Migrant Prosecutions

Over two decades, there has been dramatic growth in the number of individuals sentenced in federal courts primarily due to the enforcement of particular immigration offenses: unlawful entry and unlawful reentry into the United States. Immigrants charged with unlawful reentry — a federal crime — are alleged to have entered or attempted to enter the U.S. illegally more than once. Many of those charged with unlawful reentry were apprehended at a U.S. border by the U.S. Border Patrol. Though the number of cases prosecuted dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic, the reduction is in part attributable to the rise in rapid expulsions under the “health screening” provisions of Title 42. And yet, as of May 2021, the top prosecuted federal offense continues to be for unlawful reentry under 8 U.S.C. 1326.

Federal laws used to prosecute entry and reentry violations were first enacted with a white supremacist animus, and continue to have a discriminatory impact on Black and Latinx communities. Such prosecutions bring together the civil and criminal immigration legal systems in ways that exacerbate racial and ethnic discrimination, shuttling people between the criminal and immigration systems, where racial profiling and discrimination are common to both.

Another commonality of the immigration and criminal legal systems is the exponential growth of the tools of technology and surveillance used against communities navigating this intersection. Federal prosecutions for immigration violations present a unique opportunity to assess and concretize the harms of surveillance technology as it is weaponized against BIPOC communities.

Advocacy

National Sign-on Letter: End Operation Streamline and De-Prioritize Migration-related Prosecutions (February 4, 2021)

Resources

ICE Intelligence Centers: How ICE Gathers Data to Conduct Raids and Deportations