociologist and works to generate more fruitful discussions about issues of criminal justice accountability, transparency, reform, and abolition.
Ethan Fauré: PRA Research Analyst focusing on movements promoting anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and White nationalist ideologies. They joined PRA after working with the Center for New Community for five years, authoring groundbreaking reports on anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim activity in the U.S. Ethan works closely with other researchers, journalists, national organizations, and, grassroots activists to deepen their understanding of these forces—informing resistance efforts and their work building power across the country.
Dr. Luis A. Fernandez: Professor in, and chair of, the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. He served as the President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 2017-2018 and is currently the co-editor of Critical Issues in Crime and Society, a book series at Rutgers University Press. He is the author and editor of several books, including Policing Dissent, Shutting Down the Streets, and Alternatives to Policing. His most recent research focuses on understanding the claims and consequences of reimagining public safety and policing. He has worked in various community-based efforts related to immigration and policing. Dr. Fernandez is also strongly committed to faculty governance, student success, community engagement, and scholar-activism.
Read the full transcript here.
Watch the recording here.