From Deportation To Prison Summary

In the book From Deportation to Prison: The Politics of Immigration in Post-Civil Rights America, Patrisia Macias-Rojas argues there is a punitive turn and primary shift in the handling of migration laws in the United States, and particularly their enforcement. In her point of view, she mentions the primary role of border enforcement in the past was about whether or not a person had the permission and proper documentation to enter the country legally. However, now border patrol has moved to being more reliant on the criminal justice system. The political idea of creating a border wall was brought forth at a time when the numbers of entry by undocumented immigrants was at its lowest. The fundamental shift, as she refers to it, to deportation

is the transformation of now criminally prosecuting immigration offenses, opposed to them being viewed as civil offenses as they have in the past. Due to this, she argues immigration offenses are now the primary contributor to incarceration and not drug offenses as previously seen with the War on Drugs. The merging of the immigration and criminal justice system which were once separate entities, have contributed to mass incarceration.
She points out the criminalization of immigrants did not begin after 911 and terrorism war as many have come to believe, but with the Reagan administration, and the War on Drugs.

The passing of one of the largest crime bills targeted youth of color, particularly African Americans. However the prison system quickly encountered the problem of overcrowding, therefore the funding and creation of new prisons rapidly occurred. Due to the high incarceration of Latino youth with legal documentation the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act was passed. This law changed the way deportation was handled, allowing for retroactive action, it also allowed for the deportation to those with permanent residency without taking into account the severity of the offense. This new law also placed mandatory detention and further encouraged the cooperation of the criminal justice system and Immigration Custom Enforcement (ICE). Since the rise of this law the increase of detention center also occurred specifically within the private prison systems, about 60% of detention center are privately contracted. The increase of detention center also created a need to meet bed mandates, with 34,000 beds needed to be filled. The need for bodies became a priority causing border agents to run criminal backgrounds checks on people, only to find immigrants have a very low percentage of crime rates. Following this discovery was the lowering of priorities therefore detaining people who would not have been involved with the criminal justice system and immigration enforcement

otherwise.
Michelle Alexander would both agree and disagree with her on several points. To begin with, they both view the War on Drugs as the main and primary contributor to mass incarceration and the disproportionate targeting of people of color and the harsh sentencing laws for petty crimes. They also both agree on the mandate to keep beds filled.