The Fear Factor: Exploring the Impact of the Vulnerability to Deportation on Immigrants\u27 Lives

This qualitative study explores the impact that the fear of deportation has on the lives of noncitizen immigrants. More broadly, it explores the role that immigration enforcement, specifically deportation, plays in disrupting the process of integration, and the possible implications of this interruption for immigrants and their communities. The study aims to answer: (1) how vulnerability to deportation specifically impacts an immigrant’s life, and (2) how the vulnerability to deportation, and the fear associated with it, impacts an immigrant’s degree of integration. Data were gathered through a combination of six open-ended focus group interviews of 10 persons each, and 33 individual in-depth interviews, all with noncitizen immigrants. The findings reveal several ways in which the vulnerability to deportation impacted noncitizen immigrants’ lives: the fear of deportation produces emotional and psychological distress, which leads immigrants to have negative perceptions of reception into the United States, all which create barriers to integration. In addition, the findings reveal that the fear of deportation and the resulting psychological distress constitutes a form of legal violence. Legal violence is an emerging framework by Menjívar & Abrego (2012) that builds upon structural and symbolic violence, and refers to state-sanctioned harm perpetuated against immigrants via harsh immigration laws. The fear of deportation, combined with the structural reality of legal violence, creates an environment that impedes integration. The effect of deportability on immigrants’ lives is of interest on the level of both individual integration and community cohesion

Crimmigration, Deportability and the Social Exclusion of Noncitizen Immigrants

The spread of crimmigration policies, practices, and rhetoric represents an economically rational strategy and has significant implications for the lived experience of noncitizen immigrants. This study draws up in-depth interviews of immigrants with a range of legal statuses to describe the mechanics through which immigrants internalize and respond to the fear of deportation, upon which crimmigration strategies rely. The fear of deportation and its behavioral effects extend beyond undocumented or criminally convicted immigrants, encompassing lawful permanent residents and naturalized citizens alike. This fear causes immigrants to refuse to use public services, endure labor exploitation, and avoid public spaces, resulting in social exclusion and interrupted integration, which is detrimental to US society as a whole

Outside JusticeImmigration and the Criminalizing Impact of Changing Policy and Practice /

XXXI, 280 p. 16 illus.online resource