Family Separation as State-Corporate Crime

Abstract

Historically, state practices of family separation have been used against disempowered, marginalized, and otherwise “undesirable” groups of people to correct, exterminate, punish, reform, and profit. Recent family separation efforts by the Trump administration normalize harmful state practices that, in collaboration with private and nonprofit actors, violate migrants’ human and legal rights. These efforts are criminogenic, producing conditions that facilitate crimes against migrant children and families. Ultimately, framing family separation as a form of state-corporate crime holds important implications for crimmigration studies, immigration reform, and understanding crimes of the powerful.