The Criminalization of Immigrants & the Immigration

The Criminalization of Immigrants & the Immigration-Industrial Complex Karen Manges Douglas & Rogelio Sáenz Abstract: Over the last few decades, and particularly after 9/11, we have witnessed the increasing criminalization of immigrants in the United States. Changing policies have subjected immigrants to inten- si½ed apprehension and detention programs. This essay provides an overview of the context and policies that have produced the rising criminalization of immigrants. We draw on the institutional theory of migration to understand the business of detention centers and the construction of the immigration-industrial complex. We link government contracts and private corporations in the formation of the immigration-industrial complex, highlighting the increasing pro½ts that private corporations are making through the detention of immigrants. We conclude with a discussion of how the privatization of detention centers is part of a larger trend in which basic functions of societal institutions are being farmed out to private corporations with little consideration for basic human rights. Though the path of the immigrant in the United States has never been easy, the costs of being an undocumented immigrant are higher today than ever before. Not only is the always-risky journey into the United States much more treacherous now than it was in the past, but blending in once here is becoming increasingly dif½cult. The attitude of U.S. natives toward undocumented immigrants (particularly if they are from Latin American countries) is increasingly hostile and inhospitable. Even gainful employment offers little insulation from KAREN MANGES DOUGLAS is the rabid xenophobia that has engulfed some seg- Associate Professor of Sociology ments of the U.S. population in the post-9/11 era. at Sam Houston State University. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ice) ROGELIO SÁENZ is Dean of the of½cials have raided and rounded up people who, College of Public Policy and Peter but for their lack of documentation, would be Flawn Professor of Demography viewed no differently from the millions of hard- at the University of Texas at San working Americans trying to make a living for Antonio. themselves and their families. They are seized from (*See endnotes for complete contributor their workplaces, shackled, and hauled off to biographies.) detention centers–jails and prisons–where they © 2013 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00228 199 The Crimi - are thrown into a shadow world with few How has a nation once perceived as a nalization protected human and legal rights. Despite beacon of democracy and justice evolved of Immi - grants numerous media accounts describing the to grossly abuse these very principles? & the Immi - deplorable conditions of the detention This essay seeks to answer that question gration- Industrial centers and the inhumane treatment of by ½rst describing the rising detention Complex the detainees, the bureaucrats in charge rate of immigrants and illustrating the seem indifferent, as does the larger public context in which this growth has oc - to whom they must answer. Few seem curred. Toward this end, we provide an even to be asking questions. overview of the policies and the environ- The criminalization of undocumented ment that have helped criminalize immi- immigrants has been heightened by the grants. Next, we draw on the institutional establishment and endorsement of puni- theory of migration to understand the tive actions–both individual-based and ascension of the business of detention government-sponsored–against undoc- centers. We draw links between govern- umented groups and those who assist ment contracts and private corporations them. Furthermore, prisons are being rap- in the formation of the immigration- idly erected to detain more inclusive seg- industrial complex, while highlighting ments of the undocumented immigrant the increasing pro½ts that private corpo- population. Several detention centers have rations are making through the detention recently been constructed and designated of immigrants. And we conclude with a to house immigrant families; and perhaps discussion about how the privatization of still operating under the framing of youths detention centers is part of a larger trend as “super predators,” an image that dom- in which basic functions of societal insti- inated criminal justice thinking during tutions are being farmed out to private the 1980s and 1990s, undocumented juve- corporations with little consideration for nile immigrants are not exempt from this basic human rights. immigration-industrial complex.1 The contracts that link government, As many scholars have detailed, the which supplies immigrant detainees to recent demonization of immigrants is prison facilities, with the private industry nothing new.3 Anxiety over the immigrant responsible for building, maintaining, and “other”–the alien–is an enduring char- administering such prisons signal the acteristic of the American experience. So, emergence of a new type of prison-indus- too, are efforts to exclude those deemed trial complex. This essay identi½es this “undesirable” (historically, poor people trend as part of a larger privatization and people of color) from immigrating to movement in the United States and around the United States. For example, beginning the world. Broadly, this movement is char - in 1790, immigration laws restricted nat- acterized by the dominance of market lib- uralization to those designated as white, eralization and the transition from a mar- while those deemed “likely to become a ket economy to a market society; the public charge” (lpcs) were barred from fracturing of U.S. society; the death of entry. Dual mechanisms accomplished the liberal class; “winner take all” politics these mandates. Restrictions based on that have redistributed resources upward; race and other characterizing features and the reestablishment of Jim Crow-like targeted speci½c groups (for example, policies in the criminal justice system that anarchists, prostitutes, contract laborers, ensnare poor and vulnerable populations, illiterates, and lpcs) and banned them including immigrants, in their web.2 from entry into the United States. At the 200 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences same time, deportation policies sought to the “obnoxious Chinese,” “if the power Karen eliminate undesirables already in resi- exists, who shall say it will not be exer- Manges Douglas & dence. While the racial restrictions were cised tomorrow against other classes and Rogelio ostensibly eliminated in 1952, the 150 pre- other people?”7 Sáenz ceding years of de jure racial exclusion Justice Brewer’s concerns were war- were not inconsequential in shaping the ranted. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 (also racial and socioeconomic landscape of known as the Immigration Act of 1924) the United States. Tellingly, the lpc clause, signi½cantly curtailed immigration from indicative of the United States’ discom- Southern and Eastern Europe and banned fort with poor people, has remained a outright immigration from countries policy ½xture. Indeed, the perceived threat with nonwhite populations, arguing that of lpcs was the rationale for the roundup these classes of people were racially inel- and deportation (known as repatriation) igible for citizenship. While the Immi- of thousands of Mexicans–citizens and gration Act of 1924 did not subject immi- non-citizens alike–during the 1930s. grants from the Western Hemisphere The plenary power doctrine, estab- (including Mexicans and Canadians) to lished by the U.S. Supreme Court during quotas, administrative provisions were the era of Chinese exclusion in the nine- developed to address their migration. teenth century, undergirds all immigra- The act created foreign consular of½ces tion law. In establishing this doctrine, the to issue visas for entry into the United Supreme Court assumed that immigrants States and reconstituted the Border Patrol, posed a threat of foreign invasion, and which was charged with securing what thus linked immigration control with the had historically been an open border.8 state’s authority to wage war.4 The Su - Ironically, immigrants need not have preme Court conferred on Congress the actually broken a law to have found plenary power to regulate all matters of themselves on the wrong side of it. It is immigration, stating that “aliens enter estimated that upwards of 1.4 million and remain in the United States only with people who had entered the United States ‘license, permission, and sufferance of legally before 1921 were abruptly clas - Congress.’”5 si½ed as lawbreakers through this policy Congress sought to deal with the un - change.9 documented Chinese through deporta- With the Border Patrol reinvigorated, tion. In 1892, Congress passed the Geary securing the southern border between Act, which authorized the expulsion of the United States and Mexico took pri- Chinese immigrants in the country unlaw - macy over policing the northern border fully. Although it was challenged, the with Canada. This was partly due to the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legisla- fact that the most popular route into the tion (and the plenary power of the leg- United States for illegal European and islative branch), ½nding that “the right to Asian immigrants who could not pass the exclude or expel aliens, or any class of literacy requirements, had passport dif - aliens, absolutely or upon certain condi- ½culties, or were excluded due to quota tions, in war or in peace, is an inherent restrictions was through Mexico. With and inalienable right of every sovereign means established for Europeans to cir- nation.”6 Presciently, in his dissent in Fong cumvent quota restrictions, and the resul - Yue Ting v. United States (1893), Supreme tant decline in illegal European entry Court Justice David Josiah Brewer noted through Mexico, attention increasingly that while this particular case targeted turned to the flow of Mexicans. In 1921, 142 (3) Summer 2013 201 The Crimi - new immigration policy reversed the The outbreak of World War II created nalization Mexican exemption from literacy tests domestic labor shortages. The Bracero of Immi - 10 grants and head taxes.

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