Abstract
The case of the Chandler Roundup provides a unique window into law enforcement practices including the planning, staging and procedures employed in removing undocumented immigrants from a specific urban space. We begin with an overview of the Chandler Roundup and community protests resulting from the five-day immigration raid. This section provides a general outline of the five day raid, including incidents leading up to the joint operation, official investigations conducted and lawsuits filed. The basis of the lawsuits filed was that "individuals were stopped and interrogated by the Chandler Police Department based exclusively on the fact that their physical characteristics suggested that they were of Mexican ancestry. The next section analyzes data collected by the Independent Investigation into the Chandler Police Department's participation. Because there is no documentation of all the stops that occurred during the joint operation, these data are the most complete source available. Coding data for patterns of who, where and when individuals were stopped identifies strategies applied by law enforcement in their policing practice of determining "reasonable suspicion" of illegal entry into the U.S., and thus, suggests blueprints for constructing citizenship status among individuals residing in urban areas. Data analysis investigates the specific activities individuals were engaged in at the time of the stop in order to evaluate actual police practices in determining "reasonable suspicion." The third section presents our findings of personal and community violations reported in witness accounts taken by the Attorney General's office. Witness accounts are also analyzed for statements indicating changes and modifications that citizens and legal residents made in response to racial affronts encountered during the five-day raid. These patterns suggest how meaning and practices of citizenship and urban space were altered. We conclude with a discussion on the limits of Mexican American and legal residents' citizenship participation resulting from micro and macroaggressions endured from ongoing immigration law enforcement.
Recommended Citation
Mary Romero and Marwah Serag,
Violation of Latino Civil Rights Resulting from INS and Local Police's Use of Race, Culture and Class Profiling: The Case of the Chandler Roundup in Arizona,
52 Clev. St. L. Rev.
75
(2005)
available at https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/clevstlrev/vol52/iss1/6
Comments
Symposium: Eighth Annual LatCrit Conference City & The Citizen: Operations of Power, Strategies of Resistance: Section I: City and Citizenship: Between and Beyond the Nation State