When the State Shatters Families. The US Family Separation Policy of 2018, Cruelty and Patrimonial Sovereignty

Abstract

Abstract In 2018, the Trump administration separated thousands of families arriving at the US–Mexico border to ask for asylum in the framework of its “zero-tolerance” policy. This extraordinary act of cruelty violated several provisions of international human rights, refugee, and family protections, many of which the United States itself had drafted, initiated, and championed. The article asks about the understanding of sovereignty that underscored the zero-tolerance policy. Drawing on Max Weber's distinction of several forms of legitimating political authority, the article develops the argument that this policy reflects a patrimonial understanding of sovereignty and how this understanding intersects with notions of family and nation. It specifically discusses these intersections in the case of United States’ sovereignty developing in a settler colonial state and in contested borderlands. By developing this perspective, the article draws out the conditions of possibility under which institutional and structural violence can tip into explicitly cruel policies like those of the US family separations of 2018. The article contributes, on the one hand, to analyze deeply the foundations of US understandings of the state's sovereignty and, on the other hand, to better comprehending which types of sovereignty enable cruelty against migrants and refugees at which points in time.