Crimmigration

The term ‘crimmigration’ was coined by Juliet Stumpf in her 2006 article, The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power, 56 Am U L Rev 367. Crimmigration describes the nexus between criminal and immigration law and enforcement. One scholar described crimmigration as ‘a new system of social control that draws from both immigration and criminal justice but is purely neither.’ Although immigration law is a branch of administrative law (like environmental, securities, or labour law), non-citizens have long been subject to negative stereotypes and discourses that solder a linkage of immigration with crime. The label ‘illegal immigrant,’ affixed to people who breach the provisions of an immigration statute is a stark example. This course explores how immigration law increasingly draws on techniques and logics associated with the penal governance, and also how the criminal law has been mobilized to turn breaches of immigration law in criminal offences, and to create crimes applicable only to non-citizens. Topics include the production of irregular or ‘illegal’ status, race and the legacy of colonialism, migrant detention, ‘hostile environment’ policies that surveille and stigmatize non-citizens, deportation, counter-terrorism, anti-smuggling, and denationalization. 

LEARNING OUTCOMES 

Students will: 

• Explore the concept of crimmigration, its origins, and how immigration law increasingly adopts penal governance techniques to criminalize non-citizens.
• Analyze the roles of race and colonial legacies in policies such as migrant detention, deportation, and surveillance in creating a ‘hostile environment’ for non-citizens.
• Investigate key topics like irregular immigration status, counter-terrorism, anti-smuggling, and denationalization to understand their legal, social, and human rights implications.
• Build the ability to critically engage with scholarly literature, legal frameworks, and media, while forming and presenting informed legal arguments about the crimmigration system.