Symbolic Assailants, Crimmigration and the Immigration Industrial Complex

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Abstract

Administration of immigration law is not always straightforward—especially when local law enforcement agencies take on the mantle of enforcement. As the United States expands its immigration control strategies, police participation in immigration enforcement has increased in scope and intensity. This article considers how the social construction of immigrants as “symbolic assailants” or harbingers of crime has led to current crimmigration strategies evident in policing across the United States. The extensive deployment of criminal justice measures to address the “problem of immigration” has led to the growth of a punitive crimmigration apparatus—which combines facets of immigration and criminal law. This article considers how the fear of immigrants as well as the financial interests associated with incarcerating them through the immigration industrial complex has played an important role in the rise of crimmigration. It also calls for a wider conversation about the growing interdependence between criminal justice and migration control.

Author

• Denise N. Obinna, Mount St Mary's University