Migrating to Prison traces American’s predilection for locking up immigrants. It didn’t start with Trump and it didn’t start with Obama. In fact, even the famed Ellis Island entry included a detention center. However, we are locking up more people for longer for more specious reasons than ever before. How has this happened?

The first part of the book focuses on the history of immigration laws and detention. None of it is terribly surprising. We have always worked to restrict immigration from nonwhite countries.

However, while detention was always a possibility, today’s explosion of immigrant detention is unprecedented. It’s all about politics and money. Demagoguery about outsiders is an effective way to attract supporters. People like simple explanations that blame other people, the more “other” the better. When politicians seek power through hate and couple that with the profit motive of private detention of immigrants, there is trouble.

He also discusses the lack of second chances for immigrants. People lose any path to citizenship for even slight infractions such as having a joint or driving without a license and can be put on the path to deportation. He discusses the case of Garcia Zarate whose indictment for the shooting of Kate Steinle was demagogued by Republicans even though in the end, the jury acquitted him, but not before Boehner’s House passed Kate’s Law. It died in the Senate. Prison is the first resort for immigrants with even misdemeanor offenses, justified as necessary for public safety.

And yes, the money. It’s not just the donations from private contractors, it’s the communities whose main industry is a prison. Closing a prison means lost jobs, people moving away, and lost government funding. Prisoners count in the census which determines representation in state and federal government and the share of state and federal support communities garner. When a prison is in danger of closing, the townspeople and their reps rush to defend and protect its existence. Locking up migrants is particularly profitable because the cost is born solely by the federal government, no local and state money is kicked in.

Migrating to Prison is an important book. Immigration is a deeply polarizing issue and was the linchpin to Trump’s election. The book is well organized and full of personal stories that should shock the conscience. Best of all, García Hernández has more comprehensive suggestions to reform the system than repeal Citizens United. He knows that abolition requires a sea change in our attitudes, but provides examples of several programs that have worked in the past to prove that immigrants do not need to be detained in order to show up for hearings nor is it necessary to protect public safety.

I received an e-galley of Migrating to Prison from the publisher through NetGalley.

Migrating to Prison at The New Press
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández family page
Article by the author in Time Magazine

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

The U.S. is obsessed with locking up immigrants, says César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, lawyer and University of Denver professor, who has extensive knowledge about U.S. immigration and imprisonment. Migrating to Prison provides an eye-opening look at the origins of the system and how it operates, with family detention somehow viewed as a humanitarian response to family separation; particularly infuriating when separations result from the targeting of "criminal aliens." These fellow humans range from asylum seekers fleeing hardships to soldiers dealing with PTSD after fighting for the country that now disowns them.

García Hernández presents an abundance of facts and history in a passionate yet credible fashion that should raise the hackles of everyone. The tale isn't a new one. Targeted confinement dates back to anti-Chinese sentiment of 1800s California. It's no coincidence that selective imprisonment escalated following the civil rights movement--a substitution for racism that could no longer be expressed as openly. García Hernández posits that the system isn't broken, but is intended to marginalize minorities for political and financial gain.

The author argues that immigration law is like "a bouncer at a trendy nightclub" and Americans have "always used fear and race to imprison those we see as threats," allowing "white racists [to] find comfort against the prevailing winds of change." García Hernández makes a solid case for the situation as a "humanitarian catastrophe." By any stretch, "the promise that the United States welcomes 'anyone with the will and heart to get here' is flat out false."

Migrating to Prison written by Cesar Garcia Hernandez demonstrates that the imprisoning of immigrants in the guise of “detainment” is a fairly new phenomenon. The process according to Garcia Hernandez was linked to the 1980s War on Drugs. The book is divided into three parts addressing the history of immigrants detainment, the contemporary system, and possible solutions.

The strongest part of the book is the examination of the privatization of the prison system. The extent to which “Big Money” is to be had by private corporations housing immigrants is startling. The book provides tremendous insight into various immigrant cases and the present state of immigrant prisons. Less effective was the historical background and the lack of analysis of the racialization of immigrants.For example, there are stark differences between the processing of Southern and Eastern Europeans at the turn of the 20th century and that of Chinese, Salvadorans, or Mexicans in the late 20th century. While each endured detailed, invasive physical examination and interrogation the latter immigrants were generally criminalized because of their racial status. And though discussion of asylum was broached a more thorough discussion of policy differences may have strengthened this book. I received this ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

**NOTE: I received ARC of this book in ebook form via NetGalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased review. I did not receive compensation from the publisher for my review and so the opinions expressed within are of my own.**

This is an extremely fascinating and infuriating read. This book really puts into perspective the issue of immigration and how the US deals with the situation in a language that people can understand. Reading through this book, the author reveals how and why immigration became such a complex hot button issue. The political, sociological, and even psychological ramification of an immigration system where we incarcerate immigrants who are escaping from peril are detailed in this book as well.

The history that is in this book was very fascinating to read as well. It demonstrates the endless cycle with our obsession of detaining immigrants indefinitely without any due process or even care for these individuals.

The author does explain that he does not have a solution on reforming our stances on immigration and rightly so because he is only one individual who would be tackling such a large issue like this. However, he does give hope that we can dismantle our current system and reform it to be more humane and empathetic to immigrants of all backgrounds.

This is a solid, accessible introduction to an important topic.

News junkies will already know much of what is found here, as there has been much recent coverage of the topic.

Even so there will be some new information for just about every reader. A key takeaway for me was how recent the whole idea of locking up unauthorized immigrants is.

Everyone needs to read this. So many people are uninformed about the immigration processes, and this is very enlightening, even for me.

Migrating to Prison was a really fascinating account of the history of America's immigration policy, and quite an eye-opener. Whilst the immigration policy of the U.S. has become a way to 'punish, stigmatize and marginalize - all for political and financial gain, it has throughout its history, veered between a somewhat laissez faire approach, with the pendulum now firmly swinging in the punitive direction. It was in 1896 that Supreme Court Judges declared that immigration imprisonment was constitutionally permissible in the 1896 Wong Wing v U.S case. Early detention centres in Ellis Island and Angel Island were unsanitary and degrading holding centres. Following WWII when there was a shortage of labour, migration was actually encouraged with initiatives like the Bracero Program which encouraged generations of Mexicans to move northwards. However this was a time-limited initiative and since the civil unrest of the 1960's and 1970's, immigration laws have become increasingly militant and unfairly biased along race and class lines.

With mass hysteria about terrorism, legislation has become increasingly restrictive, including imprisoning women and children fleeing gangs, or abuse. With the rise of private prisons, immigration policies are generating revenues that exploit slave labour and boost economies by providing jobs for hundreds. Treating people as criminals simply because they have fled a country to find safety, seems like a wholly cynical and degrading policy. Surely each case should be treated on its merits? There has to be a better way forward and this book examines in detail past, present and possible future ways of dealing with migration. Fascinating, extensively researched and an important read for anyone interested in politics in the present climate.

An important read for everyone. This book teaches the uninformed about the immigration dilemma we are facing right now. It is dire and we need a solution fast. No one migrating to a country should be forced into a prison, just as this book makes the point of saying.

I recommend this book highly.

I give this book 5 stars for excelling at what it is, an introduction to immigration law/reform in the United States by an expert in the field. The author lays out a compelling argument against immigration prisons by laying out the history of immigration reform, the present and the future he hopes to see. While doing so, he doesn’t dumb down or sugar coat the complexities of immigration reform. It is a ghastly beast with no easy answers and where both sides of the aisle have done more damage than good. No administration is spared from his criticism. I am not well versed in immigration reform but I want to become educated and this book is a perfect starting point. Thank you #netgalley for the ARC of #migratingtoprison.