Speculative immigration policy

• Author: Matthew Boaz
• Position: Visiting Director, Immigrant Rights Clinic, Washington & Lee University School of Law, J.D. Georgetown University Law Center
• Pages: 183-235

ARTICLES

SPECULATIVE IMMIGRATION POLICY

MATTHEW BOAZ*

ABSTRACT

This Article considers how speculative fiction was wielded by the Trump

administration to implement destructive U.S. immigration policy. It analyzes

the thematic elements from a particular apocalyptic novel, traces those

themes through actual policy implemented by the president, and considers

the harm effected by such policies. This Article proposes that the harmful out-

comes are not due to the use of speculative fiction, but rather the failure to

consider the speculative voices of those who have been historically marginal-

ized within the United States. This Article argues that alternative speculative

visions could serve as a platform for radical imagination about future U.S. immi-

gration policies. In doing so, it offers a safe space for policymakers and others to

consider ideas that might be far outside their normal political or social circles.

For instance, speculative fiction creates an opportunity to engage with ideas

that might otherwise be “third rails” such as the abolition of various policing

forces, critiques of sovereignty, and open borders. Speculative fiction can, there-

fore, provide a secure realm within which one can be free to explore ideas that

they might otherwise feel prohibited from considering. Here, this Article pro-

poses that engaging with speculative fiction written by authors from marginal-

ized backgrounds can help to shift both individual and institutional perceptions

about what bold reconstructive policy changes might be possible.

* Visiting Director, Immigrant Rights Clinic, Washington & Lee University School of Law, J.D.

Georgetown University Law Center. This work benetted from the insight of participants at the 2021

NYU Clinical Law Review Writers’ Workshop, the 2022 AALS Clinical Conference, and attendees at the

2022 Law, Culture, and Humanities Conference. I am grateful for the generous and instructive feedback

on early drafts I received from participants in the 2021 Mid-Atlantic Clinicians summer kickoff event and

at the 2021 Biennial Applied Legal Storytelling Conference. Thanks to Binney Yoon ‘23 and McClayne

Thomas ’24 for their research assistance. Gratitude to Faiza Sayed for her feedback on multiple drafts and

Alison Peck for her encouragement of this project. Last, thank you to the fastidious editors of the

Georgetown Immigration Law Journal for elevating the ideas presented in this piece and working to

ensure their clarity. © 2023, Matthew Boaz.

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First, this Article analyzes the use of Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints

by the Trump administration as an ideological foundation for its harmful im-

migration policies. This xenophobic, speculative fiction novel envisions the

demise of Western civilization at the hands of mass migration. Second, this

Article promotes the idea that speculative fiction can be useful and generative

for imagining new immigration policies in the United States. Specifically, this

Article claims that the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic created a nation-

wide (if not worldwide) sense of apocalypse. Such a collective experience pro-

vides an opportunity for universal reconsideration of historical policy norms,

particularly those involving immigration. Finally, this Article notes that it is

essential that these alternative visions be sourced from “oppositional story-

tellers,” to use Richard Delgado’s phrase. Examples abound: W.E.B. DuBois’

The Comet and legal scholar Derrick Bell’s The Space Traders. This Article

offers additional visions: Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon of the Crusted Snow, Omar

El Akkad’s American War, and Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower as exam-

ples for reframing conceptions of ‘apocalypse’from the viewpoint of the margi-

nalized in Western culture. This Article concludes that, while notions of

abolition and other taboo progressive policy proposals may seem apocalyptic to

some, this apprehension is based in fear of the unknown. By crafting specific

speculative visions, these authors, as well as others, can make clear that such

radical imagination in crafting humane policies can produce a knowable future

that is both manifest and necessary.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ......................................... 185

I. SPECULATIVE FICTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

A. Definition(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

B. The Camp of the Saints .......................... 190

1. Plot Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

2. Critical Reception. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

3. Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

a. Sovereignty and Self-determinism . . . . . . . . . . . 194

b. Fear ................................ 197

c. Apocalypse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

C. A Link from the Camp of the Saints to the Trump

Administration ................................ 200

184 GEORGETOWN IMMIGRATION LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 37:183

II. SPECULATIVE FICTION AND THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION . . . . . . . . 202

A. The Muslim Travel Ban (Fear) ..................... 202

B. Child Separation at the Border (Sovereignty/Self-determin-

ism) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

C. The Precipitous Decline in Refugee Admissions

(Apocalypse) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

III. NARRATIVE, SPECULATION, AND THE LAW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

A. Speculation and the Exertion of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

B. An Innate Narrative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

C. An Example of Narrative Vision - The Left Hand of

Darkness .................................... 218

IV. THE VISION – RADICAL IMAGINATION EXTENDED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

A. New Ways for an Intractable Issue .................. 222

B. Speculative Visions............................ 224

1. Waubgeshig Rice - Moon of the Crusted Snow . . . . . . 225

2. Omar El Akkad - American War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

3. Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower............ 228

V. LEGAL FICTIONS AND SPECULATIVE NARRATIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

A. Legal Fictions in Immigration..................... 231

B. Beyond Apocalypse - Abolition as (re)Constructive . . . . . . 233

VI. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

“Narrative fiction provides a controlled wilderness, an opportunity to

be and to become the Other. The stranger. With sympathy, clarity, and

the risk of self-examination.”—Toni Morrison

1

INTRODUCTION

In a 2020 interview, David Horowitz, a conservative political operative,

observed how President Obama had successfully wielded “hope” as a narrative

1. TONI MORRISON, THE ORIGIN OF OTHERS 91 (2017).

2023] SPECULATIVE IMMIGRATION POLICY 185