Papers by Terence M Garrett
![Research paper thumbnail of Migration Policy in the Era of Trumpism and Media Spectacle: What a 2024 Trump [or other] Presidency Could Mean for Mexico-U.S. Relations](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/119414027/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Norteamérica, revista académica del CISAN-UNAM/Norteamérica, Feb 9, 2024
Donald Trump may be the Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 election and is facing multi... more Donald Trump may be the Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 election and is facing multiple indictments for alleged crimes committed during his presidency. If convicted, this would make a Trump election victory unlikely, although he is the master of the media spectacle and populist authoritarianism -essential components of Trumpism. I focus on U.S. migration policy consequences affecting Mexico and other states in the Americas if Trump wins in 2024. With a Republican win, the migration policy could revert back to a Title 42 migrant expulsion scenario, with attempts to harden the border using more personnel, infrastructure, and surveillance technology. President Biden, if reelected, is on a course towards increased militarization of the southwest border that is a long-term bipartisan trend with globalizationaccelerated by Trumpism down to the U.S. state level. Analyzing these scenarios, the border securocracy theoretical concept is employed in keeping with Trumpism migration policies.
Revisiting the policy implications of COVID‐19, asylum seekers, and migrants on the Mexico–U.S. border: Creating (and maintaining) states of exception in the Trump and Biden administrations
Politics & Policy
Public policy choices continue to bring dramatic changes to migration practices in the era of the... more Public policy choices continue to bring dramatic changes to migration practices in the era of the coronavirus in the United States. In this article, we argue that the COVID‐19 pandemic facilitated the creation and maintenance of states of exception while continuing to destabilize practices at the Mexico–U.S. border through the politics of fear. Specifically, the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), Zero Tolerance Policy (ZTP), COVID‐19 CAPIO, Asylum Cooperative Agreements (ACA), and Title 42 used an arcane section of U.S. law to immediately expel asylum seekers and refugees. We show that these policies highlight the formation and maintenance of states of exception consistent with the work of Agamben. We further discuss how the politics of fear can reinforce hegemonic narratives targeting asylum seekers while shaping political agendas that lean toward a specific brand of nationalism using public health as a context. The U.S. government under the Trump administration—and the Biden admi...
Politics and Policy, Apr 1, 2020
Trump's DHS implemented the Zero Tolerance policy from April 6 to June 24, 2018. Refugees, preven... more Trump's DHS implemented the Zero Tolerance policy from April 6 to June 24, 2018. Refugees, prevented from crossing the midpoints of bridges by Customs and Border Protection agents, crossed the Rio Grande to ask for asylum, were denied, and forced to cross at places deemed illegal by law. This resulted in misdemeanor violations for unlawful entry and fleeing immigration checkpoints. The policy initiative centered on the separation of children from their migrant parents-refugees fleeing from the northern triangle countries: El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Adult migrants were sent to prisons and holding facilities, brought before a magistrate to plead guilty, and were deported while their children were placed in government-funded privately-owned detention centers. Migrants contend with a security apparatus comprised of border walls, zones of surveillance, agents, and paramilitary troops. This article analyzes the United States (in)security system using Baudrillard's concept of simulacrum supplemented by Foucault's dispositif and Agamben's apparatuses.
The dynamics of government agency transition-its effects on people, policy and programs-are compl... more The dynamics of government agency transition-its effects on people, policy and programs-are complex and difficult to measure. At no place in government has this transition been more turbulent than in agencies thrust into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This paper proposes a means to measure the impact and effect of transition-specifically the US Border Patrol's-into DHS. A survey to measure these dynamics will be suggested. The idea for the survey was developed through a discourse with the former Deputy Director of the US Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas. The Deputy Director expressed some concerns over the anxiety existing in the agency as it was heading towards the transition to the Department of Homeland Security, both in McAllen, Texas and in Washington, DC. After initial positive feedback regarding the usefulness of the survey, DHS, Border Patrol and General Accounting Office (GAO) policy-makers declined to authorize the research. Nevertheless, there are valid lessons to be learned from the process itself. In addition, our survey instrument may prove useful in future analysis. In the sections that follow, we will be explaining how the survey would have been beneficial in a practical manner for affected personnel in the government agency transition. The spectrum of personnel systems currently under deliberation by Congress and the DHS executives will also be outlined, as well as the Government's current vision of management philosophy.
Public voices, 2020
Introduction: A Brief Historical Background of the DHS and CBP DHS was created in the aftermath o... more Introduction: A Brief Historical Background of the DHS and CBP DHS was created in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as part of an overall strategy to protect the borders of the U.S. The Office of Homeland Security was originally designed to provide President George W. Bush with direct advice on how to manage the domestic side of the "War on Terror" that was part of the federal government's plans to ostensibly combat terrorist attacks on USA territory. Congress wanted more "accountability" in the homeland security policy-front and urged President Bush to reorganize 22 separate agencies for other components of the federal government (e.g., agencies primarily from the Departments of Justice, Interior, Treasury, Energy, and Transportation) thereby affecting over 170,000 federal employees (Kettl 2007; Sylves 2015). This was one of the largest bureaucratic reorganizations in U.S. history second only to the Department of Defense creation in 1947. There are three signal events that the DHS has been involved in since its beginning. Each is briefly examined to get an idea of what is important to the development of the newest cabinet-level department. The first was the creation of the DHS since September 11, 2001 (hereafter "9-11"). The 9-11 Commission Report outlined actions to be followed in terms of reorganization for homeland security. One of the issues included the National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Counterterrorism Division to foster increased communication, collaboration, and cooperation for intelligence operations particularly within the borders of the U.S. (Kettl 2007). The overall recommendations and attention drawn toward these separate agencies affected the entire reorganization of the DHS although the aforementioned agencies were not effectively changed. As Kettl (2007) noted, "The reasons used to develop the DHS came from political instead of safety motives" (53). One of the major consequences nonetheless was that the DHS took as its mantra "the War on Terror" and made it its primary focusas depicted in its mission statements, dating back to its beginning with the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Title I, Section 101: The primary mission of the Department is to … Border Security and Immigration Policy Management in South Texas by the Numbers Public Voices Vol. XVII No. 1 5 (A) prevent terrorist attacks within the United States; (B) reduce the vulnerability of the United States to terrorism; and (C) minimize the damage, and assist in the recovery, from terrorist attacks that do occur within the United States (DHS 2002, Sec. 101, italics added for emphasis). The mission statement exemplifies the primary executive-centered direction for the DHS. This departmental direction will have severe consequences later as natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina figure more prominently in what the DHS actually has to do in terms of protecting the homeland. The 2002 mission statement is a direct consequence of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. The second event was Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 that drew public attention towards DHS in a very negative manner. In that catastrophic event, nearly 2,000 Americans lost their lives mainly due to the collapse of levees in New Orleans. DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were determined to be primarily culpable for a weak and delayed response. The Department of Homeland Security was in a period of transition and transformation since its inception in 2003. DHS was created primarily as a direct result of the events surrounding 9-11. Hurricane Katrina also had the effect of causing DHS to reassess its mission because of that calamity that moved
Border securocracy: Global expansion of the U.S. Department of homeland security bureaucratic apparatus before, during and beyond covid-19
Administrative Theory & Praxis
Maryland Journal of International Law, 2018
COVID ‐19, asylum seekers, and migrants on the Mexico–U.S. border: Creating states of exception
Politics & Policy
Public Voices, 2016
Recent and past problems with the NASA shuttle program are illustrative of decisionmaking problem... more Recent and past problems with the NASA shuttle program are illustrative of decisionmaking problems centered at the executive level of knowledge on the organizational pyramid. The poor responses to hurricanes Katrina and Rita by executives at all levels of government, but particularly with regard to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), also bear scrutiny. These catastrophic incidents, beyond the obvious partisan/political differences and the physical and psychological devastation, are demonstrative of management failures in their respective organizations. The author argues that the key to unlocking the conundrum of management failure rests with the fact that multiple knowledges exist in modern organizations like NASA, DHS, and FEMA and the use and development of the knowledge analytic offers new theoretical insights for understanding managerialcrises.
An Interpretive-Phenomenological Critique of the Science of (New?) Public Management: A Polemic
Public Voices, 2016
Public Administration as a field of academic inquiry has faced numerous challenges. Public manage... more Public Administration as a field of academic inquiry has faced numerous challenges. Public management scholars focus exclusively on the executive level of management in public organizations. Knowledge possessed by lower-level managers, workers, and/or the public is ignored and deemed to be irrelevant or unimportant in the decision-making process within agencies. In general, technical rationality, or what passes for traditional management practice and the new public management, has had some success for executives and managers in public organizations insofar as motivating individuals for instrumental purposes. (*) The success of public management as a social and political movement makes it difficult to overcome. The concentration of the “public management movement” on the executive level of management has supplanted traditional public administration and public service. It is the ideology of public management that is the primary focus of this paper. Alternatives including the New Publi...
Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2010
Policy Memo: Political Violence and Terrorism on the Mexico-US Border
Tiroteos En Estados Unidos Y Desafios Para La Frontera Con Mexico, 2019
Title: COVID-19, Wall building, and the effects on Migrant Protection Protocols by the Trump administration: The spectacle of the worsening human rights disaster on the Mexico-U.S. border For: Administrative Theory & Praxis Call for Dialogue submissions Rhetoric, Reality, and Pandemic Response
The author argues that stories told by managers, and the subsequent judgments they make when enga... more The author argues that stories told by managers, and the subsequent judgments they make when engaged in the actual work, arc an effective way to communicate useful knowledge to students and practitioners of public administration. The recent Oklahoma City bombing produced a massive response by many government agencies. The Oklahoma City Fire Department was on the scene early and had primary responsibility for safety and rescue. The event produced a complex set of problems for administrators and required changes in rules and procedures that had not been taken into account in planning. Using a case study approach, the author argues that adaptation to a chaotic milieu requires an understanding and appreciation of the human capacity for innovation. This is often not recognized as legitimate by traditional scientific analysis. Numerous recent critical and interpretive contributions to the study of organizations have contradicted the academic orthodoxy of rationalism and functionalism domi...
Reinventing" Higher Education
The authors analyze public higher education policy in Texas during the current era of fiscal aust... more The authors analyze public higher education policy in Texas during the current era of fiscal austerity in the state through Morgan’s (2006) images of organizations. Scarce resources have led to cuts in educational funding and a refocusing of faculty work using statistical methods designed to enhance the status of teaching over research. In the name of efficiency using “reinventing government” rhetoric, politically appointed Regents and their ideological proponents in the Texas Public Policy Foundation have made attempts to turn what is commonly thought of as a public good into a consumer one. Faculty and their supporters have resisted these initiatives. The authors employ Morgan’s (2006) images of organizations as political systems, cultures, and psychic prisons to explain the conflict and lack of consensus between these affected groups. Faculty performance data released by Texas A&M University and the University of Texas – the only two major public research universities in the coun...
The American Review of Public Administration, 2001
The author argues that the Challenger space shuttle launch disaster and the Bureau of Alcohol, To... more The author argues that the Challenger space shuttle launch disaster and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raid on the Branch Davidian compound both offer insights for managers and organization theorists as to how managers make judgments concerning their employees based on conceptions of how the employees ought to do their work. Managers with a knowledge of “management as science” objectify the work of employees under them. Workers know their work as craft based on firsthand experience. The author argues that traditional management practice results in decision making that does not take into account the knowledge of all organizational participants, and this leads to catastrophe. “Worker” knowledge and “management” knowledge, as well as other kinds of knowledge in organizations, are frequently incompatible. This aspect is characteristic of modern organizations but tends to be accentuated during times of organizational crisis. These two cases illustrate well the problems...
Whither Challenger, Wither Columbia
The American Review of Public Administration, 2004
The Challenger and Columbia similarities in management decision making with regard to the ill-fat... more The Challenger and Columbia similarities in management decision making with regard to the ill-fated shuttle mission failures bear scrutiny. Key aspects of both tragedies include senior-level managers ignoring the advice from experts within the NASA organization leading to tragedy. NASA is typical of modern organizations in the tendency to relegate worker knowledge below that of managers and executives. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board has determined that the organizational/management culture was a key factor in the demise of the Columbia. The author argues that culture, although an important contributor to the tragedy, is inadequate for assessing the problem. Differences in knowledge between executives, managers, and the workers are key to unlocking the central problem of the NASA organization. The author uses and develops the theoretical approach that delves into multiple knowledges in organizations that is known as the “knowledge analytic.”
Interorganizational Collaboration and the Transition to the Department of Homeland Security: A Knowledge Analytic Interpretation
Administration & Society, 2010
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) transition has shown problems between executive politic... more The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) transition has shown problems between executive political leadership, management associations, and labor unions, despite “collaborative efforts,” resulting in bureaucratic inertia. This means slower incremental changes for proposed personnel reforms based on private business models advocated by presidential administrations in recent years. The author submits that collaborati©ve organizational reforms advocated by those at the top
Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2010
The authors listed above and a few others met during the 2009 Public Administration Theory Networ... more The authors listed above and a few others met during the 2009 Public Administration Theory Network Conference, as part of the Open Space Technology process, to talk about what the new Obama administration might mean for public administration theory. Open Space Technology is a self-organizing process where participants set their own agenda to discuss complex topics of interest (see . This essay summarizes our conversation and presents some ideas for moving forward public administration theory). The group generally had a sense of hope about the future of public administration within this new Obama era. The Obama administration has brought a new appreciation for government and the public service and also recognizes that markets do not solve all of our problems. In his inaugural speech, President Obama called for "the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.
Uploads
Papers by Terence M Garrett