What Is Crimmigration? Seek Legal Guidance from an Atlanta Deportation Lawyer

What Is Crimmigration?

Crimmigration is the intersection of two types of law: criminal defense and immigration. 

Citizens and non-citizens were mainly treated the same for crimes until the 1980s, despite citizenship status. However, around 35 years ago, criminal and immigration laws started to collide. Therefore, a non-citizen facing criminal charges might face immigration consequences as well. In today’s modern political atmosphere, the attention and response to these concerns appear to be shifting all the time. As a result, it’s even more essential to get up-to-date legal advice in these areas.

By hiring a trustworthy Atlanta deportation lawyer, you will have legal assistance by your side and guidance that will walk you through the process of crimmigration defense. 

Understanding Crimmigration

Crimmigration, or the blending of criminal law and immigration law, enables local law enforcement and, progressively, other government agencies to police both elements of the law, whether openly or implicitly. This sector’s practices and policies are increasingly resembling those used in interior enforcement, extending beyond border enforcement.

Local law enforcement also engages in these ostensibly covert activities, which are no longer entirely the duty of law enforcement officials. The extent of citizenship and the application of individual rights is continually decreasing due to this merge as Juliet Stumpf characterizes it as “a society increasingly stratified by flexible notions of membership” in The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power. To untangle and change the links that bind these two systems, they must be viewed as part of a broader focus on exclusionary social-control ideology and actions directed towards immigrants and minorities alike.

How Immigration Policy Became ‘Crimmigration’

Americans have gotten used to hearing about undocumented immigrants’ arrests, detentions, and deportations. These stories now dominate every debate of immigration policy in the United States, from border protection to immigration reform.

Americans may be shocked to learn, however, that this wasn’t always the case. According to César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, an Ohio State University law professor, the criminalization of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration detention were more the exception than the rule until the 1990s and are at risk with the country’s history. 

Initially, immigration issues were seen as civil affairs and addressed through the immigration court system, whereas criminal cases were handled by prosecutors, defense counsel, and state and municipal judges. This difference has undoubtedly become a historical remnant.

Previously, the administration avoided utilizing detention unless in exceptional cases or along the Mexican border. In Fiscal Year 2011, however, over 429,000 individuals were held for immigration procedures. Immigration law is increasingly looking at a migrant’s criminal background when deciding whether or not to detain or deport them.

The nature of our immigration system gives itself to the appearance of fairness in a variety of ways. “Despite the fact that they are referred to as ‘courts’ and ‘judges,’ profound neither the immigration courts nor the immigration judges who preside over hearings are members of the judicial branch,” he adds. However, they are Justice Department trials overseen by Justice Department personnel and coming under the executive branch’s jurisdiction.

The Crimmigration Crisis

The influence of membership theory on the convergence of both immigration and criminal law appears to be leading to a downward spiral of nonmember safeguards and a considerable narrowing of the concept of who is a member.

Due to the considerable overlap between criminal and immigration legislation, decision-makers will unavoidably interpret the implications of exclusion from membership in each area differently. Aliens are becoming associated with criminals as serious repercussions for immigration-related activity, and criminal grounds for removal from the United States continue to increase.

Ex-offenders have become associated with foreigners as collateral consequences for criminal breaches continue to attack citizenship and community involvement characteristics.

Expulsion becomes a logical remedy when non-citizens are labeled as offenders. The individual’s interest in the U.S. community, such as familial relationships, job, community service, and whether the nonresident alien has lived in the U.S. for the bulk of his life, becomes subordinate to the perceived need to safeguard the community. When criminals become foreigners, the sovereign state becomes essential in policing the country against this inside opponent.

Though criminal law and immigration law begin with opposing assumptions about the immigration status of the persons they govern, the results are remarkably similar in both spheres if the individual is found unfit for membership. 

The state regards the person as an alien, robbing them of the rights and advantages of membership. This results in an ever-increasing population of outsiders interested in the United States that may be at least as great as that of current members. As a result, society is becoming increasingly stratified by flexible notions of membership, with nonmembers being driven out of the group through borders, fences, regulations, and public condemnation.

Deconstructing Crimmigration

Crimmigration legislation and policy, which was born out of the racially biased anti-drug hysteria of the 1980s and has been blown by the winds of every crime involving moral turpitude since then, reacts to fear with the state’s heavy-handed security machinery. It repeats well-known but problematic power inequalities based on race, class, and gender axes, all of which are obscured by the monster of crime.

Contact our law firm right away if you want to learn more about potential immigration consequences if you were charged with a criminal offense. A good lawyer will always defend your rights when you are in a vulnerable position, but it’s always best to choose a lawyer who is specifically experienced in criminal immigration law. 

If you wish to become a lawful permanent resident of the U.S., an immigration lawyer will help you with all immigration matters and brief you about crimmigration. No matter your immigration goals or criminal background, the legal team at the Manji Law P.C. law firm is here to help! Schedule your consultation at 678.902.2999 today, and let us take a look at your case.