Racial Profiling and Immigration Law Enforcement: Rounding Up of Usual Suspects in the Latino Community

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, immigration enforcement in the United States underwent a dramatic escalation that disproportionately impacted Latino communities. This article by Mary Romero examines how racial profiling became embedded in routine immigration enforcement practices, transforming everyday encounters with law enforcement into sites of racial surveillance and control.

Romero documents how the “rounding up of usual suspects” — a pattern of targeting individuals based on racial appearance, language, and surname rather than evidence of immigration violations — created a climate of fear that extended far beyond undocumented immigrants to affect U.S. citizens and legal residents of Latin American descent.

The analysis draws on legal cases, community testimony, and policy analysis to demonstrate how the conflation of Latinidad with illegality has produced a system of de facto racial policing that violates constitutional protections and undermines the civil rights of millions of Americans. Published in Critical Sociology, this article has become an important reference for scholars studying the intersection of immigration enforcement and racial justice.