The Association for Queer Anthropology Statement on US Migrant Detention Practices and the “Muslim Ban”
The Association for Queer Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association, strongly condemns the current practice of migrant and asylee detention by the US government, especially the separation of children from their caregivers. We additionally rebuke the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Hawaii, as well as the executive order “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” commonly referred to as the “Mulsim Ban,” on which it is based.
As anthropologists who study race, gender and sexuality, we are especially aware of the use of sexual and gender humiliation and rape as a weapon by military actors around the world. We are also well aware of the toxic effects of xenophobia and racism on which the “Muslim Ban” is based. We write to sound the alarm to stop the most vulnerable, already at-risk people from being subjected to the psychological torture of family separation and inconclusive detention. We blow the whistle on the Trump administration’s decision to impose these draconian penalties on a population who is majority poor, Indigenous and politically hopeless. We decry this as a crime against humanity and demand its immediate cessation.
Furthermore, we decry the cynical decision made by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court to uphold Trump’s “Muslim Ban,” which represents the court’s own Islamophobic bias. Given the court’s recent decision in support of a Christian litigant in Masterpiece Bakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court reveals the rights claims of LGBTQ persons regarding discrimination are second to the rights claims of Christians regarding their homophobia. The equation of Muslims with terrorists is a fundamental violation of the first amendment rights of almost two million Americans, many who have ties to Syria, Libya, Iran, Yemen, Chad, Somalia, North Korea and Venezuela.
Asylum has been practiced by cultures and civilizations globally since antiquity and has endured as a cornerstone of political justice due to the understanding that individuals persecuted in their homeland have the right to seek refuge in another. Donald Trump and his administration have put a halt to this ancient practice; we demand that all asylum cases resume immediately, in good faith, without the detention of any asylum seekers. We also demand that the US government makes transparent the process of child reunification with caregivers.