In the current post 9/11 juncture, immigrants and asylum seekers are increasingly spending time in US local, state and federal prisons for violation of a host of newly-enacted or newly-enforced security laws. This change affects individuals throughout the immigration system, from the inmates and their families to correction officers and public defenders. It creates tensions within a correctional system not designed to accommodate large numbers of foreigners. Cultural differences among inmates, and between inmates and prison officials, get played out on a daily basis over a range of concerns: inter-cultural communication; religious practices; access to appropriate foods; and family relations. The summary incarceration of immigrants and asylum seekers, who, through lack of resources or knowledge, are often forced to act without legal counsel, is creating heightened tension within immigrant communities who find themselves on the wrong side of new laws. They also affect law enforcement officials who are charged with tasks for which they are ill-equipped. All these dynamics in turn create a powerful force field that must be understood and confronted by those lawyers that undertake representation of detained immigrants and asylum seekers, and by other professionals who serve or otherwise deal with inmates, families, corrections personnel and others involved in the situation.

Barsky will provide early findings from a study aimed at offering an inventory of the range of cultural concerns expressed by people on both sides of the incarceration issue, including interviews with persons familiar with the incarceration of migrants. The hope is to offer a thorough representation of intercultural concerns and misunderstandings on both sides, with the overall goal of improving a situation of growing concern.

Lazos will compare findings from her previous work on Latino migration to rural and small-town Missouri with her current work on Latino migration to Las Vegas, Nevada. Her earlier work gave her an opportunity to observe impacts as the Midwestern meatpacking industry adopted new production and workforce strategies. It also enabled her to study ways that law sometimes structures the entry of new migrants into local labor markets. Her present work enables her to consider parallel questions in Las Vegas - one of the new "gateway cities" that have begun to supplant traditional urban ports of entry like Los Angeles. In her presentation, Lazos will discuss how migration and settlement patterns vary in rural and urban settings, some of the similar and contrasting policy questions that confront different kinds of receiving communities, and implications for advocates about how to better represent immigrants in these contexts.

As Latina and Latino migrants enter into non-traditional geographical regions and begin a search for shelter, they encounter local rental markets. Their arrival, together with a range of reactions from landlords, neighbors, and elected officials, has an impact on housing markets and also on landlord-tenant law. Increasingly common are housing-related municipal ordinances that target newly arriving populations for control or exclusion. This presentation will examine some of these dynamics as they are playing out in certain new destination communities in the Midwest. It will also explore what these finding suggest about effective strategies for legal representation of Latino tenants and tenants' rights organizations in settings of this kind.