ARTICLE Racialized im/migration and autonomy of migration perspectives: New directions and opportunities Daniel Olmos Department of Sociology, California State University, Northridge Correspondence Daniel Olmos, Department of Sociology, California State University, Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330-8318. Email: daniel.olmos@csun.edu Abstract Given the surge of nativist politics in the United States today, scholars are increasingly recognizing the importance of the intersections of race and im/migration. Moving beyond the colorblind assimilation and neo-assimilation the- ories that dominated the social sciences, critical sociologists have opened up new lines of inquiry that highlight the underlying racialized power and inequalities that structure im/migration incorporation. This article provides an over- view of the growing body of literature on racialized im/ migration and explores the importance of understanding the racial order through relational racialization and racialized illegality. The article then introduces newly developed autonomy of migration (AoM) theories and their contribu- tions to the materialist study of im/migration and racialized subordination. The article concludes by suggesting that future research attempt to bridge racialized im/migration and autonomy of migration perspectives. 1 | INTRODUCTION During the 2016 presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump proposed a number of restrictive immigration- related policies such as expanding border wall construction on the United States–Mexico frontier, banning entry to foreign-born Muslims, increasing the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to beef-up inte- rior enforcement, and defunding “sanctuary cities” that provide protection to undocumented im/migrant 1 residents. Through one of Trump's first executive actions as president, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded Obama-era policies that prioritized unauthorized im/migrants with serious criminal records for deportation, mandat- ing instead that ICE “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement” Received: 22 May 2018 Revised: 13 June 2019 Accepted: 5 July 2019 DOI: 10.1111/soc4.12729 Sociology Compass. 2019;e12729. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/soc4 © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1 of 14 https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12729