The Perverse Logic of Immigration Detention: Unraveling the Rationality of Imprisoning Immigrants Based on Markers of Race and Class Otherness

12 Pages Posted: 22 Aug 2012

Date Written: August 21, 2012

Abstract

Mass incarceration has long featured the imprisonment of vast numbers of people of color. Today’s immigration incarceration regime emblematizes these characteristics of mass incarceration. In recent years, almost 400,000 individuals, mostly people of color, have cycled through immigration prisons annually. The modern state of immigration imprisonment, this Essay argues, should not come as a surprise. It is the perversely rational extension of the nation’s decades-old criminal policing emphasis that resulted in penal mass incarceration paired with a more recent emphasis on sorting desirable and non-desirable immigrants through the lens of criminality.

Keywords: immigration, prison, incarceration, race, class, Marx, racial profiling

Suggested Citation

García Hernández, César Cuauhtémoc, The Perverse Logic of Immigration Detention: Unraveling the Rationality of Imprisoning Immigrants Based on Markers of Race and Class Otherness (August 21, 2012). 1 Columbia Journal of Race and Law 353 (2012), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2133300

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández (Contact Author)

Ohio State University College of Law ( email )

55 West 12th Avenue
Columbus, OH 43210
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
331
Abstract Views
3,104
Rank
166,684
PlumX Metrics