Abstract

For some time, several scholars have claimed that the increasing use of criminal law institutions, imaginaries and tactics to control immigration by high-income countries is forging a convergence of two regimes – immigration and criminal law – which have traditionally been distinct from each other (e.g. Pratt 2005; Pickering and Weber 2006; Legomsky 2007; Bosworth and Guild 2008). One of the most troublesome features of this trend is that it poses serious challenges to the criminal-civil divide and it perpetuates the view that ‘immigration outside the law’ ¹ is a crime and should be treated as such (Eagly 2010; Chacón 2010; 2012; McLeod, 2012). The novelty of these policy and legal developments – at least on the books – should not be overestimated. Many countries – including the United States, the United Kingdom and several countries in Europe – have deployed criminal law powers to police their shores for some time. Perhaps what is novel about these developments is the intensity with which the criminal law and criminal justice institutions are used to manage – or be seen to manage – an increasingly mobile world. As Catherine Dauvergne (2009: 347) points out, globalization produces highly polarized outcomes: while it enhances privilege for the selected few, it increases the exclusion of those already marginalized.