Tag: International Relations

Uneven Citizenship: Post-September 11th Immigration Enforcement and Separation of Arab, Middle Eastern, and Muslim Families

Presenter(s): Raimy Khalife-Hamdan—International Relations, Romance Languages

Faculty Mentor(s): Tobin Hansen

Session 1: Global Views—We vs. Them

The shocking September 11th terrorist attacks prompted an immediate and drastic response from the US government . More than 1,200 Middle Eastern, Arab, or Muslim noncitizen adults were immediately detained and deported within two months . What were the social effects on their US citizen children? And what do these impacts reveal about the unevenness of US citizenship? Drawing from anthropological research on Latinx family separation in the US, this research examines the harmful impacts on children’s physiological, developmental, and psychological health associated with family disruption and speculates about the fallout of family separation immediately following 9/11 . These US citizen children, now adults, were active agents within their transforming family structures while also being subject to the racialization and criminalization inherent in the violent mechanisms of immigration enforcement . Since citizen children of mixed status families are implicated and indirectly punished for their families’ precarious legal statuses, citizenship is not a determinative assurance of protection, but one mediator of experience along with other social factors and identities . Most importantly, the harmful impacts of family separation on both citizen and non-citizen children alike suggest the need for the US government to adopt more humane immigration enforcement practices and valorize family units as well as all children’s health, development, and wellbeing .

Lebanon, the European Neighborhood Policy, and the Syrian Refugee Crisis: A Lebanese equation for EU national security?

Presenter(s): Raimy Khalife-Hamdan—International Relations, Romance Languages

Session 1: Global Views—We vs. Them

Formerly considered the Paris of the Middle East, Beirut once displayed her millennium-old ties to Europe through architectural glory, refined cuisine, and French schools, which were commodified proof of the 1923–46 French Mandate’s influence on Lebanese society . Now, Europe reclaims its leverage over Lebanon through EU institutions, particularly the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) . Evident in European Commission documents and social scientists’ research, the EU-Lebanese relationship is asymmetric, especially as Lebanon struggles to absorb over one-and-a-half million Syrian refugees in a population of six million Lebanese . While glamorizing the ENP as a development- inducing instrument that provides aid to the Lebanese community in exchange for economic liberalization and state democratization, the EU utilizes the ENP as a facade of benevolence in order to promote reforms that nurture Europe’s own regional security agenda .

Furthermore, just as the implementation of the ENP is politically-serving, the EU treats the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis as an opportunity to advance its own interests in Lebanon by enforcing refugee containment mechanisms to avoid Europe’s destabilization . As the Syrian refugee crisis worsens, Lebanese debt accrues, and Lebanese civilians are frantic over increasing unemployment, Lebanon has become dangerously reliant upon the ENP . The more Lebanon relies on EU aid, the more likely it will be to submit to reform and lose its political autonomy . Unfortunately, Lebanon seems to lack any other choice .