Abstract
Felicia Arriaga's book Behind Crimmigration: ICE, Law Enforcement, and Resistance in America offers an incisive look into the complexities of local immigration enforcement practices in North Carolina. The central argument of the book highlights the significant impact of local elections on the trajectory of federal–local immigration enforcement collaboration programs such as the 287(g) agreements. First, Arriaga reveals the insidious nature of the 287(g) agreement, demonstrating how it operates through covert collaborations between local law enforcement officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Second, she underscores how the 287(g) program, a tool of social control, is perpetuated through what she calls “white ignorance”. Last, she emphasizes the role of community organizing, which effectively challenges these agreements.
What sets Arriaga's work apart is her comprehensive methodology. Her research is a strong blend of interviews, evaluations of administrative records collected from sheriff's offices in five politically diverse North Carolina counties, and participant observations recorded during public meetings involving the 287(g) program's debates. This methodological approach enables Arriaga to shine a spotlight on the entrenched, often invisible, anti-immigrant policies that the Latinx community grapples with daily.
As one of Arriaga's respondents points out, the 287(g) program was initially designed with the intention of targeting and removing undocumented immigrants convicted of serious offenses such as violent crimes, human smuggling, gang activities, organized crime, sexual offenses, narcotics smuggling, and money laundering. However, its application has shifted over time. Arriaga notes that the program is now often leveraged to expel all undocumented immigrants from their communities, regardless of their criminal backgrounds. Arriaga argues that in counties in North Carolina where the 287(g) program is still active, its broader application is driven by economic incentives linked to the incarceration of immigrants. Arriaga also indicates that this broad application of the 287(g) program has had damaging consequences for North Carolina's Latinx communities, leading to increased tensions and distrust among community members and local government entities.
Much of the socio-legal scholarship describes the term “crimmigration” as the convergence of criminal law and immigration law. Arriaga goes into great detail to show that this intersection is an intricate system with hidden and opaque features. While many may view the 287(g) program as the definitive indicator of a local law enforcement agency's collaboration with ICE, Arriaga challenges this assumption head-on by revealing a more intricate relationship at play. Arriaga's work shows the careful untangling required to understand how the state has devolved federal immigration enforcement to local entities. For instance, Arriaga notes that the departments of Probation and Post Release Supervision and Parole have partnered with ICE; this partnership aids officers in identifying and potentially removing undocumented immigrants on probation or parole. Arriaga's meticulous analysis thus highlights a strategic downshifting of immigration enforcement responsibility to local law enforcement—a move that holds significant implications for the Latinx community, especially in emerging immigrant destinations like North Carolina.
In a great level of detail, the book also examines how local governmental entities, particularly county commissioners and local law enforcement, collaborate in response to perceived threats from the Latinx immigrant community. This collaboration is most evident in the adoption and execution of the 287(g) agreements. These agreements, Arriaga reveals, function under a shroud of secrecy, largely because community stakeholders often remain unaware of how local governmental entities—or what Arriaga calls crimmigration entities—are entangled with ICE. This obscurity allows many local actors, who stand to benefit from these agreements, and whose involvement is often unknown to community members, to collaborate with ICE. Yet, Arriaga's study uncovers the vast web through which the 287(g) threads extend, encompassing covert practices, standard operating protocols, and financial exchanges that commence long before an immigrant's actual arrest.
Another insight Arriaga brings to the forefront focuses on the strategies used by local law enforcement and other governing bodies to obscure their involvement with ICE. For instance, at the beginning of the 287(g) program's implementation, community members observed enforcement actions, like ICE raids. However, when these overt practices subsided, the less obvious tactics, such as financial exchanges between ICE and local law enforcement offices, were not scrutinized because they were hidden from public view, thus leading to the program's normalization and persistence. Arriaga indicates that a more transparent dialogue about the depth and breadth of collaborations with ICE is crucial, especially for communities, like the ones she studies, that aspire to be more inclusive and welcoming to immigrants. Furthermore, Arriaga notes that some governing entities within these communities publicly declare such aspirations through official resolutions, but fall short in enacting genuine policy changes to support their claims of wanting to become inclusive and welcoming to immigrants.
Moreover, Arriaga sheds light on the question of why some counties continue to persist with their 287(g) agreements while others have managed to stop them. She first underscores the disparities between counties, noting that programs linger in places where there is minimal community pushback, perhaps due to a smaller immigrant population or the absence of a robust immigrant rights center. Second, through her sharp “white ignorance” framework, Arriaga decodes the collective memory lapse surrounding racist justifications offered by dominant white populations in North Carolina. This amnesia, she argues, facilitates the normalization of anti-immigrant, racially biased agreements within communities, a practice that safeguards white economic interests and predominantly benefits white communities.
Arriaga's research not only highlights the complexities and challenges faced by the Latinx community due to the 287(g) agreements but also emphasizes the transformative power of community awareness. By documenting the collaborative exchanges between ICE, and various local entities—from police departments and sheriff's offices to city councils and county commissioners—Arriaga shows how communities organize and build coalitions to hold governmental bodies accountable. This community awareness, in turn, potentially can lead to reduction or end interior immigration enforcement practices.
North Carolina, although a new immigrant destination, stands as a testament to community empowerment and activism. Arriaga chronicles the strategic coalition-building efforts between pro-immigrant rights organizations and broader policy accountability movements, such as the anti-mass-incarceration movement. Arriaga shows that collective movements, such as the one she documents in this book, often resulted in challenging and eventually dismantling racially biased social controls, like 287(g) agreements. In essence, Behind Crimmigration is not just an academic endeavor; it is an urgent call for collective action. Arriaga offers other counties with 287(g) agreements a tangible blueprint to challenge and deconstruct immigration enforcement mechanisms, urging communities still entangled by these agreements to work toward a truly inclusive future.