Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor of Political Science, Howard University

Expert Bio

Dr. Niambi Carter earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University (2007) working primarily in the area of American Politics with a specific focus on Race and Ethnic Politics, Black Politics, Public Opinion, and Political Behavior. Her book, American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship (2019, Oxford University Press), investigates African American public opinion on immigration. Prof. Carter’s other work explores themes of citizenship, national identity, and national belonging with a particular emphasis on Black Americans.

Her work has appeared in the Journal of Politics; National Review of Black Politics; Political Psychology; Politics, Groups, and Identities; and many others. She is the recipient of a number of fellowships and awards from organizations such as the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, the Consortium for Faculty Diversity Predoctoral Fellowship, and the Center for the Study of African American Politics. She is a native of Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Expertise

• Migration
• U.S. Politics
• Racial and Ethnic Politics
• Black Politics
• Latin America
• North America

Wilson Center Project

Special Procedures: On Haiti, Black Leadership, and U.S. Refugee Policy, 1979-1998

Project Summary

This work examines how the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), reframed the Haitian refugee crisis of the 1970s through the 1990s as not only one of humanitarian justice, but racial justice. Under the leadership of Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the CBC challenged the ‘special procedures’ applied to Haitian refugees that lead to disparate treatement in the adjudication of their asylum applications. This work tracks how U.S.-based Black politics has long been attentive to and invested in politics of the larger African diaspora. In particular, this work illuminates the myriad ways that (anti-)blackness has influenced American foreign policy. By centering the so-called Haitian refugee crisis in discussions of American refugee policy, this work will help us better understand the current refugee “crisis” at the southern border as many of the policies that were developed to address Haitian arrivals have been refined and are currently in use in the present.

Major Publications

• American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship
• Race and Nation: How Racial Hierarchy Shapes National Attachments
• Perceptual Knots and Black Identity Politics: Linked Fate, American Heritage, and Support for Trump Era Immigration Policy