Punishing Immigrants Policy, Politics, and Injustice [Hardcover]

Arizona’s controversial new immigration bill is just the latest of many steps in the new criminalization of immigrants. While many cite the presumed criminality of illegal aliens as an excuse for ever-harsher immigration policies, it has in fact been well-established that immigrants commit less crime, and in particular less violent crime, than the native-born and that their presence in communities is not associated with higher crime rates. Punishing Immigrants moves beyond debunking the presumed crime and immigration linkage, broadening the focus to encompass issues relevant to law and society, immigration and refugee policy, and victimization, as well as crime. The original essays in this volume uncover and identify the unanticipated and hidden consequences of immigration policies and practices here and abroad at a time when immigration to the U.S. is near an all-time high. Ultimately, Punishing Immigrants illuminates the nuanced and layered realities of immigrants’ lives, describing the varying complexities surrounding immigration, crime, law, and victimization.

Podcast: Susan Bibler Coutin, on the process and effects of deportation —Listen here.

Punishing Immigrants compellingly develops a new paradigm for understanding the role that punitive social control plays on marginalized immigrant populations. The authors develop a new paradigm--one that allows us to understand how crime control has become a primary mechanism for regulating immigration and vulnerable immigrant populations. This project brilliantly humanizes the lives of immigrant populations while rigorously addressing structural processes responsible for the breakup of families, the criminalization of children, and the dehumanization of entire populations. Contrary to public opinion, immigrants commit less crime than native-born Americans, yet after 9/11 and in the midst of a stagnant economy, new anti-immigrant laws have emerged that have brutal consequences for unautlS€