Migrating to Prison: America's Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants

by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández Narrated by Timothy Andrés Pabon

Overview

For most of America's history, we simply did not lock people up for migrating here. Yet over the last thirty years, the federal and state governments have increasingly tapped their powers to incarcerate people accused of violating immigration laws. As a result, almost 400,000 people annually now spend some time locked up pending the result of a civil or criminal immigration proceeding.



In Migrating to Prison, leading scholar César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández takes a hard look at the immigration prison system's origins, how it currently operates, and why. He tackles the emergence of immigration imprisonment in the mid-1980s, with enforcement resources deployed disproportionately against Latinos, and he looks at both the outsized presence of private prisons and how those on the political right continue, disingenuously, to link immigration imprisonment with national security risks and threats to the rule of law.



Interspersed with powerful stories of people caught up in the immigration imprisonment industry, including children who have spent most of their lives in immigrant detention, Migrating to Prison is an urgent call for the abolition of immigration prisons and a radical reimagining of the United States: who belongs and on what criteria is that determination made?

Editorial Reviews

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile

This audiobook is a mixture of history, polemic, and personal remembrances that serves as a primer on American policy and cruelty. Timothy Pabon’s performance smooths the edges—he is in no rush, and any feeling of authorial outrage is expressed through emphasized syllables and words. There are no astounding revelations here. Anyone following the news probably knows most of the current events discussed—family separations, the growth of the private prison industry, and the anti-immigrant rhetoric revved up by certain political figures. The author’s historical overview of immigration may be new to more listeners. Overall, this is a worthwhile work, ably narrated. Pabon’s fluency in Spanish is reflected in his adroit handling of both people and place names. G.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Publishers Weekly

10/14/2019

University of Denver law professor Hernández (Crimmigration Law) delivers an accessible history and fierce critique of the U.S. immigration system. For most of American history, Hernández notes, immigration law and criminal law were separate, and “citizenship played no role in whether people ended up behind bars.” In the late 19th century, laws to limit Chinese immigration led to the creation of detention centers where officials distinguished between “desirable” and “undesirable” migrants. In 1929, Congress criminalized unsanctioned border crossings, but “illegal entry” and “illegal reentry” (after deportation) weren’t widely prosecuted until President George W. Bush launched the “war on terror,” Hernández claims. Now they’re “the crimes that federal prosecutors pursue most often,” he writes, resulting in the detention of “upward of half a million people annually.” Hernández relates the stories of imprisoned immigrants, including a three-year-old boy who spent 650 days in an ICE facility, and acknowledges that some border communities depend on prisons for jobs and federal funding. But he believes that detaining migrants isn’t essential to enforcing the law, arguing that undocumented immigrants should remain free as their cases proceed through the courts. His thoughtful mixture of reportage and legal scholarship makes for an important entry in the immigration debate. (Dec.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Migrating to Prison:
“In tracing the history behind today’s record levels of imprisonment, García Hernández reveals the haphazard ways immigration enforcement has been devised and administered, how supremacist notions of nationalism and race have long guided our policymaking, and how adherence to procedural guidelines was gradually reframed as a question of criminality.”
—The New York Review of Books

“Hernández lays out in a lucid, linear fashion the evolution of immigration law and its enforcement in the United States.”
—The Intercept

“[García Hernández] argues compellingly that immigrant advocates shouldn’t content themselves with debates about how many thousands of immigrants to lock up, or other minor tweaks.”
—Gus Bova, Texas Observer

“An immigration lawyer takes the U.S. immigration imprisonment system to task in this passionate, credible treatise.”
—Shelf Awareness

“César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández’s Migrating to Prison uncovers the history of U.S. immigrant detention, from the 1980s to the present.”
—Bustle

“Timely, informative, expertly written, organized and presented, Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants is unreservedly recommended.”
—The Midwest Book Review

“Migrating to Prison makes the persuasive case that the astronomical boom in imprisonment of immigrants stems from exactly the same root causes, both financial and political, as the dramatic escalation in mass incarceration.”
—The Baffler

“Exuding humanity, insight, and forbearance, García Hernández offers a concise and powerful look at a complex and perplexing challenge.”
—Booklist

“A thought-provoking perspective on immigration and U.S. immigration policy.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“A chilling, timely overview of the American tendency to first exploit and then criminalize migrants. . . . García Hernández counters pessimism with in-depth research and measured, passionate argument. An effective jeremiad on a key moral controversy of the Trump era.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“An accessible history and fierce critique of the U.S. immigration system. . . . His thoughtful mixture of reportage and legal scholarship makes for an important entry in the immigration debate.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Required reading for anyone fighting for a new immigration policy vision that welcomes immigrants. We need to understand the sadistic, multibillion-dollar industry of immigrant detention so that we can rip it down and make sure it never comes back.”
—Cristina Jiménez, co-founder and executive director of United We Dream

“Essential for anyone trying to understand how the United States came to have the world’s largest detention infrastructure. García Hernández does a masterful job of laying out the turning points of immigration imprisonment from Ellis Island to family separation and the case for abolishing the practice altogether.”
—Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network

“García Hernández provides an insightful examination of the eerie parallels between immigration imprisonment and mass incarceration. He makes a compelling argument that criminalizing immigration enforcement is not only a seriously flawed practical strategy, but an affront to human rights as well.”
—Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project and author of Race to Incarcerate

“A ‘must-read’ for any American interested in the tragic humanitarian impacts of the mass detention of immigrants as a central tool in contemporary immigration enforcement. García Hernández writes cogently, intelligently, and passionately about the increasingly expansive use of detention to regulate immigration. The book could not be more timely.”
—Kevin R. Johnson, dean, University of California, Davis, School of Law

“At a time when child migrant camps and family separations have drawn the attention of Americans, Migrating to Prison provides a vital road map to understand how the immigrant detention industry has evolved over the years. A critical and accessible primer for anyone interested in understanding the system—and abolishing it.”
—Deepa Iyer, author of We Too Sing America

“Migrating to Prison rips the veils off of the immigration detention system. García Hernández brings a sharp legal eye to showing how our immigration system has become so twisted that we take for granted the outrageous. If you want a crystal clear explanation of why we need to abolish immigration detention, this is the book for you.”
—Aviva Chomsky, author of Undocumented

“Required reading for anyone fighting for a new immigration policy vision that welcomes immigrants. We need to understand the sadistic, multibillion-dollar industry of immigrant detention so that we can rip it down and make sure it never comes back.”
—Cristina Jiménez, co-founder of United We Dream

MARCH 2020 - AudioFile

This audiobook is a mixture of history, polemic, and personal remembrances that serves as a primer on American policy and cruelty. Timothy Pabon’s performance smooths the edges—he is in no rush, and any feeling of authorial outrage is expressed through emphasized syllables and words. There are no astounding revelations here. Anyone following the news probably knows most of the current events discussed—family separations, the growth of the private prison industry, and the anti-immigrant rhetoric revved up by certain political figures. The author’s historical overview of immigration may be new to more listeners. Overall, this is a worthwhile work, ably narrated. Pabon’s fluency in Spanish is reflected in his adroit handling of both people and place names. G.S. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2019-12-02
A chilling, timely overview of the American tendency to first exploit and then criminalize migrants.

Immigration lawyer García Hernández (Law/Univ. of Denver; Crimmigration Law, 2017) balances current controversies and historical perspective to heart-rending effect, capturing the militarized cruelty and ultimate futility at the core of anti-migrant policing, as embodied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and what he terms today's "Immigration Prison Archipelago." Noting how political approaches have fluctuated wildly, he wonders, "how did we go from effectively abolishing immigration imprisonment during the 1950s and 1960s to today's pattern of locking up half a million people annually?" The author concludes that with migrants easily demonized, policymaking has not kept pace with the pernicious nature of bigotry: "The rules that determine who gets locked up and who doesn't are a legal labyrinth." Yet, although arbitrary cruelty was enshrined in public attitudes as far back as anti-Chinese legislation in the 19th century, the economic and cultural centrality of migration to the national interest was also recognized. As the author notes, "for most of U.S. history, second chances were built into immigration law. Most of the time, crime was irrelevant to a person's ability to make a life here." This began to change in the 1980s, as state and federal lawmakers expanded the range of deportable offenses and limited judicial discretion. Often, such anti-migrant policies were hidden within politically popular "tough on crime" bills. Detention became more aggressively mandated due to the archaic legal principle known as the "entry fiction," which made "the immigration detention center [into] an in-between space in law." All this has fed the current simmering boondoggle, where even migrants with military service or clear community ties may be swept up in raids. The profit motive pursued by private prison corporations and the fearmongering of right-wing commentators make the issue seem intractable. García Hernández counters pessimism with in-depth research and measured, passionate argument.

An effective jeremiad on a key moral controversy of the Trump era.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940173550330
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	12/03/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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