Collaborative Research: The Criminal Deportation Pipeline

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The mass deportation of immigrants with criminal records has formed the cornerstone of increasingly punitive immigration policy in the United States over the past thirty years. The major categories of crimes for which lawful permanent residents (green card holders) can be removed are broad and amorphous, and for undocumented individuals, any conviction can lead to removal. Research has shown that racial and ethnic disparities profoundly impact the criminal justice system, adding to the risk of negative outcomes for Black and Latino immigrants in particular. We advance the concept of the “criminal deportation pipeline” to describe the intertwining criminal and immigration system processes that funnel certain immigrants toward removal. The study, drawing on the disciplines of sociology and criminology, focuses on the factors which shape and constitute this pipeline. Highlighting racial, ethnic and spatial disparities in criminal justice and immigration enforcement, as well as local policies and practices that aid immigrants targeted for expulsion, the study will demonstrate the pipeline’s functional presence in this iconic city of immigrants as well as factors that define its impact and character. The results of the research will contribute to the public debate on immigration policy and human rights reform while deepening our understanding of the relationship between citizenship, the law, and policing practices that have so impacted racialized immigrant communities. Informed by theories of social exclusion and criminalization, particularly along the vectors of race, as well as the field of resistance, the study is oriented by the following research questions: (i) How do local patterns of non-immigration-related criminal justice enforcement shape the flow of the criminal deportation pipeline?; (ii) How do protective legal policies and practices affect the function of the criminal deportation pipeline?; and (iii) How do immigrants experience and respond to overlapping processes of criminalization and deportation? We will examine these questions using a mixed methods research design that combines 120 hours of targeted observation of deportation proceedings; secondary analysis of official documents and administrative government datasets; and 120 in-depth interviews with affected immigrants, legal practitioners, and community-based advocates. Research will expand upon preliminary spatial analysis of high deportation areas in order to: (i) better understand how spatial, racial, and ethnic patterns in policing shape processes of criminal deportation; (ii) assess the function and impacts of protective legal policies, and (iii) identify the experiences of immigrants facing deportation with criminal records, as well as the impacts of overlapping criminal and immigration. The new knowledge produced will allow further development of theory around processes of social control, state practices and human agency with regard to the collective and individual immigrant experience.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.