A. Naomi Paik delivers a free, public online lecture as part of the Spring 2021 Intra-Disciplinary Seminar series that examines the apparent “crises” over immigration in the contemporary moment, marked by three signature executive orders authorized by the Trump Administration in its first week in office: the “Muslim Ban,” the U.S.- Mexico border wall, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. By examining the long histories that have built a deeply rooted, robust foundation for these anti-immigrant attacks, the talk will discuss how the targeting of certain noncitizens is neither new, nor isolated, but reaches back to the settler colonial foundations of the United States and to the birth of immigration restrictions in the 19th century. The talk concludes by raising the potential of combining abolitionist and sanctuary movement organizing that takes seriously the demands to create “sanctuary everywhere” and “sanctuary for all.”

Zoom registration required.

A. Naomi Paik is the author of Bans, Walls, Raids, Sanctuary: Understanding U.S. Immigration for the 21st Century (2020, University of California Press), Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II (2016, UNC Press; winner, Best Book in History, AAAS 2018; runner-up, John Hope Franklin prize for best book in American Studies, ASA, 2017), and multiple writings in academic and public-facing venues. She has co-edited three special issues of the Radical History Review—on “Militarism and Capitalism," “Radical Histories of Sanctuary,” and “Policing, Justice, and the Radical Imagination”—and will coedit “Against the Anthropocene.” With Gerry Cadava and Cat Ramirez, she also coedits the “Borderlands” section of Public Books. She is an associate professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

The IDS public lecture series is part of the Robert Lehman Visiting Artist Program at The Cooper Union. We are grateful for major funding from the Robert Lehman Foundation. The IDS public lecture series is also made possible by generous support from the Open Society Foundations.