This article contributes to scholarship that conceptualizes an 'immigration industrial complex', but argues against assertions that the complex represents a 'confluence of interests' or an unintended consequence of immigration policy enforcement. Instead, law regulates immigration and constructs 'illegality' in the interests of global (US) capital. This analysis has two implications. First, private government contractors are only one segment within a broader complex. Second, enforcement through policing, detention, and deportation may not appear to serve the shortterm interests of businesses that depend on undocumented workers, but these practices reflect state investment in the expansion and accumulation of capital. The article refocuses attention toward our collective 'race to the bottom'.

This paper argues that Hurricane Katrina accelerated ongoing social processes involving neoliberal policies, labour migration and racial boundary shifts. In the storm’s wake, neoliberal policies promoted the reorganisation of the local labour force and stimulated the immigration of vulnerable Latino immigrant workers. The ways in which existing labour policies were selectively enforced also worked to promote workers’ vulnerability and to ‘privatise’ risk. These policies were designed to recover and rebuild New Orleans, but ultimately relied on racialising immigrant workers.

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This paper considers #blacklivesmatter an important part of current discussions of race and social justice. It explores the ways in which Twitter users (and students) are developing a globally-connected voice to not only build awareness and solidarity, but also challenge the framing of issues relating to #blacklivesmatter and the ways blacks are represented by a variety of political actors, including the mainstream media. The paper identifies two trends in teaching #blacklivesmatter and its relevance to the classroom: historicizing the “new” civil rights movement and the use of testimony and discussion as a new praxis. The authors conclude that students must be reminded of their ability to influence their own lives by using their personal stories and seizing their voice.

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