Prison and Immigration Industrial Complexes: The Ethnodistillation of People of Color and Immigrants as Economic, Political, and Demographic Threats to US Hegemony
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2012.01.24Keywords:
Immigration, Immigration and Crime, Immigration Industrial Complex, Prison Industrial Complex, Mass Imprisonment, Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Detention CentersAbstract
This paper compares the sociohistorical trends that led to the development of the Prison and Immigration Industrial Complexes by demonstrating their deep roots in American public, racial, political, and penology history, and to show how these industries were used as armaments in the low intensity conflict war to keep blacks “in their place” in the post-Civil Rights Movement era, and now against Latino immigrants in a last ditch effort to preserve a dissipating white hegemonic order as the looming Browning of America unfurls. This study specifically compares the black experience in the Prison Industrial Complex, and how local policies fuel that industry, to the immigrant experience and how the Immigration Industrial Complex lucratively thrives from federal and regional antiimmigrant policies that have fueled its expansion along the border, thereby escalating the “War on Drugs” to the “War on the Border.” Scholars have argued that the Prison Industrial Complex ultimately serves to “disappear” people of color from society. I extend that contention to the Immigration Industrial Complex, by arguing that the white ruling class has benefitted the most because countless whites have escaped the wrath of these industries, which is coupled by its motivation to “purify and refine” society, more specifically to “distill” it of the “hypercriminalized” class theoretically composed of people of color in a process previously established as ethnodistillation, which have served to maintain the US’ white subjugated social order.
References
Aguirre, Adalberto Jr. & Turner, Jonathan. (1995). American Ethnicity: The Dynamics and Consequences of Discrimination. New York, NY. McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Akers Chacón, Justin & Davis, Mike. (2006). “The Anti-Filipino Riots.” No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US-México Border, chapter 5. Chicago, Illinois. Haymarket Books. 39-42.
Allen, JoAnne. (1999). Blaxploitation Films. http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/impact/s99/Projects/paper/joanne.html. Retrieved June 29th, 2012.
Alexander, Michelle. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York, NY. The New Press.
Alimahomed, Sabrina. (2011). Generation Islam”: Arab American Muslims and Racial Politics after September 11. Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, 4, 3. 381-397. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2979/racethmulglocon.4.3.381
Almaguer, Tomás. (1994). Racial Faultines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California. London, England. University of California Press.
Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund Recipient Blog. (2012). May 25/ Visibly Invisible. Posted May 5th, 2012. http://apiasfrepresent.tumblr.com/post/23734836190. Retrieved November 23rd, 2012.
Barry, T. (2009). A Death in Texas: Profits, poverty, and immigration converge. Boston Review. Retrieved from: http://bostonreview.net/BR34.6/barry.php. Retrieved January 29th, 2011.
Boudreaux, Don. (2006). Are Immigrants to Blame for Inappropriate Government Activities? Cafehayek.com. May 19th, 2006. http://cafehayek.com/2006/05/are_immigrants_.html. Retrieved June 24th, 2012.
Bowler, Alida. (1931). Wickersham Commission: National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement: Crime and the Foreign Born. U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington DC.
Brotherton, David & Kretsedemas, Philip. (2008). Keeping Out The Other: A critical introduction to immigration enforcement today. New York, NY. Columbia University Press.
Buentello, T., Carswell, S., Hudson, N. & Libal, B. (2010). Operation Streamline: Drowning Justice and Draining Dollars along the Rio Grande. Grassrootsleadership.org. July 2010. www.grassrootsleadership.org
http://grassrootsleadership.org/OperationStreamline/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Operation-Streamline-Green-Paper.pdf. Retrieved June 12th, 2012.
Butcher, K., Piehl, & Morrison, A. (1999). The role of deportation in the incarceration of immigrants. National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3386/w6974
Butcher, K., Piehl & Morrison, A. (1998a). Recent Immigrants: Unexpected implications for crime and incarceration. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 51. 654-679. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2525013 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/001979399805100406
Butcher, K., Piehl & Morrison, A. (1998b). Cross-city evidence on the relationship between immigration and crime. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 17. 457-493. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6688(199822)17:3<457::AID-PAM4>3.0.CO;2-F DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-6688(199822)17:3<457::AID-PAM4>3.0.CO;2-F
Ceasar, Stephen. (2011). Hispanic population tops 50 million in US. Los Angeles Times. March 24, 2011. http://articles.latimes.com/print/2011/mar/24/nation/la-na-census-hispanic-20110325. Retrieved June 20th, 2012.
Chin, Andrew. (2001). A Brief History of the ''Model Minority'' Stereotype. Model Minority. April 21, 2001. http://modelminority.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=113:a-brief-history-of-the-model-minority-stereotype-&catid=40:history&Itemid=56. Retrieved November 25th, 2012.
Clark, Kenneth, B. & Clark, Mamie, K. (1940). Skin color as a factor in racial identification of Negro preschool children. Journal of Social Psychology, S.P.S.S.I. Bulletin, 11. 159-169. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1940.9918741 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1940.9918741
Department of Homeland Security. (2009). Immigration Detention Overview and recommendations. Department of Homealand Security. October 6th, 2009. http://www.ice.gov/doclib/ 091005_ice_detention_report-final.pdf Retrieved June 12th, 2012.
DeSipio, Louis. (1996). Counting on the Latino Vote: Latinos as a New Electorate. Charlottesville, VA. University Press of Virginia.
Detention Watch Network. (2009). Advocate issue statement condemning Obama Administration. Press Release. July 17th, 2009. 1-3.
Díaz, Jr., Jesse. (2010). Organizing the brown tide: La Gran Epoca Primavera 2006 en Los Angeles, an Insider’s Story. University of California, Riverside. Dissertation in Sociology.
Díaz, Jr., Jesse. (2011). Immigration Policy, Criminalization and the Growth of the Immigration Industrial Complex: Restriction, Expulsion, and Eradication of Undocumented in the U.S. Western Criminology Review 12, 2. 35-54.
Douglas, K. & Saenz, R. (2009). “The making of a criminal: Immigrants and the prison industrial complex.” Presentation at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. www.unomaha.edu/ollas/.../saenz%20power%20point.ppt.
Drug Policy Alliance. (2012a). History of the Drug War. Drug Policy Alliance. http://www.drugpolicy.org/facts/new- solutions-drug-policy/brief-history-drug-war. Retrieved January 20th, 2012.
Drug Policy Alliance. (2012b). Our Victories: Most Recent Victories. Drug Policy Alliance. http://www.drugpolicy.org/action/our-victories. Retrieved January 24th, 2012.
Dunn, Timothy. (1996). The Militarization of the U.S.–Mexico Border 1978-1992: Low-Intensity Conflict Doctrine Comes Home. Austin, TX. CMAS Books.
Eitzen, Stanley D. & Baca Zinn, Maxine. (2007). In Conflict and Order: Understanding Society. Boston, MA. Pearson, Education, Inc.
Farlex. (2008). Slavery. Farlex: The Free Dictionary. http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/slavery. Retrieved May 29th, 2012.
Feagin, Joe. (2000). Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. New York, NY. Routledge.
Fernándes, Deepa. (2007). Targeted: Homeland Security and the Business of Immigration. New York, NY. Seven Stories Press.
Frontline. (2012). Thirty Years of America’s Drug War: A Chronology. Frontline. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/cron/. Retrieved June 12th, 2012.
Gambino, Lauren. (2010). Operation Streamline Program Prosecutes Illegal Immigrants Before Deporting Them. News 21: Latino America. http://asu.news21.com/2010/prosecuting-illegal-immigrants/. Retrieved July 15th, 2012.
Gavett, Gretchen. (2011). Lost in Detention Map: The U.S. Immigration Detention Boom. Frontline. October 18th, 2011. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/lost-in-detention/. Retrieved June 20th, 2011.
Golash-Boza, Tanya. (2009a). A confluence of interests in immigration enforcement: How politicians, the media, and corporations profit from immigration policies destined to fail. Sociology Compass, 3. 1-12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00192.x
Golash-Boza, Tanya. (2009b). The Immigration Industrial Complex: Why We Enforce Immigration Policies Destined to Fail Sociology Compass, 3. 1-15. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00193.x
Gray, Katti. (2011). News Report, How Cops Turn “Stop and Frisk” Into “Stop and Arrest.” The Root. June 13th, 2011. http://newamericamedia.org/2011/06/how-cops-turn-stop-and-frisk-into-stop-and-arrest.php. Retrieved June 15th, 2012.
Gray, Madison. (2009). New York's Rockefeller Drug Laws. Time. April 2nd, 2009. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/ 0,8599,1888864,00.html. Retrieved June 12th, 2012
Hallinan, Joseph. (2001). Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation. New York, NY. Random House Publishers
Harding, Vincent. (1981). There is a River: The Black Struggle for Freedom in American. New York, NY. Harcourt-Brace Jovanovich Publishers.
Herzing, Rachel. (2005). What is the prison industrial complex. Publiceye.org. http://www.publiceye.org/defendingjustice/ overview/herzing_pic.html. Retrieved May 8th, 2012
Horowitz, Carl. (2001). An examination of US immigration policy and serious crime. Center for Immigration Studies.
Horton, Y., Price, R. & Brown, Eric. (1999). Portrayal of Minorities in the Film, Media and Entertainment Industries. Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race: Edge ethics of development in a global environment. June 1st, 1999. http://www.stanford.edu/ class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/portrayal.htm. Retrieved June14th, 2012.
Hourwich, I. (1912). Immigration and Crime. The American Journal of Sociology17, 4. 478-490. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1086/211996
Hsu Spencer & Moreno, Sylvia. (2007). US: Border Policy's Success Strains Resources: Tent City in Texas Among Immigrant Holding Sites Drawing Criticism. The Washington Post. Corpwatch: Holding Corporations Accountable. February 2nd, 2007. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14334& printsafe=1. Retrieved July 2nd, 2012.
Immigration Customs and Enforcement. (2012). Secure Communities. Department of Homeland Security. http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/. Retrieved June 14th, 2012.
Jackson, David. (2010). Obama signs law targeting disparities in cocaine cases. USA Today. Aug 3rd, 2010. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/08/obama-signs-law-targeting-disparities-in-cocaine-cases/1. Retrieved July 23rd, 2012.
Jackson Lee, Sheila. (2001). Review of Department of Justice Immigration Detention Policies. Subcommittee on the Judiciary House of Representatives, 107th Congress, 1st Session. December 19th.
Kang, Cecilia. (2007). Customs Enlists Rosetta to Train Officers’ Tongues. Washington Post. Monday, October 22nd, 2007. http://dreamacttexas.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-money-in-immigration-industrial.html. Retrieved June 13th, 2012.
Kelsey, C. (1926). Immigration and Crime. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 125. 165-174. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/000271622612500132 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/000271622612500132
Kennedy, Bud. (2006). Few minutes with Minuteklan is plenty of time for GOP group. Star-Telegram. June 29th, 2006. http://minuteklannews.blogspot.com/2006/06/few-minutes-with-minuteklan-is-plenty.html. Retrieved May 25th, 2011.
Kil, Sang Hea & Menijvar, C. (2006). The War on the Border: Criminalizing immigrants and militarizing in US-México Border. In Immigration and Crime: Race, Ethnicity and Violence. Edited by Ramiro Martinez, Jr. and Abel Valenzuela, Jr. New York, NY. New York University Press.
Lee, Matthew. (2003). Crime on the Border: Immigration and Homicide in Urban Communities. New York, New York. LFB Scholarly Publishing.
Lydersen, Kari. (2007). Families Behind Bars: Jailing Children of Immigrants. In These Times. . Retrieved July 16th, 2012.
Martin, Courtney. (2009). The Big Business of Family Detention: It’s not just alleged terrorists who are suffering from our inhumane treatment of detainees. It's also children. The American Prospect. February 2nd, 2009. http://prospect.org/article/big-business-family-detention. Retrieved June 13th, 2012.
Martínez, Ramiro, Jr. (2000). Immigration and urban violence: The link between immigrant Latinos and types of homicide. Social Science Quarterly, 81. 363-374.
Martínez, Ramiro Jr. & Valenzuela, Abel. (2006). Immigration and Crime: Race, ethnicity, and violence. New York, NY. New York University Press.
Martínez, Ramiro, Stowell, Jacob & Lee, Matthew. (2010). Immigration and crime in an era of transformation: A longitudinal analysis of homicides in San Diego neighborhoods, 190-2000. Criminology, 48, 3. 797–829. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00202.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00202.x
Massey, D. (1995). The New Immigration and Ethnicity in the United States. Population and Development Review, 21, 3. 631-652. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2137753 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2137753
Massey, D., Durand, J. & Malone, J. (2002). Beyond Smoke and Mirrors. New York, NY. Russell Sage Foundation.
Mauer, Marc. (2009). The Changing Racial Dynamics of the War on Drugs. The Sentencing Project: Research and Advocacy for Reform. April 2009. http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/ dp_raceanddrugs.pdf. Retrieved June 12th, 2012.
McAdam, Doug. (1999, 1982). Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930-1970. Chicago, IL. University of Chicago Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226555553.001.0001
McCann, Brian. (2007). Fighting the Prison Industrial Complex: A Call to Communication and Cultural Studies Scholars to Change the World. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 4,4. 402-420. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420701632956
McLaughlin, Virginia Yans. (1990). Immigration Reconsidered: History, Sociology, and Politics. New York, NY. Oxford University Press.
Morawetz, Nancy. (2000). Understanding the impact of the 1996 deportation laws and the limited scope of proposed reform. Harvard Law Review, 113, 8. 1936-1962. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1342314 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1342314
Newman, T., Rhee, K. & Carrasquillo, A. (2011). NY Governor Cuomo Announces Support for Closing Major Loophole in State's Marijuana Decriminalization Law; Bloomberg and Kelly Follow Suit. Drug Policy Alliance. June 4th, 2012. http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2012/06/ny-governor-cuomo-announces-support-closing-major-loophole-states-marijuana-decriminali. Retrieved June 20th, 2012.
New York Times. (2009). Editorial: Enforcement gone bad. New York Times. February 22nd, 2009.
Ngai, Mae. (2004). Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press.
Oboler, Suzanne. (2009). Behind Bars: Latino/as and Prison in the United States. New York. NY. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230101470
One People's Project. (2005). Minuteman Co-Founder Joins Hate Group. Onepeoplesproject.com. July, 2nd, 2005. http://www.onepeoplesproject.com/. Retrieved July 12th, 2012.
Ong Hing, B. (2004). Defining American through Immigration Policy. Philadelphia, PA. Temple University Press.
Pettit, B. & Western, B. (2004). Mass Imprisonment and the Life Course: Race and Class Inequality in US Incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69, 2. 151-169. Retrieved from www.jstor.org.torofind.csudh.edu/stable/3593082. Retrieved May 8th, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240406900201
Powell-Hopson, Darlene & Hopson, Derek S. (1988). Implications of Doll Color Preferences among Black Preschool Children and White Preschool Children. Journal of Black Psychology, 14. 57-63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00957984880142004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00957984880142004
Rodriguez, Gregory. (2012). New wave of immigrants — a new target too? Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated and fastest-growing racial group in the U.S. This means envy and resentment may follow, Op-Ed. latimes.com. June 25, 2012. latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-0625-rodriguez-pew-asians--20120625,0,6955824.column. Retrieved November 28th, 2012.
Roth, Mitchel. (2011). Crime and Punishment: A history of criminal justice system. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
RT America. (2012). DHS wants to use spy drones domestically for “public safety.” RT America. July 26th, 2012. http://rt.com/usa/news/dhs-drone-surveillance-napolitano-156/. Retrieved June 24th, 2012.
Samora, Julian. (1971). Los Mojados: The Wetback Story. Notre Dame, IN. University of Notre Dame Press.
Sampson, R. (2006). Open doors don’t invite criminals. New York Times. March 11th.
Savive, Will. (2012). Dimensions of Racial Profiling & Institutionalized Racism in the US Savive’s Corner. Thursday, January 12th,
http://willsavive.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive. html. Retrieved June 12th, 2012.
Schlosser, Eric. (1998). The Prison-Industrial Complex. Atlantic Monthly. December 1998. http://www.theatlantic.com/ magazine/archive/1998/12/the-prison-industrial-complex/4669/. Retrieved April 15th, 2011.
Siegal, Larry & Bartollas, Clemens. (2011). Corrections Today. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.
Siegal, Larry & Welsh, Brandon. (2012). Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.
Southern California Immigration Coalition. (2009). The Southern California Immigration Coalition supports workers’ demands that the Obama administration stop the rampant I9 audits and E Verify resulting in the terminations of tens of thousands of workers. Press Release. July 18th, 2009.
Suro, Roberto. (1996). Watching America’s Door: The Immigration Backlash and the New Policy Debate. New York, NY. The Twentieth Century Fund Press.
Thompson, Gabriel. (2011). How the Right Made Racism Sound Fair—and Changed Immigration Politics. Colorlines: News for Action. September 13th, 2011. http://colorlines.com/archives/ 2011/09/how_the_right_made_racist_rhetoric_sound_neutral--and_shaped_immigration_politics.html. Retrieved July 2nd, 2012.
Vogel, Richard. (2007). Transient Servitude: The U.S. Guest Worker Program for Exploiting Mexican and Central American Workers. Monthly Review, 58, 8. Posted Jan. 2007. http://monthlyreview.org/2007/01/01/transient-servitude-the-u-s-guest-worker-program-for-exploiting-mexican-and-central-american-workers. Retrieved June 3rd, 2012. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14452/MR-058-08-2007-01_1
Wessler, Seth. (2011). Shattered families: The perilous intersection of immigration enforcement and the child welfare system. Applied Research Center. November 2011. http://arc.org/shatteredfamilies. Retrieved June 14th, 2012.
Wilder, Forrest (2006). South Texas Hold ‘Em: The Immigration Endgame. Texas Observer. Thursday, May 4th, 2006. http://www.texasobserver.org/archives/item/14795-2193-south-texas-hold-em-the-immigration-endgame. Retrieved April 10th, 2011.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2013 International Journal of Criminology and Sociology
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Policy for Journals/Articles with Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post links to their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work
Policy for Journals / Manuscript with Paid Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Publisher retain copyright .
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post links to their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work .
