The Criminalization of Immigration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Chacón
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Criminal Legal System

The regulation of immigration in the United States is a civil law matter, and the deportation and exclusion of immigrants from the United States are matters adjudicated in civil, administrative courts operated by the federal government. But migration in the United States is increasingly managed not through the civil law system, but through the criminal legal system, and not just at the federal level, but at all levels of government. The most obvious example of the management of migration through the criminal law in the United States occurs through the federal prosecution of immigration crimes. In the 2010s, federal prosecutions of immigration crimes reached all-time record highs, as immigration offenses became the most commonly prosecuted federal criminal offenses. But it is not just the federal government, using federal criminal prosecutions, that has moved criminal law and criminal law enforcement agents to the center of immigration enforcement in the United States. The federal government relies on state and local police to serve as front-line agents in the identification of noncitizens potentially subject to removal. Everyone arrested by state and local law enforcement for any reason has their fingerprints run through federal law databases, and this has become the leading screening mechanism through which the federal government identifies individuals to target for removal. Federal law also relies on state law convictions as one of the primary means through which federal immigration enforcement officials determine which noncitizens to remove. This means that state legislatures and state and local governments have the power to shape both their criminal laws and their discretionary enforcement choices to either enhance or mitigate the scope of federal immigration enforcement in their jurisdictions. The problems of racial inequity in the U.S. criminal legal system are both exacerbated by and fuel the centrality of immigration enforcement to the nation’s law enforcement agenda. Racial profiling is broadly tolerated by law in the context of immigration enforcement, making it easy for officials at the state and federal level to justify the targeting of the Latinx population for heightened surveillance on the theory (often incorrect) that they are unlawfully present. At the same time, the overpolicing of Black communities ensures that Black immigrants as well as Latinx immigrants are disproportionately identified as priorities for removal. Immigration enforcement is frequently written out of the story of racial inequality in U.S. policing, but the criminalization of migration is a central architectural feature of this inequitable system.

Expenses of Sovereignty

2021 ◽  
pp. 169-198
Author(s):  
Gregory Ablavsky
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Federal Funds ◽  
National Welfare

When criminal law and command failed, federal officials came to rely on federal finance to try to secure peace between Natives and U.S. citizens, as this chapter depicts. Both Native and white claimants demanded that the federal government compensate them for the violence they suffered at each others’ hands. Increasingly, the federal government did so, paying both Natives and whites for the constant murders, horse thefts, and abduction of enslaved human property that plagued both federal territories. Still more money went to the territories to satisfy Native leaders’ expectations for what federal officials called “presents” and to fund the expensive military “protection” that territorial citizens demanded. Federal officials reluctantly spent these increasingly large sums of money to secure the doubtful allegiances of these borderlands residents; their goal was to foster dependence on the federal government. Arguably, they failed. Native leaders espoused a gendered rhetoric of poverty and weakness, but they successfully extracted federal funds precisely because of their considerable power. Constitutionally, the territories were dependencies of the United States, but territorial citizens rejected any suggestion of subordination, demanding vast sums for militia actions—even when at odds with federal law—as part of the federal government’s obligation to protect its citizens. In the process, both sets of claimants relied on the federal government as the venue to make claims and redress grievances. But only Natives were tagged with the dependent label even as their white neighbors proved far more effective at extracting federal largesse, prefiguring later dynamics in the rise of the national welfare state.

Racializing Crimmigration

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amada Armenta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Local Jail ◽  
Colorblind Ideology ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Local Law

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.

Uncle Sam’s Efforts

2018 ◽  
pp. 51-86
Author(s):  
Lisa Lindquist Dorr
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coast Guard ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
Eighteenth Amendment ◽  
Local Law ◽  
State And Local ◽  
American Cities ◽  
The U.S

With the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment, the federal government developed and enforcement strategy that charged the U.S. Coast Guard with preventing the illegal importation of liquor on the high seas surrounding the United States. The U.S. Customs Bureau guarded the nation's ports and borders, and the Prohibition Bureau working with state and local law enforcement patrolled the nation's interior. Congress, however, failed to appropriate the resources needed to enforce the law. The Coast Guard lacked enough ships to patrol U.S. waters, and faced uncertainty over the extent to which American authority extended out from shore. The Coast Guard picketed, tracked and trailed suspected rum runners, and disrupted the Rum Rows that developed off the coasts of American cities, but could not fully stop liquor smuggling.

scholarly journals CYBERCRIME COMPARISON UNDER CRIMINAL LAW IN SOME COUNTRIES

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 217
Author(s):  
Andri Winjaya Laksana
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Intelligence Services ◽  
Cross Country

Cybercrime has been become a major portion for law enforcement agencies and intelligence services to both national and international matter, development of information and technology’s crime resulted in every country have a different policy of criminalization. The emphasis on cross-country has made a crime on the internet is not just a national issue, but has become an International problem. therefore it is important to have uniformity in the prevention of cybercrime that this crime can be solved. Based on the comparison of cybercrime that included the rules from various countries including the United States, Singapore, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Myanmar as a reference in the application of criminal law enforcement regulations regarding cybercrime seal the document.

scholarly journals American Immigration Microfederalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-200
Author(s):  
Tuan N. Samahon
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Law ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Federal Programs ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Independent State ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Migration Crisis

Immigration power is thought to be a federal power in the United States, but the States and their localities play key roles in filling congressional immigration policy gaps. When confronted with a major migration crisis, these microfederal jurisdictions in a multi-layered federal system respond differently to the policy gaps. A healthy tolerance for microfederal policies promotes this experimentation and voter preference maximisation. A countervailing interest in uniformity, among other values, tempers the case for microfederalism by suggesting temporal or other limitations may be justified. States and localities have experimented with microfederal policies concerning migrants that touch on migration and integration policy. Restrictionist jurisdictions have promoted policies that discourage migration and integration. Their strategies include: formal cooperation with federal immigration enforcement when restrictionist in policy orientation; adoption of independent state-law measures to supplement federal immigration enforcement; and litigation to attempt to force or realign federal executive enforcement priorities on migration and integration. Sanctuary jurisdictions adopt inverse strategies. They may decline to participate in voluntary federal programs; refuse to access available federal immigration status information; deny federal requests to cooperate with federal detainer requests; provide access to State and local services to all comers, without regard to legal status; and, like restrictionist jurisdictions, litigate to attempt to force or realign the federal government’s enforcement priorities to favour migration and integration. Inevitably, conflict between federal and state administration results in litigation. The federal government attempts to assert its primacy in those matters touching on alien regulation. During the Trump administration, this effort has included the likely unconstitutional Executive Order 13768, but also the threat of affirmative federal pre-emption litigation against sanctuary jurisdictions. Provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act may provide Trump with a basis for arguing that federal law expressly or impliedly pre-oempts conflicting state law.

scholarly journals What Is the Remedy for State and Local Fiscal Squeeze During the COVID-19 Recession? More Debt, and That Is Okay

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 584-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Douglas ◽  
Ringa Raudla
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Balanced Budget ◽  
Debt Capacity ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Federal Assistance

The COVID-19 crisis is placing a tremendous fiscal squeeze on state and local governments in the United States. We argue that the federal government should increase its deficit to fill in the fiscal gap. In the absence of sufficient federal assistance, we recommend that states suspend their balanced budget rules and norms and run deficits in their operating budgets to maintain services and meet additional obligations due to the pandemic. A comparison with Eurozone countries shows that states have more than enough debt capacity to run short-term deficits to respond to the crisis.

Examining the Clearance Rates of Violent and Non-Violent Offences in the United States: A Trend Analysis, 2011–2018

2020 ◽  
pp. 0306624X2094468
Author(s):  
Avdi S. Avdija ◽  
Arif Akgul
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Trend Analysis ◽  
Clearance Rate ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local State ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Clearance Rates ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Violent Offenses

The main objective of this study was to examine the clearance rates of violent and non-violent offenses in the United States for the years 2011 to 2018. This study focused specifically on the differences in clearance rates of incidents involving crimes against persons, crimes against property, and crimes against society. The analyses are based on the FBI’s NIBRS data that have been reported by local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies for 8 years combined. The analyses focused on the characteristics of the distribution of clearance rates by the types of incidents. The clearance rates were calculated based on the number of incidents that were cleared by arrest or exceptional means. The results show that the average clearance rate for incidents involving crimes against persons is 48.6%, for incidents involving property crimes is 18%, and for incidents involving crimes against society is 78%. The trend analyses show that the clearance rates are gradually decreasing for all three types of offense categories.

Screening the Police

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah Tsika
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Film History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Local Law Enforcement ◽  
State And Local ◽  
American Police

American police departments have presided over the business of motion pictures since the end of the nineteenth century. Their influence is evident not only on the screen but also in the ways movies are made, promoted, and viewed in the United States. Screening the Police explores the history of film’s entwinement with law enforcement, showing the role that state power has played in the creation and expansion of a popular medium. For the New Jersey State Police in the 1930s, film offered a method of visualizing criminality and of circulating urgent information about escaped convicts. For the New York Police Department, the medium was a means of making the agency world famous as early as 1896. Beat cops became movie stars. Police chiefs made their own documentaries. And from Maine to California, state and local law enforcement agencies regularly fingerprinted filmgoers for decades, amassing enormous records as they infiltrated theaters both big and small. Understanding the scope of police power in the United States requires attention to an aspect of film history that has long been ignored. Screening the Police reveals the extent to which American cinema has overlapped with the politics and practices of law enforcement. Today, commercial filmmaking is heavily reliant on public policing—and vice versa. How such a working relationship was forged and sustained across the long twentieth century is the subject of this book.

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