Immigration Offenses

A fresh response to the problem of illegal immigration in the United States through the context of Christian theology.

Examines the nexus between immigration and crime from all of the angles. This work addresses not just the evidence regarding the criminality of immigrants but also the research on the victimization of immigrants; human trafficking; domestic violence; the police handling of human trafficking; and, the exportation to crime problems via deportation.

In the United States, immigration is generally seen as a law and order issue. Amidst increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, unauthorized migrants have been cast as lawbreakers. Governing Immigration Through Crime offers a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the use of crime and punishment to manage undocumented immigrants. Presenting key readings and cutting-edge scholarship, this volume examines a range of contemporary criminalizing practices: restrictive immigration laws, enhanced border policing, workplace audits, detention and deportation, and increased policing of immigration at the state and local level. Of equal importance, the readings highlight how migrants have managed to actively resist these punitive practices. In bringing together critical theorists of immigration to understand how the current political landscape propagates the view of the "illegal alien" as a threat to social order, this text encourages students and general readers alike to think seriously about the place of undocumented immigrants in American society.

Previous edition, 1st, published in 2003.

The perception of the immigrant as criminal or deviant has a long history in the United States, with many groups (e.g., Irish, Italians, Latinos) having been associated with perceived increases in crime and other social problems, although data suggest this is not necessarily the case. This Handbook examines the relationship between immigration and crime by presenting chapters reflecting key issues from both historical and current perspectives. The volume includes a range of topics related to immigration and crime, such as the links between immigration rates and crime rates, nativity and crime, and the social construction of the criminal immigrant, as well as historical and current immigration policy vis-à-vis perceptions of the criminal immigrant. Other topics covered in this volume include theoretical perspectives on immigration and assimilation, sanctuary cities, and immigration in the context of the "war on terror." The Routledge Handbook on Immigration and Crime fills the gap in the literature by offering a volume that includes original empirical work as well as review essays that deliver a complete overview of immigration and crime relying on both historical and contemporary perspectives. It is a key collection for students in immigration courses; scholars and researchers in diverse disciplines including criminal justice, criminology, sociology, demography, law, psychology, and urban studies; and policy makers dealing with immigration and border security concerns.

Winner, 2017 Oliver Cromwell Cox Book Award A thorough and captivating exploration of how mass incarceration and law and order policies of the past forty years have transformed immigration and border enforcement Criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses have more than doubled over the last two decades, as national debates about immigration and criminal justice reforms became headline topics. What lies behind this unprecedented increase? From Deportation to Prison unpacks how the incarceration of over two million people in the United States gave impetus to a federal immigration initiative—The Criminal Alien Program (CAP)—designed to purge non-citizens from dangerously overcrowded jails and prisons. Drawing on over a decade of ethnographic and archival research, the findings in this book reveal how the Criminal Alien Program quietly set off a punitive turn in immigration enforcement that has fundamentally altered detention, deportation, and criminal prosecutions for immigration offenses. Patrisia Macías-Rojas presents a “street-level” perspective on how this new regime has serious lived implications for the day-to-day actions of Border Patrol agents, local law enforcement, civil and human rights advocates, and for migrants and residents of predominantly Latina/o border communities.

Academic Paper from the year 2016 in the subject Sociology - Law and Delinquency, grade: 10.0, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey - Newark (School of Criminal Justice), course: Racial, Ethnic and Religious Diversity and Public Policy in America, language: English, abstract: This research paper examines the relationship of undocumented Latinos to crime in the United States. Many empirical studies in the past years argued that undocumented immigrants have been a reason in the decrease in crime rates over the past forty years. Communities with a high number of undocumented immigrants tend to have very low crime rates compared to those of native-born Americans. Already deteriorated neighbourhoods, where undocumented newcomers establish their homes, show a significant decrease in crime. Both the spur of immigration and the decrease in crime rates have run parallel to each other since the 1980s. However, in the last decade, a mass incarceration of undocumented Latinos was found in the U.S. corrections system due to an overwhelming target of minority groups and tough legislations passed by the U.S. government.