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the UC Press open access publishing
program. Visit
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Protect, Serve, and Deport exposes the on-the-ground
workings of local immigration enforcement in Nashville, Tennessee.
Between 2007 and 2012, Nashville’s local jail participated in
an immigration enforcement program called 287(g), which turned jail
employees into immigration officers who identified over ten
thousand removable immigrants for deportation. The vast majority of
those identified for removal were not serious criminals, but Latino
residents arrested by local police for minor violations.
Protect, Serve, and Deport explains how local politics,
state laws, institutional policies, and police practices work
together to deliver immigrants into an expanding federal
deportation system, conveying powerful messages about race,
citizenship, and belonging.