"I been thinkin' how it was in that gov'ment camp, how our folks took care a theirselves, an' if they was a fight they fixed it theirself; an’ they wasn't no cops wagglin' their guns, but they was better order than them cops ever give. I been a-wonderin' why we can't do that all over. Throw out the cops that ain't our people. All work together for our own thing." - John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
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.
Last Thursday, PRA hosted the second webinar in our series Subverting State Violence on right-wing aligned sheriffs and the far-right movements organizing them under the Biden administration.
