Current border policies and legislation are fixed to a framework of criminalization and punishment. Through “prevention through deterrence” strategies employed by the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, such as the Consequence Delivery System and Operation Streamline, immigration policy is approached from a criminal justice standpoint. Under “zero-tolerance” guidelines unauthorized entry is treated as a federal misdemeanor, unauthorized re-entry, a felony. Detention and deportation are used as punishments in order to dissuade potential attempts to re-enter the U.S.
Read more on our Immigrant Detention, Private Prisons and Minimum Occupany Quotas page.
NNIRR works with grassroots groups and organizations on a number of issues affecting immigrant and refugee communities around the country. Immigration policing (commonly referred to as “enforcement”) serves to deepen the kinds of abuses and rights violations facing our communities at the US-Mexico border, in the US interior and increasingly at the US-Canadian border.
Read more on our Immigrant Enforcement & Policing page.