I’m Sorry For Your Circumstances: An Overview of Operation Streamline in Tucson, Arizona

• In Event: 242 - Section on International Migration Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Immigration Enforcement

Abstract

Operation Streamline is a joint venture of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to enforce a zero-tolerance immigration policy along the U.S.-Mexico Border. A modified version of Operation Streamline, technically called the Arizona Denial Prosecution Initiative, began in Tucson, Arizona in January of 2008. Everyday, seventy undocumented border-crossers, primarily Latinos, are charged with federal misdemeanors and sentenced from thirty to 180 days in jail. To date, over 73,000 people have been processed through Operation Streamline in Tucson alone. I have attended thirty-three courtroom proceedings in Tucson, interviewed twenty-two defense attorneys and two judges, and culled through dozens of legal documents, media reports, activist websites, and other external sources on Operation Streamline for this preliminary account of an on-going research project. I use each of these sets of data (observations, content-analyses, and interviews) to explore various sociological aspects of Operation Streamline, including symbolic power and procedural justice in courtroom proceedings; the racialization of immigration; and role and social identities of lawyers and judges, specifically surrounding race/ethnicity and citizenship.

Author

• Jessie K. Finch, University of Arizona