RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Punishing Immigrants: The Consequences of Monetary Sanctions in the Crimmigration System
JF RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
FD Russell Sage Foundation
SP 76
OP 97
DO 10.7758/RSF.2022.8.2.04
VO 8
IS 2
A1 Amairini Sanchez
A1 Michele Cadigan
A1 Dayo Abels-Sullivan
A1 Bryan L. Sykes
YR 2022
UL http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/8/2/76.abstract
AB Research on crimmigration—the intersection where criminal and immigration law meet—shows that immigrants are increasingly punished and deported as a consequence of a criminal conviction. We investigate how immigration status shapes the imposition of monetary sanctions. By drawing on interview and court observational data from four states, we demonstrate that the legal opaqueness at the intersection of the crimmigration system often results in crimmigration sanctions—enhanced financial and nonfinancial penalties that are the result of an undocumented immigrant’s liminal legality. Findings show that immigrants are financially exploited through gaps in criminal and immigration law that allow for crimmigration sanctions in the form of bail predation and the exchange of higher financial penalties for reduced or no jail time, lessening an undocumented immigrant’s risk of deportation. The implications of these practices for due process are discussed in detail.