Activity

Until the late nineteenth century, the US had no formal immigration restrictions. The border was essentially open, with only customs controls directed at shipping. In 1882, after 200,000 Chinese laborers immigrated to build the railroads and perform farm labor in the West, Congress passed the Chine…

By 1990, fifty thousand people had been arrested in such sweeps. Current LAPD chief Charlie Beck points out that these sweeps “undermined the moral authority of the police.” Gang members may have been a source of problems in these communities, but they were still a part of them. They had mothers, c…

Internationally, these groups often work with local authorities to do large brothel raids, in which foreign workers are deported to their home countries and local workers are forced into social services and training programs. Sometimes these “rescued” women are willing participants in sex work and …

Even if criminalization was successful, legal, and cost effective, it would still be unethical. We live in an economic and social environment in which the market is unable to house people at the bottom of the economic order and government is unwilling to make up the difference. Given this reality, …

America’s changing economic realities have played a central role in this process as well. Christian Parenti has shown how the federal government crashed the economy in the 1970s to stem the rise of workers’ power, leaving millions out of work and creating a new, mostly African American permanent un…