Localizing Immigration Enforcement: Effects of 287 (G) Agreements in Atlanta, GA

In recent years, federal immigration enforcement has undergone significant changes. One of these changes, the 287 (G) program, is an agreement that enables local police entities to participate in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Since the implementation of 287 (G) agreements, numerous cases of abuse, of local police and sheriff officers overreaching, of harassment, and racial profiling have been documented amongst Latinos/as across the metropolitan Atlanta area. In Atlanta, local civil/human rights organizations have played an integral role in tracking the experiences of those Latino/a residents who have been targeted through the 287 (G) program. Through interviews with members of such local civil/human rights organizations, this paper explores the experiences of Latinos/as who have been subjected to this legal re-scaling of federal immigration enforcement. I pay particular attention to the spatial strategies employed by Latino/a residents of metro Atlanta to avoid police and sheriff representatives because of confusion, annoyance, misinformation, and/or fear. The degree to which Latino/a residents of Atlanta might be altering their everyday geographies in response to 287 (G) agreements opens multiple new avenues of future research.