In Chao Auditorium on the lower level.

US immigration enforcement agencies routinely stalk the undocumented, terrorize legal immigrants and mixed status families, and even trespass on the constitutional rights of citizens. While the Trump administration flaunts its brutality toward immigrants, the roots of its practices lie with early twentieth-century white nationalism and nativism.

Elizabeth F. Cohen will narrate the country’s descent into anti-immigrant panic, tracing the origins of our obsession with illegality to the country’s first comprehensive immigration restriction law. That nativist legislation paved the way for today’s sprawling enforcement apparatus, whose budget and power now dwarf that of any other federal law enforcement agency. She will also speak about how past legislation can help us confront our contemporary crisis of corruption and abuse.

Dr. Elizabeth Cohen is Professor of Political Science in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. She is the author of Semi-Citizenship in Democratic Politics (2009) and The Political Value of Time (2018), which won the 2018 Best Book award from the American Political Science Association’s Migration and Citizenship section.