Resisting Crimmigration From Below

• In Event: The Criminology of Migration and Mobilities: Global and Local Challenges

Abstract

A growing body of international research has focused attention on the criminalization of immigration and border crossing, as well as the increased utilization of the criminal justice system to enforce borders, both at the physical boundary between nations but also in locales far from the geographic border. Bordering might be thought of as a dynamic process – a performance that involves public officials and border crossers, but also many ordinary people. To date, much of the criminological research on borders has been fairly nation-centric, with attention devoted predominantly to official policies and enforcement efforts by nation-states to merge immigration and criminal law within a single national context and also to detailing the adverse consequences for (im)migrants. In this paper, we examine a range of tactics and strategies that are being used to resist national crimmigration policies from below, at the local level, with attention to their implications for the global scale.

Authors

• Nancy A. Wonders, Northern Arizona University

• Madeline Stenger, Northern Arizona University

• Jocelyn Reyes, Northern Arizona University