Noncitizen Voting and the Politics of Common Sense in New York City

Can proposals to expand local voting to noncitizens survive in the era of Stop the Steal?

Even as Republican politicians continue to undermine faith in the U.S. electoral system by erroneously claiming the 2024 election will be “stolen” by undocumented immigrants, the New York Court of Appeals is quietly considering a law that would expand the right to vote in local elections to certain residents of ...
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Noncitizen Voting and the Politics of Common Sense in New York City

A Brief History of Travel Bans

What could follow a Trump victory in November?

On the campaign trail in 2016, Donald Trump promised retribution for the San Bernardino Isis attack in December 2015: he would enact a ban prohibiting the entry of Muslims into the country. It was, unfortunately, one of the campaign promises he made good on. In late January 2017, President Trump signed ...
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A Brief History of Travel Bans

“Blame It on the Immigrant”: The Housing Crisis Edition

Meet the infamously deep-pocketed, undocumented construction laborers building and then stealing American homes

Here’s a tip from the US political playbook: if your campaign is struggling, if you don’t have actual policies but “concepts of a plan,” if you secretly or openly wish for the “good ol’ days” when black people did “black jobs,” if you “forgot” to declare the lavish perks from ...
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“Blame It on the Immigrant”: The Housing Crisis Edition

Low-Paid Industries Rely on Gig Workers. Are They Actually Employees?

A new survey sheds light on the working conditions of New York City’s “independent contractors”

Ask any organizer and you’ll hear how hard it is to reach gig workers. These workers typically lack a physical place of work or regular schedule (though many work all the time), and their work is poorly measured in Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics datasets. The gig workers ...
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Low-Paid Industries Rely on Gig Workers. Are They Actually Employees?

Social Research on Exile

Banishment, “refugeedom,” and the political problem of our time

In the latest issue of Social Research (Vol. 92, No. 1), scholars explore the nature of exile. Some essays reflect on exile forced by war and political persecution, others on the difference between being an exile and being a refugee. TABLE OF CONTENTS Avishai Margalit, "Internal Exile and Politics"This essay has two ...
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Social Research on Exile

Very Far From the Homeland

On contemporary readings from Etel Adnan, Mahmoud Darwish, and Alice Oswald exile in the Iliad

One of the cruelties of the Iliad is how alive each person is made to appear just before they are killed. That is the point of Homer's long, detailed lists of Greeks and Trojans: names, deeds, parents, brothers, spouses, children, lovers, skills, bad hair, swift feet, words, and weapons. The poem about ...
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Very Far From the Homeland