By The Immigrant Defense Project

The ICE Out of Courts Coalition (the Coalition) is comprised of over 100 organizations and entities across New York State. As community-based organizations, unions, civil legal services providers, public defenders, family defenders, anti-violence advocates, law schools, and civil rights and liberties groups serving New Yorkers of all ages, races, and immigration statuses, we have been alarmed and appalled by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) increasing dependence on our State’s court system as its preferred venue for surveilling and detaining immigrant New Yorkers. For over two years, the Coalition has gathered qualitative and quantitative data from affected stakeholders across issue areas and roles within the justice system. Following meetings with the Chief Judge and the Chief Administrative Judge, the Coalition has spent significant energy compiling the data collected in this report. The data collected in this report demonstrates the full breadth of the negative impact ICE courthouse operations have had on the administration of justice, as well as equal access to justice, in New York State. This report demonstrates just how widespread this problem is — affecting not just New York City but the whole state, affecting not just criminal but problem-solving and civil courts as well. Information presented here attests to how systemic this issue has become in the fair and efficient administration of justice, and how ICE courthouse operations have had an outsized effect on the most vulnerable New York State residents, including victims and survivors of domestic and gender-based violence, single mothers, those eligible for problem=solving courts and youth.

New York: Immigrant Defense Project, 2019. 88p.

By The Immigrant Defense Project

In 2019, ICE continued its expansive courthouse operations: IDP received reports of 203 operations, a 1700% increase from 2016 (11 operations). Nearly half of these operations occurred after the New York State Unified Court System (UCS) issued a Directive to limit ICE courthouse arrest practices on April 17, 2019—in part, requiring ICE to provide a judicial warrant to make an arrest inside a courthouse. ICE made clear to its agents through internal communications that “We can enter the courthouses to observe...we are good to make the arrest outside the courthouse with or without a judicial warrant.”1 From April 2019 onward, ICE used tactics that skirted the Directive by moving their arrests to court entrances and exits, while still surveilling people inside courthouses. In some cases, ICE violated the Directive outright—refusing to identify themselves as required, failing to wait for a supervising judge to review a warrant, and escorting an individual out of the courthouse to handcuff them outside. ICE’s use of force has resulted in injuries, broken glass doors, and crippling fear of attending court. As New York ICE Field Office Director Thomas Decker told reporters in September, “if we don’t have the information about where they are at in the community, and then we can pick them up around the court, then that’s what we are going to do.”2

New York: Immigrant Defense Project, 2020. 22p.

By Hillel R. Smith

Congress’s power to create rules governing the admission of non-U.S. nationals (aliens) has long been viewed as plenary. In the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), as amended, Congress has specified grounds for the exclusion or removal of aliens, including because of criminal activity. Some criminal offenses, when committed by an alien present in the United States, may render that alien subject to removal from the country. And certain criminal offenses may preclude an alien outside the United States from being either admitted into the country or permitted to reenter following an initial departure. Criminal conduct also may disqualify an alien from certain forms of relief from removal (e.g., asylum) or prevent the alien from becoming a U.S. citizen. In some cases, the INA directly identifies particular offenses that carry immigration consequences; in other cases, federal immigration law provides that a general category of crimes, such as “crimes involving moral turpitude” or an offense defined by the INA as an “aggravated felony,” may render an alien ineligible for certain benefits and privileges under immigration law.

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  The INA distinguishes between the treatment of lawfully admitted aliens and those who are either seeking initial admission into the country or who are present in the United States without having been lawfully admitted by immigration authorities. Lawfully admitted aliens may be removed if they engage in conduct that renders them deportable, whereas aliens who have not been admitted into the United States may be barred from admission or removed from the country if they have engaged in conduct rendering them inadmissible. Although the INA designates certain criminal activities and categories of criminal activities as grounds for inadmissibility or deportability, the respective grounds are not identical. Moreover, a conviction for a designated crime is not always required for an alien to be disqualified on criminal grounds from admission into the United States. But for nearly all criminal grounds for deportation, a “conviction” (as defined by the INA) for the underlying offense is necessary. Additionally, although certain criminal conduct may disqualify an alien from various immigrationrelated benefits or forms of relief, the scope of disqualifying conduct varies depending on the particular benefit or form of relief at issue.

Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2021. 37p.

By Fabio Mariani and Marion Mercier

Contrary to popular perception, empirical evidence suggests that immigrants do not necessarily commit more crimes than natives, in spite of having lower legitimate earning opportunities. To make sense of this, we propose a novel theoretical framework based on a predator/prey model of crime, where endogenous migration decisions and career choices (between licit and illicit activities) are jointly determined. In this setting, we show that the involvement of migrants in crime crucially depends on self-selection into migration, as well as on productivity and institutional quality in the host economy. In particular, immigrants may display a lower crime rate than natives even if they are less productive on the honest labor market - and this result can still hold if career choices are revised after migration. We also find that stricter immigration policies could induce an adverse selection of migrants, and eventually attract more foreign-born criminals. Finally, a dynamic extension of our model can account for the higher crime rates of second-generation immigrants, and highlights the critical role of immigration and assimilation for the long-run evolution of crime and institutions in host countries.

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics. 2021. 51p.

By Anna Weiss

Anna Wyss’ survey of the heavily politicised group of male migrants in Europe provides insightful analysis of both masculinity and the European migration crisis. The book tracks men’s repeated attempts to achieve permanent residence status and the successive detentions and deportations they endure. It measures the effects of precarity on their lives and explores the hope and vulnerability they experience.

Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, 2022. 214p.

Edited by Ilke Adam, Tundé Adefioye, Serena D'Agostino, Nick Schuermans and Florian Trauner

"Migration, Equality and Racism trigger ever more salient societal debates. More than 80 VUB academics and co-authors joined forces for this book. Philosophers, lawyers, psychologists, health scientists, sociologists, geographers, criminologists, communication and political scientists … look at migration, equality and racism from different disciplinary angles. Together they aim to contribute to an exercise of humanism as a praxis of criticism or a ‘technique of trouble-making’, in the words of Edward Said. Through 44 thought-provoking and informed opinion pieces, they question widespread beliefs on migration, equality and racism and propose solutions that might disturb. Let this book be a source of inspiration for those who want to spark an informed debate on the ever more salient issues of migration, equality and racism, for those who want to learn more on how and why humanism has often remained an empty box for migrants and racialized groups. Or for those who are in search of inspiration for a just future for all. Migration, Equality and Racism is the work of Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) think tank POINcaré and was created under the direction of Ilke Adam, Tundé Adefioye, Serena D’Agostino, Nick Schuermans and Florian Trauner."

Brussels: 1 VUBPRESS, 2021. 258p.

Edited by Jude McCulloch and Sharon Pickering

Considers the growing importance of the border as a prime site for criminal justice activity and explores the impact of border policing on human rights and global justice. It covers a range of subjects from e-trafficking, child soldiers, the 'global war on terror' in Africa and police activities that generate crime.

Houndmills, Basingstoke. UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 214p.

By Joshua M. Smith

Passamaquoddy Bay lies between Maine and New Brunswick at the mouth of the St. Croix River. Most of it (including Campobello Island) is within Canada, but the Maine town of Lubec lies at the bay's entrance. Rich in beaver pelts, fish, and timber, the area was a famous smuggling center after the American Revolution. Joshua Smith examines the reasons for smuggling in this area and how three conflicts in early republic history - the 1809 Flour War, the War of 1812, and the 1820 Plaster War - reveal smuggling's relationship to crime, borderlands, and the transition from mercantilism to capitalism. Smith astutely interprets smuggling as created and provoked by government efforts to maintain and regulate borders. In 1793, British and American negotiators framed a vague new boundary meant to demarcate the lingering British empire in North America (Canada) from the new American Republic. Officials insisted that an abstract line now divided local peoples on either side of Passamaquoddy Bay. Merely by persisting in trade across the newly demarcated national boundary, people violated the new laws. As smugglers, they defied both the British and American efforts to restrict and regulate commerce. Consequently, local resistance and national authorities engaged in a continuous battle for four decades. Smith treats the Passamaquoddy Bay smuggling as more than a local episode of antiquarian interest. Indeed, he crafts a local case study to illuminate a widespread phenomenon in early modern Europe and the Americas.

Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 22006. 192p.

By Daphné Bouteillet-Paquet

Migrant smuggling has been an issue of increasing concern. The negative consequences of this type of transnational crime include the erosion of state sovereignty and the loss of control over who enters and leaves the territory, the potential security implications of clandestine entries and document smuggling, the large profits that accrue to human smugglers and organized criminal groups, the increasingly brutal treatment of migrants by careless smugglers leading to a growing number of deaths by drowning, dehydration, freezing or suffocation, and the high smuggling fees that migrants have to pay for the illegal transfer to destination countries, often leading to high debts for smuggled migrants and making them vulnerable to exploitation and human trafficking. Despite the fact that migrant smuggling has attracted great media and political attention over the last two decades, there has not been any comprehensive analysis of the state of expert knowledge. Great confusion still prevails about what is migrant smuggling within the global context of irregular migration.

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  UNODC is currently developing and implementing a number of new projects to assess and counter the various threats posed by human smuggling. To do so effectively, and to learn from already existing research on migrant smuggling for current and future programme design, it is imperative to gain an overview of the current state of knowledge on the subject by consolidating the existing literature on the subject in one comprehensive and informative background document.

  The Global Review and Annotated Bibliography of Recent Publications on Smuggling of Migrants (Global Review) replies to this need by surveying existing sources and research papers on migrant smuggling, to provide a summary of knowledge and identify gaps based on the most recent and relevant research available on migrant smuggling from a worldwide perspective.

  The Global Review is structured in thematic chapters which also address the issue at a regional level. Conceptual challenges, scope of migrant smuggling, profiles of smuggled migrants and of migrant smugglers, their relationships, the organizational structures of smuggling networks, modus operandi and smuggling fee as well as the human and social cost of migrant smuggling are addressed in this Global Review, based on well-informed journalistic books, reports and academic articles.

Vienna: United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, 2011. 148p.

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By Steven W. Bender

Mexico and the United States exist in a symbiotic relationship: Mexico frequently provides the United States with cheap labor, illegal goods, and, for criminal offenders, a refuge from the law. In turn, the U.S. offers Mexican laborers the American dream: the possibility of a better livelihood through hard work. To supply each other’s demands, Americans and Mexicans have to cross their shared border from both sides. Despite this relationship, U.S. immigration reform debates tend to be security-focused and center on the idea of menacing Mexicans heading north to steal abundant American resources. Further, Congress tends to approach reform unilaterally, without engaging with Mexico or other feeder countries, and, disturbingly, without acknowledging problematic southern crossings that Americans routinely make into Mexico.

In Run for the Border, Steven W. Bender offers a framework for a more comprehensive border policy through a historical analysis of border crossings, both Mexico to U.S. and U.S. to Mexico. In contrast to recent reform proposals, this book urges reform as the product of negotiation and implementation by cross-border accord; reform that honors the shared economic and cultural legacy of the U.S. and Mexico. Covering everything from the history of Anglo crossings into Mexico to escape law authorities, to vice tourism and retirement in Mexico, to today’s focus on Mexican border-crossing immigrants and drug traffickers, Bender takes lessons from the past 150 years to argue for more explicit and compassionate cross-border cooperation.

New York; London: New York University Press, 2012. 233p.

By Joseph Nevins

By 1994 American anti-immigration rhetoric had reached a fevered pitch, and throngs of migrants entered the U.S. nightly. In response, the INS launched "Operation Gatekeeper," the centerpiece of the Clinton administration's unprecedented effort to "regain control" of our borders. In Operation Gatekeeper, Joseph Nevins details the administration's dramatic overhaul of the San Diego-Tijauna border-the busiest land crossing in the world-adding miles of new fence and hundreds of trained agents.

New York: London: Routledge, 2002. 296p.

By Tom K. Wong

To better understand the attitudes and preferences that border residents have on border policies, the U.S. Immigration Policy Center (USIPC) at UC San Diego surveyed 2,750 voters across the four southwestern border states—Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. The survey was fielded from October 8 to October 22. The margin of error is +/- 2.1%. For more, see methodology section. The data show that the majority of registered voters across the four southwestern border states—Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas—disapprove of the way that the president is handling issues at the U.S.-Mexico border. The results also reveal a general lack of trust in the Border Patrol agency, which includes: lack of trust that Border Patrol officials will protect the rights and civil liberties of all people; lack of trust that Border Patrol officials will keep border residents safe; and lack of trust that Border Patrol officials who abuse their authority will be held accountable for their abuses. Moreover, registered voters in the southwestern border states generally prefer policies opposite to those of the current administration.

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  These policies include: alternatives to detention for families seeking refuge in the U.S.; placing unaccompanied minors caught attempting to cross the border illegally into the care of child welfare specialists, not border or immigration enforcement officials; providing aid to migrants in distress (e.g., food and water) rather than criminally prosecuting those who provide aid to migrants in distress; investing more in making ports of entry more efficient rather than spending more on border security; and admitting asylum seekers into the U.S. in order to ensure their safety rather than making asylum seekers wait in Mexico. When it comes to spending, whereas the majority of registered voters across the four southwestern border states oppose additional federal spending on border walls and fencing, the results are mixed when it comes to additional federal spending on hiring more Border Patrol agents. Lastly, the results show that just over 3 out of 10 have been stopped and questioned about their citizenship status at an interior border checkpoint.

La Jolla, CA: U.S. Immigration Policy Center, UC San Diego, 2019. 23p.

By Tom K. Wong, Karina Shklyan, Andrea Silva and Josefina Espino

As Congress remains gridlocked on the issue of comprehensive immigration reform, immigration policy debates, particularly with respect to interior immigration enforcement, are increasingly taking place at state and local levels. Scholarship on immigration federalism has thus far focused mostly on the relationship between the federal government and localities. However, states are increasingly passing laws that either tighten cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or that delimit when and under what conditions local law enforcement officials can do the work of immigration enforcement (i.e., so-called sanctuary policies). Simultaneously, cities within these states are doing just the opposite. In this study, we examine how these ambiguities in interior immigration enforcement policies at state and local levels affect the trust that undocumented immigrants have in the efficacy of sanctuary policies. Moreover, we examine how these ambiguities affect the day-to-day behaviors of undocumented immigrants. Using California as a case, we embedded an experiment in a survey (n = 521) drawn from a probability-based sample of undocumented immigrants. We find that when cities want to opt out of statewide sanctuary laws, this undermines the trust that undocumented immigrants have in the efficacy of sanctuary policies. We also find that “opting out” has negative implications for the day-to-day behaviors of undocumented immigrants that are similar to the chilling effects that result when local law enforcement officials do the work of federal immigration enforcement.

La Jolla, CA: U.S. Immigration Policy Center, UC San Diego, 2019. 29p.

By Tom K. Wong, S. Deborah Kang, Carolina Valdivia, Josefina Espino, Michelle Gonzalez and Elia Peralta

Previous research shows that the day-to-day behaviors of undocumented immigrants are significantly affected when local law enforcement officials do the work of federal immigration enforcement. One such behavior, which has been widely discussed in debates over so-called sanctuary policies, is that undocumented immigrants are less likely to report crimes to the police when local law enforcement officials work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on federal immigration enforcement. However, the mechanism that explains this relationship, which is decreased trust in law enforcement, has not yet been systematically tested. Do undocumented immigrants become less trusting of police officers and sheriffs when local law enforcement officials work with ICE on federal immigration enforcement? To answer this question, we embedded an experiment that varied the interior immigration enforcement context in a survey (n = 512) drawn from a probability-based sample of undocumented immigrants. When local law enforcement officials work with ICE on federal immigration enforcement, respondents are statistically significantly less likely to say that they trust that police officers and sheriffs will keep them, their families, and their communities safe, protect the confidentiality of witnesses to crimes even if they are undocumented, protect the rights of all people, including undocumented immigrants, equally, and protect undocumented immigrants from abuse or discrimination.

La Jolla, CA: U.S. Immigration Policy Center, University of San Diego, 2019. 21p.

By Tom K. Wong, Karina Shklyan, Anna Isorena and Stephanie Peng

How does interior immigration enforcement affect the day-to-day behaviors of undocumented immigrants? Although there is some evidence that points to a broad range of “chilling effects” that result when local law enforcement officials work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on federal immigration enforcement, the academic literature is surprisingly sparse. In this study, we embedded an experiment in a survey (n = 594) drawn from a probability-based sample of undocumented immigrants in order to better understand how the behaviors of undocumented immigrants are affected when local law enforcement officials do the work of federal immigration enforcement. When respondents are told that local law enforcement officials are working with ICE on federal immigration enforcement, they are 60.8 percent less likely to report crimes they witness to the police, 42.9 percent less likely to report crimes they are victims of to the police, 69.6 percent less likely to use public services that requires them to disclose their personal contact information, 63.9 percent less likely to do business that requires them to disclose their personal contact information, and are even 68.3 percent less likely to participate in public events where the police may be present, among other findings.

La Jolla, CA: U.S. Immigration Policy Center, University of San Diego, 2019. 24p.

By Andrea Guttin

The Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is a program administered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that screens inmates in prisons and jails, identifies deportable non-citizens, and places them into deportation proceedings. In this Special Report, The Criminal Alien Program: Immigration Enforcement in Travis County, Texas, author Andrea Guttin, Esq., provides a brief history and background on the CAP program. Guttin also includes a case study of CAP implementation in Travis County, Texas, which finds that the program has a negative impact on communities because it increases the community’s fear of reporting crime to police, is costly, and may encourage racial profiling.

La Jolla, CA: Immigration Policy Center, 2010. 23p.

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By Matt O’Brien, Spencer Raley and Casey Ryan

Advocates of open borders are fond of claiming that illegal aliens commit fewer crimes than native-born U.S. citizens. That makes perfect sense, they assert, because illegal aliens do not wish to be brought to the attention of law enforcement and risk deportation from the United States. In fact, this report finds that in the states examined, illegal aliens are incarcerated up to five and a half times as frequently as citizens and legal immigrants.

Washington, DC: The Federation For American Immigration Reform, 2019. 20p.

By Michelangelo Landgrave and Alex Nowrasteh

Illegal immigration and the crimes illegal immigrants commit are notoriously difficult to measure. This policy analysis is the latest paper in a series that attempts to answer that question by estimating illegal immigrant incarceration rates in the United States by using the American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample from the U.S. Census. This analysis goes beyond previous studies in the series as it updates our residual estimation method based on new research. Furthermore, we apply the updated methods to estimate the illegal immigrant incarceration rates in earlier years.

Washington, DC: CATO Institute, 2020. 16p.

By Annie Laurie Hines and Giovanni Peri

This paper analyzes the impact of immigrant deportations on local crime and police efficiency. Our identification relies on increases in the deportation rate driven by the introduction of the Secure Communities (SC) program, an immigration enforcement program based on local-federal cooperation which was rolled out across counties between 2008 and 2013. We instrument for the deportation rate by interacting the introduction of SC with the local presence of likely undocumented in 2005, prior to the introduction of SC. We document a surge in local deportation rates under SC, and we show that deportations increased the most in counties with a large undocumented population. We find that SC-driven increases in deportation rates did not reduce crime rates for violent offenses or property offenses. Our estimates are small and precise, so we can rule out meaningful effects. We do not find evidence that SC increased either police effectiveness in solving crimes or local police resources. Finally, we do not find effects of deportations on the local employment of unskilled citizens or on local firm creation

Bonn, Germany: IZA - Institute of Labor Economics, 2019. 42p.

By Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr

“Ban-the-Box” (BTB) policies restrict employers from asking about applicants’ criminal histories on job applications and are often presented as a means of reducing unemployment among black men, who disproportionately have criminal records. However, withholding information about criminal records could risk encouraging statistical discrimination: employers may make assumptions about criminality based on the applicant’s race (or other observable characteristics). To investigate BTB’s effects, we sent approximately 15,000 fictitious online job applications to employers in New Jersey and New York City both before and after the adoption of BTB policies. These applications varied the race and felony conviction status of the applicants. We confirm that criminal records are a major barrier to employment: employers that ask about criminal records were 63% more likely to call back an applicant if he has no record. However, our results support the concern that BTB policies encourage statistical discrimination on the basis of race: we find that the race gap in callbacks grows dramatically at the BTB-affected companies after the policy goes into effect. Before BTB, white applicants to employers with the box received 7% more callbacks than similar black applicants, but BTB increases this gap to 45%.

New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2016. 60p.