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Pursuant to Deportation: Latinos and Immigrant Detention

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Abstract

This essay explores the historical genealogy of Latino immigrant detention in the United States. As a critical enforcement practice within the history of racialization and criminalization of nonwhite immigrants in the US, noncitizen detention pursuant to the deportation of immigrants has been utilized throughout the 20th century at the nexus of national crises, xenophobia, and racism. While episodes of detention expansion are often viewed in light of particular national security crises, this essay discusses the parameters and societal impacts of Latinos in detention, as a process possessing historical continuity, links to other racialized immigrants, and one that underscores the structural inequality of all noncitizens, documented and undocumented, before the law.

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Notes

  1. From this point forward, I will use 9/11 to refer to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.

  2. For a critical discussion of how the spectacle of torture at Abu-Ghraib obscures “the naturalized landscape” and “unspectacular” punishment of persons in US prisons, see Dylan Rodríguez. 2006. (Non)Scenes of Captivity: The Common Sense of Punishment and Death. Radical History Review 96 (Fall): 9–32.

  3. For a legal and popular culture analysis of Latino criminal stereotypes, refer to Steven W. Bender (2003).

  4. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 US 873 (1975). The Court found that the “reasonable suspicion” requirement is not met “when the only ground for suspicion is that the occupants appear to be of Mexican ancestry” (emphasis added).

  5. Citing the waste of resources in duplicating the task of trying, convicting and detaining noncitizens who committed deportable crimes that are subject to two different court systems, Taylor and Wright have suggested empowering the sentencing judge in the criminal trial with the authority of an immigration judge as well, in order to “yield less duplication of resources, quicker deportation, and – notably – lower detention costs” (2002, 3).

  6. In its January 25, 2007 report, “Immigration-Related Detention: Current Legislative Issues,” the Congressional Research Service reported 20,000 detainees in fiscal year 2005 whereas detainee advocate organization Detention Watch Network reports over 27,000 detainees daily in 2007. See http://detentionwatchnetwork.org/dwn_map (accessed August 2, 2007). The Los Angeles Times reported that daily detainees surpassed 30,000 nationally (Gorman, 2007).

  7. The most notorious example of the detention of citizens is that of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. In addition, among immigrant detainees today are persons who do not know they possess US citizenship (usually because their parents naturalized when they were minors, thus naturalizing the noncitizen children as well). Such persons carry the burden of proving this fact to the government. Lastly, US citizen children of detainees are often taken into custody during the apprehension of their parents.

  8. On March 1, 2003, the functions of several border and security agencies including the US Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) were transferred to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). After years of pressure and anticipation, the INS was “split” into three agencies: the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Bureau of Customs and Immigration Services (CIS), and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

  9. The detainee was held at both an ICE detention center and a private detention facility in San Diego. This particular for-profit detention center is at the center of multiple lawsuits and allegations of rape of women and men by unsupervised private correction officers (Berestein, 2005).

  10. An escalating problem has been the increased detention of unaccompanied minors who are captured at ports of entry or in the interior of the country. In 2005, 6,460 underage undocumented migrants from Central America were detained, an increase of 35% from the previous year (Aizenman, 2006, A1).

  11. It is estimated that there are over 11 million undocumented residing in the US with 500,000 arriving annually (Siskin et al., 2006, 1). The DHS reports that Mexicans represent the largest portion of undocumented at over six million, or 57%, with the next largest groups arriving from El Salvador and Guatemala. These nations account for 65% of all undocumented while South American migrants account for an additional 8%. Asia accounts for 12% of undocumented immigration (Hoefer et al., 2006, 1).

  12. The large majority of detainees are criminal aliens who are undergoing removal proceedings (Siskin et al., 2006, 20).

  13. Charles M. Goethe wrote in the pages of the American Eugenics Society's journal, Eugenics, in 1929, “Eugenically, as low-powered as the Negro, the [Mexican] peon is, from a sanitation standpoint, a menace. He not only does not understand health rules: being a superstitious savage, he resists them.” See Charles M. Goethe. The Influx of Mexican Amerinds.' Eugenics 2(1): January 1929. 6–9. Cited in Stern (2005, 68).

  14. By 1954, Mexican deportations represented 84% of all deportation proceedings, and Mexican immigrants were the largest national group in 10 of the 13 deportation categories listed in the INS annual report. The remaining three categories were non-criminal reasons for deportation (Swing, 1954, Table 24).

  15. In July 2007, a federal judge upheld a near two-decades-old injunction to protect Salvadoran asylum-seekers because of ongoing widespread abuses in detention and barriers to due process. National Immigration Law Center, “Orantes Injunction Upheld: Judge Finds Widespread Abuses in Immigrant Detention,” press release, July 31, 2007.

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  1. University of California, Los Angeles

    David Manuel Hernández

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Hernández, D. Pursuant to Deportation: Latinos and Immigrant Detention. Lat Stud 6, 35–63 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2008.2

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