From Natives to Aliens

This article examines the removals of Indigenous-ancestry immigrants over the past twenty-five years in the United States. Specifically, we analyze (1) the deportations of Mexican/Latinx immigrants around the period of the 2008 Great Recession and (2) the historical connections with the removals of people of Indigenous ancestry/heritage (PIAH). Reviewing scholarly literature and analyzing data from the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), we argue that Mexican and some Latinx nationalities (Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Salvadoreans) have been constructed as "aliens" and "outsiders" in the United States, not due to their migration status but due to their indigeneity and continuous history of colonial oppression. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of coloniality and ntersectionality, we ground our analysis in what we call interactive colonization, and we show how the removals of largely Brown people-specifically PIAH-from the United States have been shaped by race, gender, and class since the country's foundation and expansion. The proposed framework uniquely highlights the nature of interacting colonialisms in shaping the migration and incorporation of these people in the United States

Genealogy · Political science · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

• The Multiple Lives of Internal Colonialism

  Open Access•Upasana Bibha, Agustin Lao-Montes et al.•Sociological Forum•2026

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