Situating Mexican Immigration in Contemporary U.S. South

As immigration has become embedded with issues of national security in the twenty-first century, leading ultimately toward an escalation of enforcement actions pursued at all levels of government and an unprecedented growth in the immigration detention system, dominant discourse in the United States has bent mostly, though not exclusively, toward highlighting the supposed criminality of the Mexican immigrant population. In order to understand the significance of the period, this essay examines how the dominant narrative of criminality has been reflected in the metropolitan area of Charlotte, North Carolina, in the first decade of the new millennium. The analysis is provided within a historical context of Mexican immigration to the United States, which is directly linked to U.S. government economic and military policies from the mid-nineteenth century to the present.