Arizona has played a historic role in national “law and order” policymaking and immigration politics. Today it has some of the highest levels of criminal arrest, prosecution, and sentencing for immigration offenses. Yet it is also home to one of the most dynamic border- and immigrant-rights movements in the country. This chapter explores linkages among civil rights, mass incarceration, and immigration enforcement to better explain the local political and economic context in which the Department of Homeland Security has diffused federal criminal enforcement priorities and institutionalized “prosecutorial” approaches to migration that aggressively punish while safeguarding “victims’ rights.”
Book Review: From Deportation to Prison: The Politics of Immigration Enforcement in Post-Civil Rights America