Crisálida: The Becoming and ‘Unbecoming’ of Criminalized Immigration in the United States

Abstract

The criminalization of immigration plagues the lives of immigrants, both documented and undocumented within the United States. The criminalization of immigration is a complex system that spans hundreds of years and functions as a living, breathing organism. It is fed by xenophobia, by racism, by classism, and excretes a painful viscous substance of criminality, one that pushes punitive and harmful punishments (detention, deportation and the stigma criminality) for immigrants.The complex structure that forges and reinforces criminality while ascribing it to immigrants is based on a multitude of intersecting forces, mostly located outside the criminal justice system. With the exception of crimes of unlawful entry or reentry (ex: border-crossing), the status that is termed “illegality” is largely derived from non-criminal– that is administrative or civil agencies, policies, and court systems. So the question then becomes, if immigration itself is considered a civil issue and not a criminal issue, what is it that leads to the criminalization of immigration? What makes it so that immigrants as a group are targeted, prosecuted, and labeled as criminals?

The criminalization of immigration– the legal, administrative, and social processes that enshrine arbitrary, racist, and xenophobic fears into the criminal justice and immigration systems–often merge these authorities and infrastructures. The criminalization of immigration looks like a haunting history of United States marginalization, where immigrant bodies are commodified and exploited through discriminatory policies. The criminalization of immigration has been produced and reproduced through both systems and institutions that expand upon a rhetoric of “them” versus “us.” This can be seen historically through various twentieth century policies, popular belief, and legislation that push a narrative of an immigrant as criminal, thus negatively affecting the United States. The social systems that impact the criminalization of immigration span from sociolinguistic ties that deem immigrants “illegals” to methods of normalized marginalization in society, to the conflation and intertwining of criminal law with immigration law. Modern day laws and practices that criminalize immigration can be observed through the U.S Code targeting entry and reentry of undocumented immigrants. The normalization of detention and deportation–also stigmatic in its own right–additionally exacerbates the criminalization of immigration through the specific targeting of undocumented immigrants that result in significant life alterations for both the immigrant and the people around them. The criminalization of immigration within the United States is ever present and intensified through the current treatment of migrants under the Trump administration. However, similar to the way that illegality was constructed for immigrants, it can also be deconstructed. The decriminalization of immigration involves the undoing of systems of oppression, policies, and everyday practices that actively harm immigrants.