Undocumented and Undesirable: The Immigration Industrial Complex as it Affects LGBT Migrants

Abstract

In the wake of Trump’s election as president in 2016, a striking amount of restrictive immigration policies have been implemented. These policies affect millions of undocumented people across the country, especially gay and transgender immigrants, who are already targeted by law and immigration enforcement that stereotype them as being inherently suspicious and deviant. To understand this subject, we will explore the origins of how LGBT identity has been stigmatized and criminalized in the United States, the history of homophobic and transphobic immigration laws, the nature of the immigration industrial complex, recent changes in policy, forms of resilience amongst LGBT immigrants, then finally tying this with intersectional and abolitionist theory.