A/Prof. William Clapton1
1UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Biography:
William Clapton is Associate Professor of International Relations at UNSW Sydney. He is the author of Risk and Hierarchy in International Society: Liberal Interventionism in the Post-Cold Era (2014), Immigration, Risk, and Security Under the Trump Administration Keeping ‘Undesirables’ Out (2022), and Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity (2024). He has published articles in the European Journal of International Security; International Relations; International Politics; and Politics.
Abstract:
Two of the major policy initiatives of the first Trump administration were the so-called ‘Muslim Travel Ban’ and the wall along the Mexico-US border. Both resulted in protracted legal battles, mass protests, and, in the case of the wall, the longest US government shutdown in history and a declaration of a national emergency as Trump attempted to circumvent Congress to obtain funding. This paper first argues that these initiatives, and Trump’s approach to immigration more broadly, are centred on a racialized and gendered security logic of risk. This represents specific migrant populations, particularly those from identified ‘risky’ countries and those crossing the southern border with Mexico to enter the US, as inherently ‘risky’, their unchecked flow into and presence within the US a grave risk to national security. At the outset of the second Trump administration after his victory in the 2024 election, this paper explores the ways in which how Trump represents the risks associated with immigration evolved during the election campaign and early months of his subsequent second term. It argues, second, that the use of social media by Trump and key supporters in amplifying outlandish claims of ‘deviant’ migrant behaviour, such as that Haitian immigrants were ‘eating pets’ in Ohio, is an important avenue through which Trump’s evolving policy responses to the issue of immigration have been articulated and advanced. This has been used by Trump to build popular support for controversial and deeply problematic initiatives, such as his proposal for the mass deportation of irregular immigrants.