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NATIONAL BESTSELLERA powerful, in-depth look at the imprisonment of immigrants, addressing the intersection of immigration and the criminal justice system, with a new epilogue by the author“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 ObserverFor 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.
Migrating to Prison takes a hard look at the immigration prison system’s origins, how it currently operates, and why. A leading voice for immigration reform, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández explores the emergence of immigration imprisonment in the mid-1980s and 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.
Now with an epilogue that brings it into the Biden administration,
Migrating to Prison is an urgent call for the abolition of immigration prisons and a radical reimagining of who belongs in the United States.
About the author
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández is the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Ohio State University Mortiz College of Law and an immigration lawyer. He has appeared in the
New York Times, the
Wall Street Journal, NPR,
The Guardian, and many other venues. The author of
Crimmigration Law as well as
Migrating to Prison and
Welcome the Wretched (both published by The New Press), he lives in Denver, Colorado.
Summary
A leading scholar's powerful, in-depth look at the imprisonment of immigrants addressing the intersection of immigration and the criminal justice system 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 in
