Boston Review: The Making of the Deportation Machine
The Making of the Deportation Machine The pillars aren’t new. They were built over decades, with bipartisan consensus. Marie Gottschalk In the recent film One Battle After Another , the line between immigration enforcement and law enforcement has vanished in the United States. The constitutional and human rights of citizens and noncitizens alike are evaporating as brutal immigration crackdowns fuel political repression and ignite blasts of violence. The odious Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw—chillingly played by Sean Penn, with an uncanny resemblance to recently reassigned U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino—slithers between immigration authorities, local police, the armed forces, and white supremacist militias. He is finally punished not by state authorities acting under the force of law but rather by his white supremacist frenemies, who execute him because he has become a political liability. Immigration enforcement has long been braided together with the criminal legal system...
