Criminal Aliens Research Articles

The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, or What Does It Mean to Need a “Brute” in the Twenty-First Century?

The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, or What Does It Mean to Need a “Brute” in the Twenty-First Century?

Mandatory detention for criminal convictions: The reproduction of racial inequality throughU.S.immigration law

AbstractSince the late 1980s, immigrants convicted of certain criminal offenses have been subject to mandatory detention during their deportation proceedings. Due to court backlog and complicated cases, noncitizens mandatorily detained in this way can be held for years at a time, without any legal right to a bail hearing. While political rhetoric and policy aims of the past three decades have painted so‐called “criminal aliens” as a highly dangerous group from whom the American public needs protecting, the criminal convictions that invoke mandatory detention and likely deportation are actually quite diverse, in large part due to the expansion of the “aggravated felony” ground of deportation to include a wide variety of less serious crimes. Drawing from 40 interviews with lawyers and other legal actors in New York City's detained immigration court from 2017 to 2018, this article explores the effects of aggravated felony–based mandatory detention. I argue that in doubly punishing immigrants who have already served time for criminal convictions, the immigration system funnels criminalized noncitizens—particularly those from poor Black and Latinx communities—toward deportation, perpetuating inequality and upholding existing racial hierarchies.

Postremoval Geographies: Immigration Enforcement and Organized Crime on the U.S.–Mexico Border

What happens after deportation? What contexts must Mexican deportees navigate and contend with after removal from the United States? This article explores the challenges for people postremoval in Mexico, particularly by drawing on fieldwork conducted in Tamaulipas, which is home to the Zetas drug trafficking organization and the infamous massacre of seventy-two migrants. We argue that incidental exposure to violence and crime began as an implicit aspect of immigration enforcement and has grown into one of the central tenets of current policy. We take a feminist geopolitical approach to connect the postdeportation experiences of migrants to the policies of deportation, incarceration, and punishment levied against them by the U.S. government. Migrants, particularly those apprehended through the Criminal Alien Program, have been returned to Tamaulipas in concentrated numbers despite its violent reputation. The processes of criminalization have led to a system that prioritizes punishment for migrants, meaning that we cannot extricate experiences that occur after removal from enforcement measures that create those situations. These practices are directly connected to the current wave of policies aimed at stopping asylum seekers, including “metering,” where people are made to wait at the border to apply for asylum at the port of entry, and the Remain in Mexico program (otherwise known as the Migrant Protection Protocols). We argue that enforcement is more complex than “prevention through deterrence” narratives and exposure to nonstate violence in Mexico has slowly become a more integral part of enforcement plans.

Seeking Refuge in Hostility: The Caribbean ‘British Isle of Freedom’ and the Right to Remove Fugitive Convicts

ABSTRACTThe early twentieth century was a formative legislative era for the rendition of fugitives across the globe. Yet, imperial regimes were often unable to extradite fugitives. This paper draws upon a key extradition case in Trinidad involving fugitives from French Guiana penal colony who won their appeal case to avoid extradition – Kossekechatko and others v. Attorney General for Trinidad. The paper highlights how the case and its aftermath gave rise to imperial tensions. These pressures were between the rights of the imperial state to remove fugitive convicts who were cast as ‘undesirable’ individuals, the legality of deporting ‘criminal aliens’ accused of extraditable offences, and the right of refuge for French Guiana fugitive convicts as advocated by humanitarian groups. The paper shows how imperial policymakers attempted to manage this tension. It argues that the state’s right to remove fugitive convicts triumphed when reforming imperial policy on extradition and that the Trinidad government strategically deployed both policy and philanthropic groups to remove fugitives rather than grant them refuge. As an increased international condemnation of the French Guiana regime remained in the background of the case, the example of French Guiana fugitives arriving in Trinidad therefore provides an apt window onto these imperial tensions and their resolution.

“KNOw History/KNOw Self”: Khmer Youth Organizing for Justice in Long Beach

ABSTRACTKhmer Girls in Action in Long Beach cultivates the leadership of high school-aged students from refugee families to organize for gender, racial, and economic justice in their communities. This article looks at the knowledge that KGA’s youth organizing produces about the institutional roots of the deportation of Cambodian refugees. The youth connect the U.S. war in Cambodia with the war on crime and gangs in Long Beach to call into question the deportable “criminal alien” and the benevolent resettlement narrative. They redefine what counts as immigrant rights through their campaigns to address disciplinary practices in their schools and police surveillance.

Drugs, Crime, and Aggravated Felony Deportations: Moral Panic Theory and the Legal Construction of the "Criminal Alien".

The "aggravated felony" is an oft-overlooked legal distinction that provides the basis for the removal of thousands of immigrants each year. This category's broad expansion and definitive results draw from a punitive turn in crime, drug, and immigration policy, which occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. The concept of "moral panic" is a useful tool for those who seek to understand the development of punitive responses to perceived social problems. This article revisits the original formulations of moral panic theory in order to highlight the importance of societal context in determining the symbolic salience and punitive outcomes of moral panics. The goal of the article is to evaluate the thesis that a moral panic about immigrant criminality played an important role in the development of the aggravated felony category.

(Re)Making a politics of protection in immigration policy: the “criminal alien,” gendered vulnerability, and the management of risk

ABSTRACTThe two most recent Department of Homeland Security interior immigration enforcement programs, Secure Communities and the Priority Enforcement Program, have directed deportation efforts toward noncitizens convicted of crimes. One of their targets, the ‘criminal alien,’ has been (re)fashioned in political and legal discourses since the 1980s. Through critical discourse analysis of the 2013 immigration reform debates and their incorporation of the Violence Against Women Act (2013), this article examines the ways in which contemporary immigration policy renders the racialized ‘criminal alien’ (sexually) threatening to the ‘vulnerable’ woman. Dichotomous constructions of deserving and undeserving immigrants, in turn, bolster an array of strategies to manage the ‘risk’ of noncitizens, including border control and financial self-regulation.

INITIAL STAGE PECULIARITIES OF INVESTIGATION OF CRIMES COMMITTED BY FOREIGNERS

This article is aimed to formulate theoretical background and practical recommendations related to initial stage peculiarities of investigation of crimes committed by foreigners. Authors systematized the legislative acts defining key legal and organizational peculiarities of investigation of crimes committed by foreigners. Special attention is paid to Ukrainian international agreements with its provisions related to human rights and freedoms; international agreements defining the legal status of foreigners with immunity in terms of Ukrainian criminal jurisdiction; Ukrainian legislative acts defining the foreigners’ legal status and peculiarities of relevant criminal proceedings. It is noted that set of measures for foreigner’s legal status check along with grounds for his/her temporary residence within the territory of Ukraine must include submission of requests to competent agencies (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, Prosecutor-General’s Office, State Border Guard Service of Ukraine). Initial stage of investigation of crimes committed by foreigners is aimed at detection of circumstances defined by Article 91 of Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine. Their list is not exhaustive and during the investigation, it is necessary to additionally identity the circumstances that characterize: identity of the criminal alien and offense group nature; legal status of the foreigner; mechanism of criminal activity; international relations of criminals etc. Initial stage of investigation of crimes committed by foreigners sets task to find solution for specific issues related to identification of all persons involved in criminal activity (criminal network); high level of criminals’ awareness and preparedness, presence plans of action in various situations; necessity to ensure interoperability with other competent agencies, involvement of Interpol and Europol, initiatives in the framework of international cooperation etc. Typical investigative situations this stage of investigation are presented: availability of data on crime commission by foreigners (perpetrators are not identified); accumulation of orientating information concerning foreigners who have committed crimes; there is an information on fulfilment of crimes by concrete foreigners which proves by collected evidence or their arrest at crime scene.

‘What’s in a Name?’: Mislabelling, misidentification, and the US government’s failure to protect human trafficking survivors in the Central American refugee crisis

This article explores how competing and overlapping legal classifications such as ‘victim of trafficking’, ‘smuggled migrant’, ‘illegal alien’, and ‘refugee’ play out in the United States (US) immigration system. In particular, it focuses on the repeated failure of US authorities to identify and protect survivors of human trafficking who were victimised by the smugglers they voluntarily employed in fleeing their home countries—a scenario that is becoming increasingly common in the midst of the Central American refugee crisis. The article draws upon the authors’ experience providing direct legal representation to Central American migrants in the US to discuss how misassumptions about this population, a misunderstanding of the relevant legal terminology, and the US government’s focus on border security negatively impact the conduct of law enforcement agencies and immigration adjudicators. Due in large part to the US government’s increased restrictions on, and criminalisation of, many forms of migration, survivors of human trafficking who are victimised by smugglers often find themselves classified as ‘illegal aliens’ or ‘criminal aliens’, and their legitimate claims for protection are frequently dismissed for the irrelevant fact that they initially consented to be smuggled. Such mistreatment and misidentification fail to hold perpetrators accountable, and to offer assistance to populations that the US government has pledged to defend.

“Felons, not Families”: Criminalized illegality, stigma, and membership of deported “criminal aliens”

Since the 1990s, U.S. immigration enforcement has focused on detaining and deporting unauthorized migrants labeled as “criminal aliens,” most of whom (about three-fourths) are Mexican nationals. Yet, little data exist on this population of migrants. Using a transnational lens, and drawing from analysis of government and media, as well as participant observation data collected along the border, this article shows the consequences of the stigmatization and integration of those migrants deported as “criminal aliens,” in both Mexico and the U.S. While the framing of illegality has dominated the literature on unauthorized migrants in the U.S., I argue that the focus on deporting “criminal aliens” marks a shift from “illegalization” to the “criminalization” of immigration enforcement in the U.S. In particular, I highlight how the focus on deporting migrants as “criminal aliens” results in the criminalization of their illegality; that is, Latino non-citizens who are deported become criminalized perpetual outlaws because the label “criminal aliens” is legally permanent, with severe consequences for their identity and membership in both Mexico and the U.S.

Social banishment and the US “Criminal alien”: norms of violence and repression in the deportation regime

Cet article mobilise les données issues d’un travail d’observation participante au sein d’audiences d’expulsion de migrants dans le nord-est des États-Unis en se focalisant sur deux thématiques : (i) l’émergence d’un régime de déportation et ses mécanismes de violence structurelle et (ii) les normes de la violence dans les espaces de ce régime de déportation. Par régime de déportation, nous faisons ici référence aux systèmes et pratiques institutionnels créés par l’émergence d’un état de sécurité exceptionnel, aux appareils et rituels discrets et peu discrets utilisés pour discipliner les esprits et les corps des travailleurs immigrants avec ou sans papiers, et leurs conséquences collatérales. La violence structurelle se réfère aux arrangements systémiques qui infligent des dommages sociaux aux individus en les privant de leurs droits fondamentaux à l’existence, conduisant souvent à leur mort prématurée. L’article explore différentes formes de violence dans les espaces sociaux où le régime exerce son pouvoir presque incontrôlé. Il soutient que la violence qui découle du régime a un impact important non seulement sur les non-citoyens immigrants, mais aussi sur les citoyens immigrants et les citoyens non-immigrants. Cette violence structurelle induit un effet de spirale et d’amplification qui diffuse un large éventail de relations sociales, car son pouvoir intimide, terrorise, contient et subordonne des individus et des communautés, les soumettant à son mandat imposé par l’État pour retirer des éléments « indésirables » du corps social. Ces politiques et pratiques, parrainées par l’État, visent à déshumaniser, désorienter, distraire, humilier et intimider et ne sont pas les conséquences involontaires de politiques autrement rationnelles et mesurées visant le bien commun.

Immigration's Problem Child: Structural Problems Inherent in Removal of 'Sexual Abuse of a Minor' Offenders

On May 30, 2017, the Supreme Court decided Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions, a case that has potentially far-reaching consequences for the United States’ ability to remove criminal aliens, namely, sex offenders. The Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”), while providing for the removal of those with “aggravated felony” convictions, did not cross-reference “sexual abuse of a minor” to any federal equivalent statute, unlike the majority of the other 80 enumerated “aggravated felonies.” Most Americans would likely consider child molesters and rapists to be the highest priority category of aliens for removal. However, these types of criminal aliens are among some of the most difficult to remove. The Court’s recent discussion in Esquivel-Quintana could further frustrate that mission, given the use of 18 U.S.C. § 2243 as the appropriate federal equivalent to the state conviction. The Court also looked to a canvass of state practice regarding age of consent laws. Now, there is significant potential for criminal aliens to exploit the logic of Esquivel-Quintana across a broader spectrum of “sexual abuse of a minor” crimes to avoid removal. The author has conducted an original 50-state survey of “sexual contact” definitions, and found that only 4 states have definitions even remotely resembling the federal equivalent – rendering the vast majority of convictions for sexual contact with minors virtually non-removable. In response, this article suggests statutory language that represents a convergence of the majority of state statutory definitions, and also explores other potential ways to redress this glaring structural flaw in the INA.

Wall Work

Wall Work Margath Walker Amid the recent noisy proclamations about border security, it is easy to overlook that Mexico has already built a wall that the U.S. paid for. In July of 2014, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto launched Frontera Sur (Southern Border Program), a militarized security program created with U.S. support. Its aim is to stop migrants traveling north through a “layered enforcement” strategy (Powell, 2017; Walker, 2018). As a result, Mexico now detains and deports around 200,000 people per year (Hiemstra, 2017). While attempts to discipline borderlands and migrants unfold in different ways across diverse geographic locations, the logic is often the same. In Frontera Sur, policy proceeds through the construction of spatial hierarchies that create dividing lines between North and Central America, and on the U.S.-Mexico border the language of security veils a host of racialized discourses and strong messages about America and who is allowed to go there. Engaging multiple borders in one analytical framework reminds us not only that there are two “walls” at work, but also, of the work of walls. Yes, border walls are socio-material manifestations of systems in complex and contradictory relation with one another over multiple scales. But, crucially, they are also performative. Whether built in its entirety, incrementally, or not at all, Donald Trump’s wall between the U.S. and Mexico is already doing what it’s supposed to do. The promise of intensified fortification is deliberately packaged for domestic consumption; served up to reach Trump’s base, all the while providing market incentives backing the border industrial complex. What is more, the Trumpist turn has produced epistemological runoff beyond our borders. According to Central American diplomats, Mexico’s approach to migrants has shifted from a certain level of tolerance to total control (Animal Político, 2018). Anti-Central American sentiment is further reflected in the emergence of the so-called Trump of Oaxaca (Leobardo Ramos), whose actions as municipal president of Chahuites, a border town near Guatemala, have resulted in the closure of one migrant shelter and pressure to close others (Van Ramshorst, 2017). These brief examples reflect instances of the visible and tangible. Beyond that, we must also account for the destructive ideological work of wall talk. As a result of Trump’s proposals, border policy has been narrowed and constrained to conversations that reduce debates to “wall or no wall.” Discussions of revalorizing different types of mobilities (Walker & Winton, 2017) are cast aside under the weight of manufactured threats related to “illegal” and “criminal aliens.” Political strategies that tinker with one element of an underlying system assume that brick-and-mortar walls do the work of bordering. This fallacy denies the complex realities of U.S.-Mexico relations and has unintended consequences. One of the most well-documented impacts is how walls have transformed seasonal, circular migration from a regional phenomenon into movement that has touched the whole country (Massey, Durand, & Pren, 2015). Another [End Page 256] consequence is the insecurity of security, codified in border exportation regimes wherein deterrence translates into routine abuse and displacement (Slack et al., 2016). So, to return explicitly to the work of walls: Trump’s “Great Wall of China” (Gómez Romero, 2016) is political posturing with a volatile discursive afterlife. In the U.S. it is a bargaining chip between the right and the left. For borderlanders, the threat of a $20 billion-plus barrier is a banal brick stacked onto the uncertainty long propagated by top-down decision-making. But for Mexico, attempts to keep out “bad hombres” might hold the potential to stall the construction of walls at a border crossing that up until a few years ago was characterized predominately by its porosity. Margath Walker University of Louisville references Animal Político. (2018, April 10). ¿Al estilo Trump? México aumenta el despliegue de gendarmes en la frontera sur para frenar la migración. Animal Político. Retrieved from: https://www.animalpolitico.com/2018/04/mexico-gendarmes-frontera-sur-migracion/ Gómez Romero, L. (2016, November 10). The wall and the beast: Trump’s triumph from the Mexican side of the border. The Conversation. Retrieved from: https...

Immigration and the War on Crime: Law and Order Politics and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996

The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) was a momentous law that recast undocumented immigration as a crime and fused immigration enforcement with crime control (García Hernández 2016; Lind 2016). Among its most controversial provisions, the law expanded the crimes, broadly defined, for which immigrants could be deported and legal permanent residency status revoked. The law instituted fast-track deportations and mandatory detention for immigrants with convictions. It restricted access to relief from deportation. It constrained the review of immigration court decisions and imposed barriers for filing class action lawsuits against the former US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). It provided for the development of biometric technologies to track “criminal aliens” and authorized the former INS to deputize state and local police and sheriff's departments to enforce immigration law (Guttentag 1997a; Migration News 1997a, 1997b, 1997c; Taylor 1997). In short, it put into law many of the punitive provisions associated with the criminalization of migration today.Legal scholars have documented the critical role that IIRIRA played in fundamentally transforming immigration enforcement, laying the groundwork for an emerging field of “crimmigration” (Morris 1997; Morawetz 1998, 2000; Kanstroom 2000; Miller 2003; Welch 2003; Stumpf 2006). These studies challenged the law's deportation and mandatory detention provisions, as well as its constraints on judicial review. And they exposed the law's widespread consequences, namely the deportations that ensued and the disproportionate impact of IIRIRA's enforcement measures on immigrants with longstanding ties to the United States (ABA 2004).Less is known about what drove IIRIRA's criminal provisions or how immigration came to be viewed through a lens of criminality in the first place. Scholars have mostly looked within the immigration policy arena for answers, focusing on immigration reform and the “new nativism” that peaked in the early nineties (Perea 1997; Jacobson 2008). Some studies have focused on interest group competition, particularly immigration restrictionists’ prohibitions on welfare benefits, while others have examined constructions of immigrants as a social threat (Chavez 2001; Nevins 2002, 2010; Newton 2008; Tichenor 2009; Bosworth and Kaufman 2011; Zatz and Rodriguez 2015).Surprisingly few studies have stepped outside the immigration policy arena to examine the role of crime politics and the policies of mass incarceration. Of these, scholars suggest that IIRIRA's most punitive provisions stem from a “new penology” in the criminal justice system, characterized by discourses and practices designed to predict dangerousness and to manage risk (Feeley and Simon 1992; Miller 2003; Stumpf 2006; Welch 2012). Yet historical connections between the punitive turn in the criminal justice and immigration systems have yet to be disentangled and laid bare.Certainly, nativist fears about unauthorized migration, national security, and demographic change were important factors shaping IIRIRA's criminal provisions, but this article argues that the crime politics advanced by the Republican Party (or the “Grand Old Party,” GOP) and the Democratic Party also played an undeniable and understudied role. The first part of the analysis examines policies of mass incarceration and the crime politics of the GOP under the Reagan administration. The second half focuses on the crime politics of the Democratic Party that recast undocumented migration as a crime and culminated in passage of IIRIRA under the Clinton administration.IIRIRA's criminal provisions continue to shape debates on the relationship between immigration and crime, the crimes that should provide grounds for expulsion from the United States, and the use of detention in deportation proceedings for those with criminal convictions. This essay considers the ways in which the War on Crime — specifically the failed mass incarceration policies — reshaped the immigration debate. It sheds light on the understudied role that crime politics of the GOP and the Democratic Party played in shaping IIRIRA — specifically its criminal provisions, which linked unauthorized migration with criminality, and fundamentally restructured immigration enforcement and infused it with the resources necessary to track, detain, and deport broad categories of immigrants, not just those with convictions.

Making Immigrants into Criminals: Legal Processes of Criminalization in the Post-IIRIRA Era

During a post-election TV interview that aired mid-November 2016, then President-Elect Donald Trump claimed that there are millions of so-called “criminal aliens” living in the United States: “What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.” This claim is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts. A recent report by the Migration Policy Institute suggests that just over 800,000 (or 7 percent) of the 11 million undocumented individuals in the United States have criminal records.1 Of this population, 300,000 individuals are felony offenders and 390,000 are serious misdemeanor offenders — tallies which exclude more than 93 percent of the resident undocumented population (Rosenblum 2015, 22–24). Moreover, the Congressional Research Service found that 140,000 undocumented migrants — or slightly more than 1 percent of the undocumented population — are currently serving time in prison in the United States (Kandel 2016). The facts, therefore, are closer to what Doris Meissner, former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner, argues: that the number of “criminal aliens” arrested as a percentage of all fugitive immigration cases is “modest” (Meissner et al. 2013, 102–03). The facts notwithstanding, President Trump's fictional tally is important to consider because it conveys an intent to produce at least this many people who — through discourse and policy — can be criminalized and incarcerated or deported as “criminal aliens.” In this article, we critically review the literature on immigrant criminalization and trace the specific laws that first linked and then solidified the association between undocumented immigrants and criminality. To move beyond a legal, abstract context, we also draw on our quantitative and qualitative research to underscore ways immigrants experience criminalization in their family, school, and work lives. The first half of our analysis is focused on immigrant criminalization from the late 1980s through the Obama administration, with an emphasis on immigration enforcement practices first engineered in the 1990s. Most significant, we argue, are the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) and the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). The second section of our analysis explores the social impacts of immigrant criminalization, as people's experiences bring the consequences of immigrant criminalization most clearly into focus. We approach our analysis of the production of criminality of immigrants through the lens of legal violence (Menjívar and Abrego 2012), a concept designed to understand the immediate and long-term harmful effects that the immigration regime makes possible. Instead of narrowly focusing only on the physical injury of intentional acts to cause harm, this concept broadens the lens to include less visible sources of violence that reside in institutions and structures and without identifiable perpetrators or incidents to be tabulated. This violence comes from structures, laws, institutions, and practices that, similar to acts of physical violence, leave indelible marks on individuals and produce social suffering. In examining the effects of today's ramped up immigration enforcement, we turn to this concept to capture the violence that this regime produces in the lives of immigrants. Immigrant criminalization has underpinned US immigration policy over the last several decades. The year 1996, in particular, was a signal year in the process of criminalizing immigrants. Having 20 years to trace the connections, it becomes evident that the policies of 1996 used the term “criminal alien” as a strategic sleight of hand. These laws established the concept of “criminal alienhood” that has slowly but purposefully redefined what it means to be unauthorized in the United States such that criminality and unauthorized status are too often considered synonymous (Ewing, Martínez, and Rumbaut 2015). Policies that followed in the 2000s, moreover, cast an increasingly wider net which continually re-determined who could be classified as a “criminal alien,” such that the term is now a mostly incoherent grab bag. Simultaneously and in contrast, the practices that produce “criminal aliens” are coherent insofar as they condition immigrant life in the United States in now predictable ways. This solidity allows us to turn in our conclusion to some thoughts about the likely future of US immigration policy and practice under President Trump.

A Clear View from the Prairie: Harold Washington and the People of Illinois Respond to Federal Encroachment of Human Rights

The national debate over sanctuary cities demonstrates the deep divide between local community protection of its members and federal law that disrupts family and community bonds. This article discusses two Chicago efforts to prohibit city police from enforcing federal laws. Former Mayor Harold Washington issued his first 1985 Executive Order prohibiting city employees, including police, from cooperating with federal immigration officers unless required by law. Responding to misuse of city records and discriminatory tactics by federal officers, Mayor Washington recognized that civic harmony and health depended upon community trust that Chicago would not partner with federal immigration enforcement. Over a century earlier, the Chicago Common Council, after finding that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 undermined justice and dishonored humanity, prohibited Chicago police from assisting in the apprehension and removal of slaves. This article examines these two Chicago responses to federal law by: (1) examining the shifting relationship between local and federal enforcement of immigration law since the colonial days; (2) providing the context and rationale for Mayor Washington’s Executive Order 85-1; (3) exploring the context and rationale for the Chicago Common Council’s 1850 order; (4) addressing the proposed 2003 national legislation that sought to require municipal police to assist in enforcing federal immigration law; and (5) surveying the breadth of Mayor Washington’s vision for city government in protecting all community members. His vision to protect human rights, ban discrimination, and build a secure community demonstrated the distinct disadvantages of the proposed Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act of 2003 and the Homeland Security Enhancement Act of 2003. Although neither bill was enacted, Mayor Washington’s vision continues to provide a critique of efforts to involve municipal police in enforcement of immigration law.

The Human Cost of IIRIRA —Stories from Individuals Impacted by the Immigration Detention System

The 1996 passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) has had a devastating impact on immigrants who are detained, indigent, and forced to face deportation proceedings without representation (pro se). In the past 20 years, immigration detention has grown exponentially and a criminal–immigration detention–deportation pipeline has developed as a central function of the immigration system. Despite the growing specter of the “criminal alien” in the American psyche, there is little public knowledge or scrutiny of the vast immigration detention and deportation machine. Enforcement of IIRIRA has effectively erased human stories and narrowed immigration debates to numbers and statistics. The five vignettes below tell the stories of individuals who have personally experienced the impact of IIRIRA. Part 1 describes the on-the-ground reality of a state public defender's obligations and struggles to defend immigrants from harsh consequences of criminal convictions. Part 2 provides the perspective of an indigent immigrant fighting his deportation pro se. Part 3 describes a nonprofit immigration attorney's challenges in providing legal services to detained immigrants. Part 4 is a glimpse into the brisk pace of an immigration judge's detained docket. Part 5 tells the story of a detained immigrant's family member and the many hoops she must jump through to ensure he has a fighting chance in immigration court. Collectively, these vignettes provide a realistic picture of the immigration detention experience, revealing the human cost of IIRIRA.

Making Immigrants into Criminals: Legal Processes of Criminalization in the Post-IIRIRA Era

During a post-election TV interview that aired mid-November 2016, then President-Elect Donald Trump claimed that there are millions of so-called “criminal aliens” living in the United States: “What...

Racializing Crimmigration

Deporting “criminal aliens” has become the highest priority in American immigration enforcement. Today, most deportations are achieved through the “crimmigration” system, a term that describes the convergence of the criminal justice and immigration enforcement systems. Emerging research argues that U.S. immigration enforcement is a “racial project” that subordinates and racializes Latino residents in the United States. This article examines the role of local law enforcement agencies in the racialization process by focusing on the techniques and logics that drive law enforcement practices across two agencies, I argue that local law enforcement agents racialize Latinos by punishing illegality through their daily, and sometimes mundane, practices. Investigatory traffic stops put Latinos at disproportionate risk of arrest and citation, and processing at the local jail subjects unauthorized immigrants to deportation. Although a variety of local actors sustain the deportation system, most do not see themselves as active participants in immigrant removal and they explain their behavior through a colorblind ideology. This colorblind ideology obscures and naturalizes how organizational practices and laws converge to systematically criminalize and punish Latinos in the United States.

Enforcement Overdrive: A Comprehensive Assessment of ICE's Criminal Alien Program

The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is a massive enforcement program administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and has become the primary channel through which interior immigration enforcement takes place. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of individuals removed from the interior of the United States are removed through CAP. Each year, Congress allocates hundreds of millions of dollars to fund this program. Until now, however, little has been known about how CAP works, whom CAP deports, and whether CAP has been effective in meeting its goals.Based on government data and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), this report examines CAP’s evolution, operations, and outcomes between fiscal years 2010 and 2013. That data shows that through CAP’s enormous web, ICE has encountered millions and removed hundreds of thousands of people. Yet, CAP is not narrowly tailored to focus enforcement efforts on the most serious security or safety threats — in part because CAP uses criminal arrest as a proxy for dangerousness and because the agency’s own priorities have been drawn more broadly than those threats.As a result, the program removed mainly people with no criminal convictions, and people who have not been convicted of violent crimes or crimes the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classifies as serious. CAP also has resulted in several anomalies, including that it appears biased against Mexican and Central American nationals. Moreover, the number of CAP removals differs significantly from state to state.ICE’s reliance on CAP to achieve its goals will likely continue as ICE further narrows its focus on removing noncitizens with criminal convictions and continues to seek partnerships with state and local law enforcement to find them. This examination of CAP’s outcomes from fiscal years 2010 to 2013 offers important insights into CAP’s operations over time and its potential impact on communities moving forward. In particular, it raises questions about the ability of a broad “jail check” program to effectively remove serious public safety threats without resulting in serious unintended consequences, such as those described in this report.