Migrating to Prison: Americas Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants

(Paperback)

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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

Reviews

Praise for Migrating to Prison:
In tracing the history behind todays record levels of imprisonment, Garca Hernndez reveals the haphazard ways immigration enforcement has been devised and administered, how supremacist notions of nationalism and race have long guided our policymaking, and how adherence to procedural guidelines was gradually reframed as a question of criminality.
The New York Review of Books

Hernndez lays out in a lucid, linear fashion the evolution of immigration law and its enforcement in the United States.
The Intercept

[Garca Hernndez] argues compellingly that immigrant advocates shouldnt content themselves with debates about how many thousands of immigrants to lock up, or other minor tweaks.
Gus Bova, Texas Observer

An immigration lawyer takes the U.S. immigration imprisonment system to task in this passionate, credible treatise.
Shelf Awareness

Csar Cuauhtmoc Garca Hernndezs Migrating to Prison uncovers the history of U.S. immigrant detention, from the 1980s to the present.
Bustle

Timely, informative, expertly written, organized and presented, Migrating to Prison: Americas Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants is unreservedly recommended.
The Midwest Book Review

Migrating to Prison makes the persuasive case that the astronomical boom in imprisonment of immigrants stems from exactly the same root causes, both financial and political, as the dramatic escalation in mass incarceration.
The Baffler

Exuding humanity, insight, and forbearance, Garca Hernndez offers a concise and powerful look at a complex and perplexing challenge.
Booklist

A thought-provoking perspective on immigration and U.S. immigration policy.
Library Journal (starred review)

A chilling, timely overview of the American tendency to first exploit and then criminalize migrants. . . . Garca Hernndez counters pessimism with in-depth research and measured, passionate argument. An effective jeremiad on a key moral controversy of the Trump era.
Kirkus Reviews

An accessible history and fierce critique of the U.S. immigration system. . . . His thoughtful mixture of reportage and legal scholarship makes for an important entry in the immigration debate.
Publishers Weekly

Required reading for anyone fighting for a new immigration policy vision that welcomes immigrants. We need to understand the sadistic, multibillion-dollar industry of immigrant detention so that we can rip it down and make sure it never comes back.
Cristina Jimnez, co-founder and executive director of United We Dream

Essential for anyone trying to understand how the United States came to have the worlds largest detention infrastructure. Garca Hernndez does a masterful job of laying out the turning points of immigration imprisonment from Ellis Island to family separation and the case for abolishing the practice altogether.
Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network

Garca Hernndez provides an insightful examination of the eerie parallels between immigration imprisonment and mass incarceration. He makes a compelling argument that criminalizing immigration enforcement is not only a seriously flawed practical strategy, but an affront to human rights as well.
Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project and author of Race to Incarcerate

A must-read for any American interested in the tragic humanitarian impacts of the mass detention of immigrants as a central tool in contemporary immigration enforcement. Garca Hernndez writes cogently, intelligently, and passionately about the increasingly expansive use of detention to regulate immigration. The book could not be more timely.
Kevin R. Johnson, dean, University of California, Davis, School of Law

At a time when child migrant camps and family separations have drawn the attention of Americans, Migrating to Prison provides a vital road map to understand how the immigrant detention industry has evolved over the years. A critical and accessible primer for anyone interested in understanding the systemand abolishing it.
Deepa Iyer, author of We Too Sing America

Migrating to Prison rips the veils off of the immigration detention system.Garca Hernndez brings a sharp legal eye to showing how our immigration system has become so twisted that we take for granted the outrageous. If you want a crystal clear explanation of why we need to abolish immigration detention, this is the book for you.
Aviva Chomsky, author of Undocumented

Author Bio

Csar Cuauhtmoc Garca Hernndez is a professor of law at the University of Denver and an immigration lawyer. He regularly speaks on immigration law and policy issues and has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, and many other venues. The author of Crimmigration Law as well as Migrating to Prison and Welcome the Wretched (The New Press), he lives in Denver.