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The Immigration Law Death Penalty
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Introduced as part of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 and expanded several times in the subsequent decade, the aggravated felony legal category includes crimes for which noncitizens—both documented and undocumented—can be deported under immigration law. Aggravated felonies need not be “aggravated” nor “felonies”—rather, the category encompasses a broad range of criminal convictions, including misdemeanors, ranging from check fraud and shoplifting to drug trafficking and murder. The aggravated felony is known by lawyers as the “immigration law death penalty” because noncitizens convicted of aggravated felonies are subject to mandatory detention and almost certain deportation as they are made ineligible for almost all forms of legal relief from removal. This book traces the historical development of the aggravated felony to its everyday outcomes in the modern deportation regime. Drawing on ethnographic and interview-based research conducted in a New York City immigration court, this book weaves grounded analysis and supplementary data with firsthand accounts that depict the severe, expansive, and unequal outcomes of the aggravated felony, while also highlighting innovative forms of resistance to its harshest effects. By demonstrating how immigration enforcement and deportation work to doubly punish groups already targeted by the criminal justice system, the findings in this book exemplify of the way in which criminal justice disparities—especially those related to race and ethnicity—are reproduced through immigration law. In describing creative forms of community-based legal resistance that have emerged in New York City, this research has key implications for all concerned with creating equal systems of justice and protecting the rights of immigrants.
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