The state justifies torture by linking undocumented Muslim migrants to underground markets.

Evidence

The post–9/11 deportation and detention of Arab and South Asian immigrants is grounded in a rationale that links those who overstay their visas or enter the U.S. without proper documents to informal, underground markets engaged in illegal transactions. To obtain information about illegal markets, the state’s argument goes, the use of torture is permissible. When exceptional violence becomes the rule, torture is naturalized within the migration system, and the migrant’s body is placed in systems of biopolitical control. — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 757

Categorization

• QUESTION: This rationale — torture justified by illegal-market intelligence needs — is a specific mechanism worth unpacking further; what evidence supports the actual link?
• XREF: Connects to Junaid Rana’s broader argument and to Giorgio Agamben’s state-of-exception framework via the phrase ‘biopolitical control.’