Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2026
ISSN
0197-4564
Publisher
University of California - Davis
Language
en-US
Abstract
This Article builds on the scholarship of Kevin R. Johnson, whose work has long illuminated how immigration law and constitutional doctrine have enabled the subordination of Latines through racial profiling,2 language discrimination,3 and exclusion from civic institutions, like juries.4 His analyses of juror exclusion and the importance of a diverse judiciary underscore how the composition of civil and criminal factfinders shapes both recognition of harm and the remedies afforded.5 Long before the current period of intensified, abusive immigration enforcement, his scholarship traced the historical roots of these practices, examined their contemporary manifestations, and revealed the ways in which the law itself has sanctioned their persistence.6 In honoring that work, this Article seeks not only to document a moment of crisis, but to emphasize a broader truth: the most enduring borders in U.S.-American life are not always at the nation’s edge, but are embedded within its laws, its institutions, and its legal and social understanding of who belongs.
This Article proceeds in four parts. Part I examines the terror of the present moment, as ICE abuses against Latines unfold and intensify.7 Part II analyzes the legal protections available — but underutilized — for Latines in the United States, highlighting existing protections under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.8 Part III explores the fault lines in our legal system and society, identifying racial profiling, language discrimination, and the failure to recognize colonialism as structural problems that allow such abuses to persist and worsen.9 Part IV considers some of the safeguards needed to contain these harms and reduce their recurrence.
Recommended Citation
Jasmine Gonzales Rose,
The Colonial Borders Within: Racial Profiling, Language, and Civil Juries
,
59
U.C. Davis Law Review
2677
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4306
Included in
Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Immigration Law Commons, Law and Race Commons, Law and Society Commons
