Abigail Andrews

Congratulations! Well deserved!

So messed up. The world will be worse off without your work.

I am heartbroken at Michael Burawoy's death. Michael was a brilliant sociologist, a mentor to me and so many, and above all a beacon of integrity in a messed up world. He was brave and generous and showed us how to stand up for the good. He was silly and zany and full of love. A light in the dark.

How Faculty and Staff Can Support Undocumented & DACAmented Students Amid Growing Fear and Worry Over the last few days, there have been growing fears and worries among students who are members of undocumented or mixed-status families (where at least one member is undocumented). Many are fearf…

From the amazing Professor Carolina Valdivida (UC Irvine): How Faculty and Staff can Support Undocumented and DACAmented Students:

mydocumentedlife.org/2025/01/29/h...

Elated to share that the dream team @stephcanizales.bsky.social, @drmirianma.bsky.social, Silvia Rodriguez Vega and I are getting ~$1.6 million from UCOP MRPI for our project Reimagining Refuge: California for Just Migrant Futures. Stay tuned for seed grants to CA scholars, artists, and activists!

Having spent a lot of time in my kids' public elementary school lately, this makes me want to cry. Teachers are so overstretched and under-resourced. Literally, they don't even have *paper for first graders to practice writing/drawing.

Training dates Dec. 10, 13 & 16 7:30 PM ET “deportation defense has been a critical way of fighting back and learning how to slow the deportation machine down. It also is a very clear and direct way to be in solidarity with immigrant communities. That’s why we’re hosting deportation defense training: expanding our skills and support systems, a 3-part virtual course in deportation defense on December 10th 13th and 16th. “

I just did a long thread about “confronting fascism” or something but deleted it. Here’s what’s important: 3-part virtual series on deportation defense. Anyone can sign up, you don’t have to be a lawyer. Mijente is on ig and x @conmijente. More info and RSVP here: bit.ly/skillupcrewup

Article title and abstract

What if the majority of people denied asylum in the United States are:

a) Telling the truth,
b) In real danger of persecution, and yet
c) Still denied asylum on legal technicalities?

That's the bombshell finding of a landmark new study. bclawreview.bc.edu/articles/317...

Welcome to Beyond the Border Why I'm starting a newsletter and why I hope you'll read it

So today I did a thing -- I launched a newsletter on Substack. I've been working on this since the day after the election, when I sat down and thought about what I could best offer in this moment as an immigration reporter. I hope you'll check it out. open.substack.com/pub/beyondth...

Mass deportation is not inherently more practical, feasible, or realistic than open borders, but the collective imagination in this country can picture one much more easily than the other. There is a politics to what we see as im/possible.

Banished Men by Abigail Andrews - Paper Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

For those just joining: I wrote a book on deportation. It's free: www.ucpress.edu/books/banish...

It shows how devastating 47's plans of detention and deportation will be for the human beings targeted, ripping parents from children.

I'll start sharing local-level action steps this week. #FLaMigra

This evil is returning. Call your local elected officials and ask what they're going to do to stop it.

The path to avoiding the worst of climate change runs through state senates and city councils, public utilities commissions and planning bodies, co-op boards and HOAs and PTAs and neighborhood associations. Remember the physics definition of power: it’s work over time.

“people will wake up on Jan. 21 not knowing exactly what comes next for them-and the more accurate” the info “about the scope & scale of deportation efforts, the better able immigrants & their communities will be to prepare for what might be coming and try to find ways to throw sand in the gears”

The Internment Camps Are Coming A new offer from the Texas General Land Office has been made to incoming President Donald Trump, and it proves we are on the verge of reliving some of our darkest days in America.

Versions have long been here.

There are still kids enduring the results of the child separation policies today.

The U.S. had nearly 1.8 million people imprisoned at the end of '23.

Don't even get me started on the criminalization of homelessness (many of whom are Queer youth.)

Opinion | Don’t Do Trump’s Work for Him on Mass Deportations How big will the Trump administration go, and how quickly?

So proud of my wife @daralind.bsky.social .

Her latest for NYT explains what mass deportation probably will look like so people know how to prepare for/defend against it www.nytimes.com/2024/11/21/o...

Sadly, this is very true. It’s actually one of the reasons that local law-enforcement doesn’t always have a good relationship with ICE, as the agency has been known to deport people in the middle of criminal proceedings. That annoys local prosecutors.

We have been interviewing immigration advocates about what it means to them to change the U.S. immigration system. Our first report is now online. We are collecting feedback from scholars and immigration advocates alike to incorporate into future work. Comments welcome!

osf.io/preprints/so...

- Stripping 1.5+ million people of temporary status
- End of refugee resettlement
- Cutting legal immigration and adding new visa bans
- Overall slowdown of legal immigration
- End to asylum through Kafkaesque rules
- Brutality against asylum seekers
- Increased arrests, detention, and removals.

3. Figure out your city police & county policies/practices around turning immigrants over to ICE. Push for as minimal police-ICE transfer as possible (at traffic stops, upon booking, etc)

POLICE are the path to the vast majority of deportations. ICE only has ~6K agents and can't do much on its own.

Also, if anyone mentions that mass deportations are popular, remind them that people think it means “kick out the bad people only.” When you tell voters what mass deportations entails — breaking up families, internment, rounding up people here for years — it suddenly becomes a very unpopular idea.

The largest ICE worksite raid in history, at a meatpacking plant in Mississippi in 2018, led to 680 arrests. It took dozens of agents, months of planning, thousands of man-hours, and likely cost several million bucks.

Keep that in mind when the Trump admin starts touting splashy numbers next year.

Banished Men by Abigail Andrews - Paper Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

Today, every deportation entails detention or prison. It takes weeks at minimum, months for most & years if you want a hearing (most people don't hold out for due process - the abuse compels them to sign a "voluntary" deportation to get out).

Details in Ch2(free): www.ucpress.edu/books/banish...

ICE detention centers are prison camps designed to reduce immigrants to the sub-human. They use an array of torture techniques written nowhere into their mandate including physical violence, verbal abuse, psychological warfare, and deprivation of food, sleep, and sanitation. 1/

I would add to this RAICES Texas.
www.raicestexas.org

Me please! :)