Immigration And Criminality In Escobar's Captivity Beyond Prisons

In “Captivity Beyond Prisons,” Escobar addresses the scrutiny which immigrants face in order to be considered an integral and productive factor to American society. Escobar believes that some sectors of immigrant rights movement are anti-Black because Black people are racistly associated with criminality. The root of such criminality is supposedly stemmed from Black motherhood as Black mothers are assumed to be dependent on the state and “passes on to their children deficient moral values… linked to criminality.” Immigrants are indirectly forced to view Black people or of African descent as criminals and not the model citizens to follow. Escobar analyzes the dichotomy between “good” and “bad” immigrants through several articles and “differentiates

In McDonnell’s article, Rubio is described as a “hardworking, self-sufficient man with social ties to citizens;” however, Rubio argument is based on having “never depended on the government.” Anti-immigration focus more on the fact of immigrants giving back to the government in taxes and not being independent and depleting its resources. Immigrants are put into a binary of “good” and “bad” and are forced to lose their identity in order to “behave ‘like’ Americans or face the consequences.” Escobar’s analysis of immigration and criminality is that of having immigrants have an “American” identity in contrast to the identity of a “criminal.” Criminality is used to “organize society in order to regulate racialized and gendered boundaries of belonging.” Every individual is put under different levels of scrutiny in order to fit the “American” identity or “criminal” identity. Criminality is constantly changing its meaning to separate the “deserving” from the

In the case of building a wall and immigration reform, there are three different perspectives which are voiced. In “Yes, build the wall,” Robert Samuelson agrees with the proposal to build the border wall. Samuelson believes the wall will reduce illegal immigration, “symbolize a major shift in U.S. immigration policy,” and “would be effective” unless proven otherwise after being built. Though it is not seen as a compromise, Trump would be keeping the DACA program which would save “Dreamers” from deportation. This compromise would allow “an estimated 690,000 ‘Dreamers’” to remain in the United States and would stop future illegal immigration from occurring. In “An O’odham Perspective on Border Controls and Immigration,” the O’odham believe that border shows “the continuation of colonization and puts the struggle in perspective for people who are unaware of the O’odham.” They believe that their people are not heard and that the issue is greater than the one between the colonials. In “Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Racism Represents an American Tradition,” Paul Kramer believes that the anti-immigration mainly applies to nations with “predominantly black and brown” people. This racism can be traced back to the first naturalization law which did not scrutinize any “free white persons of good character” but those of African descent, “laying the groundworks for durable associations