Immigration Enforcement in Meatpacking Plants with Professor Jennifer Chacón

Today on Repast, Michael and Diana interview Professor Jennifer Chacón, Professor of Law at Berkeley Law, and previously a Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law, about immigration enforcement in meatpacking and poultry processing plants.  They discuss her chapter, “Spectacular Immigration Enforcement in Hidden Spaces,” from the forthcoming book, Carceral Logics: Connections Between Human Incarceration and Animal Confinement, edited by Lori Gruen and Justin Marceau.  

Among other things, they talk about the history of working conditions in the meatpacking industry, the concept of deportability and its relationship with racism, the hidden nature of meat and poultry production and the exploitation of workers, and some Biden administration policy proposals to address several of these issues.

Jennifer Chacón is Professor of Law at UC Berkeley.

Michael T. Roberts is the Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

Diana Winters is the Deputy Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA Law.

More of Professor Chacón’s publications are here. 

And here are some additional sources, selected by Professor Chacón, on topics discussed today: 

Tanya Maria Golash-Boza, DEPORTED: IMMIGRANT POLICING, DISPOSABLE LABOR, AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM (2015)

 Justin Marceau, BEYOND CAGES: ANIMAL PROTECTION AND CRIMINAL PUNISHMENT (Cambridge 2019)

Angela Streusse, SCRATCHING OUT A LIVING: LATINOS, RACE, AND WORK IN THE DEEP SOUTH (2016)

Nicolas de Genova, Migrant "Illegality" and Deportability in Everyday Life, 31 Annual Review of Anthopology (2002) 

Kristy Nabhan-Warren, MEATPACKING AMERICA: HOW MIGRATION, WORK, AND FAITH UNITE AND DIVIDE THE HEARTLAND (forthcoming 2022)