The expansion of “crimmigration,” mass detention, and deportation

Abstract

In recent years, the deportation and detention of immigrants has become a common phenomenon around the world. In this article, we shed light on the global expansion of crimmigration (the increasingly blurring of lines between immigration and criminal laws) and examine in depth the United States as an example of this trend. Crimmigration scholarship has largely focused on the processes in which laws, media narratives, and political discourses criminalize undocumented immigrants. We summarize the literature that demonstrates how these processes are predicated on the racialization and gendering of certain immigrants, in the United States and elsewhere. Using the US case as an example, we discuss how criminalization practices are closely tied to for profit prison interests. Finally, we provide suggestions for future research to critically examine the criminalization of immigration and immigrants.

Immigrant socioeconomic mobility in the United States: Mechanisms of inequality and the role of ethnic capital

“…While U.S. immigration officials judiciously select college‐educated Asian immigrants in numbers that replenish and reinforce stereotypes of high academic attainment for descendants of these groups (Lee & Zhou, ; Tran et al, ), the irregularly supported and criminalized migration of Latin Americans to the United States has historically complicated the socioeconomic mobility of second‐generation Latinos (Gentsch & Massey, ; Menjívar, ; Menjívar, Cervantes, & Alvord, ; Motomura, ; Zayas, ). As a result, sizeable numbers of second‐generation Latinxs shoulder the challenges of undocumented legal status during the transition to college (Enriquez & Saguy, ; Gonzales, ).…”

Immigrant rights and social movements

“…Stringent immigrant enforcement tactics may violate human rights and create generalized distress and anxiety in communities (Golash‐Boza, ). Scholars have demonstrated an increase in immigration law enforcement raids, detentions, and deportations since 2006 (Menjívar, Gómez Cervantes, & Alvord, ; Sampaio, ; Walters & Cornelisse, ). Indeed, deportations continued with a steady increase between 1998 and 2012 (Golash‐Boza, ).…”

The Politics of Punishment and Protection: A Comparative Historical Analysis of American Immigration Control, 1990–2017

“…Conversely, in recent years, many jurisdictions across the United States have embarked on an increasingly punitive and exclusive approach to governing immigration (Bacon ; Aas and Bosworth ). This includes a heightened level of border patrol and monitoring, an increased involvement of the criminal justice system in immigration enforcement, the fast proliferation of detention and deportation for undocumented immigrants and other immigrant offenders, and recent federal executive orders limiting refugee resettlement and barring travel from certain Muslim‐majority countries (Menjívar, Gómez Cervantes, and Alvord ). As a result, these tactics have led to an increase in the number of immigrant offenders in federal criminal courts, with immigration offenses accounting for 56 percent of the increase in federal prison admissions (Mallik‐Kane, Parthasarathy, and Adams ).…”