State- and local-level ordinances attempting to ‘crack down’ on undocumented immigration have been proliferating across the United States. Hazleton, Pennsylvania’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act (IIRA), passed in 2006, was one of the most visible of these laws. Using the events leading up to the passage of the IIRA as a case study and integrating racial stratification and moral panic theories, I conceptualize passage of this punitive law as a racial degradation ceremony performed in the wake of allegations of a Latino-on-white homicide and amid local demographic shifts and economic decline. Specifically, by comparing local media coverage of two homicides committed in Hazleton (one that led to the passage of the IIRA, a second that was far less impactful) and studying official discourse at city council meetings where the ordinance was introduced and passed, I find that officials relied heavily on the racialized tropes of the war on crime in constructing an ‘illegal’ immigration ‘problem’, thus degrading the city’s new immigrants, symbolically uplifting the white majority, and in turn reaffirming the racial order.
BarkerV (2009) The Politics of Imprisonment: How the Democratic Process Shapes the Way America Punishes Offenders, New York: Oxford University Press.
3.
BeckettK (1997) Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics, New York: Oxford University Press.
4.
BlumerH (1958) Race prejudice as a sense of group position. Pacific Sociological Review1: 3–7.
5.
CalavitaK(1994) U.S. immigration and policy responses: The limits of legislation. In: CorneliusWAMartinPLHollifieldJF (eds). Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 55–82.
6.
CapersB (2009) Policing, race, and place. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review44: 43–78.
7.
ChavezL (2008) The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
8.
ChiricosTEschholzS (2002) The racial and ethnic typification of crime and the criminal typification of race and ethnicity in local television news. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency39(4): 400–420.
CohenS (1972) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, Oxford: Routledge.
11.
DavisPC (1989) Law as microaggression. Yale Law Journal98(8): 1559–1577.
12.
De GenovaNP (2002) Migrant ‘illegality’ and deportability in everyday life. Annual Review of Anthropology31: 419–447.
13.
DelgadoRStefancicJ (2001) Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, New York: New York University Press.
14.
EriksonK (1966) Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance, New York: Wiley.
15.
EsbenshadeJWrightBCortopassiPReedAFloresJ(2010) The ‘law-and-order’ foundation of local ordinances: A four-locale study of Hazleton, PA, Escondido, CA, Farmers Branch, TX, and Prince William County, VA. In: VarsanyiMW (ed.) Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 255–274.
16.
Fleury-SteinerBLongazelJ(2010) Neoliberalism, community development, and anti-immigrant backlash in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. In: VarsanyiMW (ed.) Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 157–172.
17.
FramptonMLHaney LópezISimonJ (2008) After the War on Crime: Race, Democracy, and a New Reconstruction, New York: New York University Press.
18.
GarfinkelH (1956) Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies. American Journal of Sociology61(5): 420–424.
19.
GarlandD (2005) Penal excess and surplus meaning: Public torture lynchings in twentieth-century America. Law & Society Review39(4): 793–833.
20.
GarlandD (2008) On the concept of moral panic. Crime Media Culture4(1): 9–30.
21.
Golash-BozaT (2009) A confluence of interests in immigration enforcement: How politicians, the media, and corporations profit from immigration policies destined to fail. Sociology Compass3(2): 283–294.
22.
GoodeEBen-YehudaN (1994) Moral panics: Culture, politics, and social construction. Annual Review of Sociology20: 149–171.
23.
Gregory A (2005) Homicide suspect turned self in. Standard-Speaker, 25 October.
24.
HallSCritcherCJeffersonTClarkeJRobertsB (1978) Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order, New York: Holmes & Meier.
25.
Haney LópezI (1997) White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race, New York: New York University Press.
26.
Haney LópezI (2010) Post-racial racism: Racial stratification and mass incarceration in the age of Obama. California Law Review98: 1023–1074.
27.
IndaJX (2006) Targeting Immigrants: Government, Technology, and Ethics, Malden: Blackwell.
28.
Jackson K (2006a) Cops: Men in country illegally, dealt drugs. Standard-Speaker, 17 May.
29.
Jackson K (2006b) Police plan to continue intensive patrols. Standard-Speaker, 17 May.
30.
Jackson K (2006c) Ferdinand: Time to seal off border. Standard-Speaker, 17 May.
31.
Jackson K (2007a) ‘Have you ever said,’ attorney Vic Walczak asked the Hazleton Mayor, ‘illegal is illegal’? Standard-Speaker, 16 March.
32.
Jackson K (2007b) Testimony contentious at times. Standard-Speaker, 14 March.
33.
Jackson K and Gregory A (2006) Police, Feds hit local drug targets. Standard-Speaker, 19 May.
34.
JeffersonT (2008) Policing the crisis revisited: The state, masculinity, fear of crime and racism. Crime Media Culture4(1): 113–121.
35.
Katchur M (2011) Latino influx spurs first population increase in Hazleton in 70 years Standard-Speaker, 10 March.
36.
Kelly SM (2006) Alleged killer slipped through system. Standard-Speaker, 25 May.
37.
LeeMMartinezR(2009) Immigration reduces crime: An emerging scholarly consensus. In: McDonaldWF (ed.) Sociology of Crime, Law, and Deviance, New York: Elsevier, pp. 3–16.
LongazelJFleury-SteinerB (2011) Exploiting borders: The political economy of local backlash against undocumented immigrants. Chicana/o-Latina/o Law Review30: 43–64.
Mocarsky S (2007) Expert says many members of highly dangerous gang in Hazleton are illegal immigrants. The Times Leader, 22 March.
44.
Monitz K (2005) Wyoming street business owners went to Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta last week to talk about community perceptions following a fatal shooting downtown. Standard-Speaker, 17 November.
45.
OmiMWinantH (1986) Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s, New York: Routledge.
46.
ProvineDMDotyRL (2011) The criminalization of immigrants as a racial project. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice27(3): 261–277.
47.
QuillianL (1995) Prejudice as a response to perceived group threat: Population composition and anti-immigrant and racial prejudice in Europe. American Sociological Review60(4): 586–611.
48.
Ragan T (2005) Police identify acquaintance of victim as chief suspect. Standard-Speaker, 22 October.
49.
RamakrishnanKWongT(2010) Partisanship, not Spanish: Explaining municipal ordinances affecting undocumented immigrants. In: VarsanyiMW (ed.) Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 73–93.
50.
RomeroM (2006) Racial profiling and immigration law enforcement: Rounding up the usual suspects in the Latino community. Critical Sociology32(2–3): 447–473.
SáenzRMenjívarCGarciaSJE(2012) Arizona’s SB 1070: Setting conditions for violations of human rights here and beyond. In: BlauJFrezzoM (eds). Sociology and Human Rights: A Bill of Rights for the Twenty-First Century, Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
TillyC (1998) Durable Inequality, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
56.
US Senate (2006) Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Examining the Need for a Guest Worker Program. Hearing. 109th Congress, 2nd Session. 5 July. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
57.
VarsanyiMW (2010) Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
58.
WacquantL (2009) Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
