Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 3, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2018 | Page 31

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
and liberties, directly impacts and affects the form and substance of public order,
authority, and policy. Due to the potential for illimitable application, Security can
present serious challenges to democratic societies wherein civil rights, liberties,
and assorted political freedoms are deemed foundational ordering principles that
inform the character and content of society.
Securitizing immigration, characterizing it as an existential threat to U.S.
national security, has profound implications for Executive power and American
national identity in the context of a democratic political system. Securitized immigration
raises the disconcerting questions of: who exactly are or should constitute
the American People, what is the nature of Executive power in defining the
character and content of the American People, what role does (or should) Security
play in formulating immigration policy, and what values do the American People
subscribe to (given the fact that public authority in the United States is legitimized,
in theory, by the will of the People)? The present controversy over the Executive’s
immigration agenda exemplifies the importance of clearly expounding upon the
consequences that securitization has vis-à-vis the SLPP. In the case of immigration,
especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the “prominence of immigration in
the national security debate has been controversial and has legitimized a selective
enforcement policy drawn along lines of race, religion, nationality, and citizenship.
The vestiges of 9/11 also reveal how immigration laws [have been] borne out of
national security concerns” (Wadhia 2017, 672). Examining immigration in the
present in light of the SLPP nexus reveals the deep interrelationship between security,
law, and policy, the consequences of securitization, and why it is important to
explain and understand the magnitude of securitizing immigration on American
politics and identity.
Effectuating Public Safety
“Security” in the uppercase, throughout this work, refers to an analytic
meta-signifier. “Security” as opposed to “security” is indicative of a discursive
formation, a set of processes that constitute (and is constituted
of) variegated interpretations of the meaning, purpose, and content of power and
order (see Chandler 2007). Despite multifarious interpretations, indicated by the
lower-case “security,” Security is a notion that applies to all forms of order, society,
sociopolitical, and economic organization embodied in formal and informal political
units. Thus, Security is potentially hyper-expansive in nature and can lead to a
politics of securitization that gives rise to an economy of power that brings about
a domain of securitization that Michel Foucault has termed a “Society of Security”
(Foucault 2007, 10–11). In such a society, Security becomes the preeminent focus
of public policy, and can be expanded to the point where securitized policy may
result in “no tiny corner of the realm escap[ing] this general network of the sovereign’s
orders and laws” (Foucault 2007, 10–11). For example, “In the context of the
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