A Conversation with Philip Kretsedemas: Navigating Borders, Belonging and Histories of Inequality

Philip Kretsedemas is a public intellectual, researcher, and policy analyst with over two decades of experience studying immigration law, social policy, and the complexities of race and national identity. Born in Toronto, Canada, to a Greek father and a Jamaican mother, Philip’s early life was defined by movement—living in the Bahamas, England, and eventually settling in the United States in the late 1970s. He grew up in South Florida, earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Miami, and later pursued a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota.

Philip’s career has been a tapestry of academic and nonprofit work, with roles ranging from professor at UMass-Boston to Managing Director of Research, Evaluation, and Data Analytics at the Acacia Center for Justice. His work, which includes numerous publications, has focused extensively on the relationship between immigration and the black experience, multiculturalism, and the impact of immigration enforcement policies. Now based in the Boston area, Philip continues to shape public discourse through research and writing that bridges the gap between policy and personal ethics.

In this conversation, Philip Kretsdemas reflects on the intersections of identity, policy, and community in a world that seems more divided than ever.

What first sparked your interest in immigration and social policy? 
Growing up between different countries and cultures made me deeply aware of the ways borders—both literal and social—shape our lives. My father’s experiences as a Greek immigrant and my mother’s path to U.S. citizenship highlighted how policies can drastically impact people’s trajectories. I think the turning point was seeing how immigration laws from the 1990s began to erode basic rights for certain communities. I realized then that understanding the driving concerns behind these policies and educating people about more sustainable alternatives was going to be a long-term commitment.

How has your own family history influenced your perspective on immigration? 
My family’s story is a blend of different migration paths—my father’s as a first-generation immigrant from Greece and my mother’s as a Jamaican adjusting to U.S. citizenship. This mix gave me an appreciation for the varied reasons people migrate—whether economic opportunity, safety, or political asylum. It also exposed me to the gaps in how policies are applied and the need for a more humane approach to immigration enforcement.

You’ve worked in both academic and nonprofit sectors. How do these experiences complement each other? 
Academia provided a space to explore the causes and consequences of immigration policies without the immediate pressures of advocacy. On the other hand, my time at Catalyst Miami and with the National Immigration Project taught me the urgency of these issues—how policies play out on the ground and impact real people. At Catalyst Miami, for example, I spent a lot of time organizing forums and documenting stories that focused on the challenges faced by African American. Haitian and Latina welfare recipients.  At the National Immigration Project, I got more involved in policy debates over the role that the federal government and state and local governments should play in immigration enforcement, and also how to avoid letting immigration enforcement compete with the public safety mandate of local governments (which includes the public safety of immigrant communities). Balancing these perspectives has been crucial in developing research that is not just critical but also actionable.

What do you see as the most misunderstood aspect of immigration in the U.S.? 
The biggest misconception is that people migrate only for economic reasons or that immigration is an economic threat. Immigration isn’t just about individuals seeking opportunity—it’s about broader systems that push people to move. Even though immigration can exacerbate economic inequalities in the US, most of these inequalities are felt–most directly–by immigrants themselves and by other vulnerable populations that occupy the most tenuous place in US labor markets.  Meanwhile, immigration has also, historically, been a driver of economic growth for the US, and it continues be a major driver for US workforce development.  If we want to create sustainable solutions for the problems that people associate with immigration, we need to take a closer look at the root causes of global displacement, along with the domestic policies that are driving the widening income and wealth gap in the US.  Just keeping people out–using border control–isn’t going to fundamentally address any of these issues.  And when it comes unauthorized migration (i.e. the “illegal immigrant” question) most people aren’t aware that the rate of unlawful entries has been dropping for some time (not withstanding an uptick that occurred between 2019-2023 which was still low, by historical standards) and that for the past decade or more, the growth of the unauthorized migrant population has come from people who entered the US legally with temporary visas (but couldn’t get them renewed in time, or at all).  Improving security at the border isn’t going to stop the growth of this population. It also bears noting that many visa holders are recruited because of resources and skill sets that made them desirable as productive workers (who pay taxes, drive growth and have the potential to create jobs). I actually share some of the same concerns as people who complain about the downsides of immigration, but when it comes to solutions, we seem to be talking past each other. Everyone needs to slow down and really start listening to each other.

Much of your work on immigration has focused on the black experience. Why is this an essential but often overlooked area? 
My take on why immigration can feed into systems of exploitation begins with the black experience.  Of course, we know that most black people in the US are the descendents of people who were first brought here as enslaved people.  Plus, most black immigrants (who come, predominantly, from the Caribbean) also come from societies that were created by the transatlantic slave trade (I’m one of these people).  If trace your steps back to the antebellum era and view immigration from the viewpoint of enslaved people, it becomes easier to trace the connections between immigration and histories of colonial conquest that functioned by excluding and exploiting many populations (mainly indigenous people, but also enslaved black people and many forms of coerced labor, which also includes white people, if you know anything about the early-colonial history of indentureship).  There are many  other examples that I could give to illustrate this problem, but I’ll just try to sum it up this way.

Immigration is one facet of a model of growth that has been amazingly successful, by most standards.  For example, most people who we define as “low income” in the US  today are safely “middle class” by global standards.  But this model of growth has also functioned by displacing and marginalizing people, which is reflected in statistics like the fact that the US has the largest incarcerated population in the world.  We are so wealthy that we can afford to spend billions of dollars to keep millions of people warehoused  (and pay tens of thousands of people middle class salaries to process and monitor these incarcerated people) as well as spending lots of private and public dollars on “development initiatives” that have actually stifled the growth of the communities that these incarcerated people come from (also keeping in mind that most incarcerated people are in prison for nonviolent crimes including, increasingly, immigrants who’ve been prosecuted for unlawful entry; along with a rise in incarceration rates for low income white, native born people).

The problem, ultimately, isn’t immigration itself, but the model of growth that immigration is part and parcel of.  Even though immigration is, overall, good for the economy, there’s also the question of whether the economy is good for you.  Are you really benefiting from all of the economic growth that’s going on around you, or are you a victim of this growth?  It also bears noting that there are many people who aren’t being deprived by all of this growth–by any objective standard–but who still feel very anxious about their future because of the precarious way that growth tends to happen in the US (and there’s also the relative deprivation dilemma, in which people feel deprived relative to their expectations of mobility).

So, there are a lot of fears that are wrapped up with people’s thoughts about immigration which I think are really anxieties about a history of unequal economic growth and displacement that you see, most clearly, if you look at the struggles of black people in the US (and also indigenous people, but my research focus has been on the black experience).  I think people who aren’t black, are getting more worried about immigration because they realize that there has always been a “dark side” to economic growth in the US, and they no longer feel that they are suitably protected from this “dark side” – and this is a cause for panic.

People who support immigration usually want to advance optimistic narratives about how immigration can work for everyone and why immigration control measures are pointless and needlessly harmful.  And I still think there is reason to be optimistic.  But I also think it’s necessary to be more forthright about the issues I’ve described above. The black experience is a critically important point of entry into all of these issues.

You’ve written extensively on the link between security studies and immigration policy. What drives your interest in this area? 
After 9/11, we saw a shift in immigration policy towards a national security framework, which justified more aggressive enforcement and surveillance.  I was working at the National Immigration Project in the early post 9/11 era (2003-2005) and received a thorough introduction to most of the civil liberties and immigration-related national security issues that were defining the national policy debate at that time.  The connections I made at the National Immigration Project also laid the foundations for my first book length work on immigration enforcement (an anthology co-edited with David Brotherton of CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice) . This book (Keeping Out the Other) provides a good snapshot of the state of US immigration policy and enforcement in the post 9/11 era.  This project (and many others that followed) focused on a critical analysis of security policies that just seemed to be reinforcing longstanding stereotypes of immigrant communities without substantively addressing the public safety concerns that are shared by most low and middle income communities.  There’s a lot more that I could share on this topic (though most of what I have to share is already in print).  Moving forward, though, I want to shift from critiquing security policies, toward a proactive stance.  Instead of pointing out flaws I think it’s necessary to explain what a better, or more viable, security agenda could look like.

What’s one policy change you believe could make a significant impact on the immigration system? 
Ending the practice of mandatory detention for immigrants facing deportation would be a significant step.  We accept detention as a normal thing today, but it wasn’t that long ago (going back to the 1980s) when the vast majority of people in deportation proceedings were paroled and allowed to live in local communities while their cases were being processed.  Parole actually saves the government a lot of money and is preferred by immigrants. It also bears noting that most people who are detained have no criminal background.

But in order to scale back  the detention rate, it would be necessary, first, to reduce the rate of in absentia removal orders (which are orders for deportation that are given to people who don’t show up to court).  There are lots of misconceptions about why these in absentia orders are issued. It isn’t always the case, for example, that immigrants are “absconding” (i.e. running away from the law).  Quite often, people miss their hearing dates because of confusions around scheduling and other miscommunications.

But in any event, in order for the government to go back to using parole as its default option (instead of detention) it needs reliable data showing that all of these released people will actually show up to court.  Investments in case processing efficiency (considering the size of the current immigration court backlog)  and legal education programs for immigrants (which the government already funds) are a important aspects of this solution.  But it is, honestly, a tough time right now to make progress on this issue.  Recently enacted laws, like the Laken Riley Act, which was passed with broad bipartisan support, are moving us even further toward a detention-focused model of immigration court proceedings that could also increase the rate of in absentia removal orders.

What advice would you give to someone entering the field of immigration policy today? 
Stay grounded in the stories of the people directly affected. Policy analysis can become abstract and disconnected. Listening to immigrants, asylum-seekers and those on the frontlines ensures that your work remains relevant and humane.  You should also listen to the stories of people (both immigrant and native-born) who live and work alongside immigrants; including their family members, co-workers,  employers and city council members. Although there are lots of complaints about immigration nowadays, we shouldn’t forget that many native-born people are sympathetic to immigrants and are well aware of the positive contributions that they make to local communities (also considering that many immigrants have US-born relatives).  It’s also important, to listen to the stories of people who are critical of immigration; because we also tend to have stereotypes about who these people are and what their concerns are.  Keep in mind that many of the people who voted for the Trump campaigns immigration agenda in the recent election were first generation immigrants (and Latinos, particularly).  A big part of policy change comes down to who has the most compelling narrative; and if you want to get better at telling stories that people will connect to, you need to spend more time to listening to everyone’s stories.

What’s next for you? 
I’m working on building out my new website with content that uses the problem of extreme violence to revisit and reframe the defining themes of my work immigration, inequality and the history of race in the US (as read through the lens of the black experience).  My starting point for extreme violence will be horrific acts of mass murder that we tend to associate with things like terrorism and school rampage shootings (which were the focus of my classroom teaching for many years at UMass-Boston), but I also plan to expand my framework to examine histories of genocidal violence that connect to the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade.

Simply put, I want to use the analysis of extreme violence to connect the dots between most of the issues that I discussed in this interview.  This focus will still allow me to address policy issues (as needed), but it will also allow me to pivot from a conventional policy analysis, toward an analysis of the root causes of many of the problems we face today–which people project on to things like immigration–but which are really connected to deeper issues. I’m also interested in using some of the most innovative currents in social theory and security studies to (re)conceptualize the core issues that are at stake in this analysis; and to do so in a way that will be accessible to a broader audience.  But I also want to emphasize that this is all a work in progress.

Key Takeaways from the Interview 

1. Immigration policy must address the systemic causes of immigration and not just border enforcement.
2. The black experience in the US, dating to the transatlantic slave trade, provides an important insight into histories of inequality (which are still part of US society) that people tend to blame on immigration.  We need to take a closer look at this history if we want to have a better understanding of the anxieties driving the present-day politics of immigration.
3. People who are for and against immigration are usually talking past each other. In order to create more sustainable immigration policies that work for most people, we need to take more time to listen to everyone’s stories.

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