Migrating to Prison

America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants

By: César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

For most of America's history, we simply did not lock people up for migrating here. Yet over the last 30 years, the federal and state governments have increasingly tapped their powers to incarcerate people accused of violating immigration laws. As a result, almost 400,000 people annually now spend some time locked up pending the result of a civil or criminal immigration proceeding.

In Migrating to Prison, leading scholar Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernández takes a hard look at the immigration prison system's origins, how it currently operates, and why. He tackles the emergence of immigration imprisonment in the mid-1980s, with enforcement resources deployed disproportionately against Latinos, and he looks at both the outsized presence of private prisons and how those on the political right continue, disingenuously, to link immigration imprisonment with national security risks and threats to the rule of law.

Interspersed with powerful stories of people caught up in the immigration imprisonment industry, including children who have spent most of their lives in immigrant detention, Migrating to Prison is an urgent call for the abolition of immigration prisons and a radical reimagining of the United States: who belongs and on what criteria is that determination made?

©2019 César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández (P)2019 Tantor

Gripping and heartbreaking

Well written and stunning in detail, this book promises to expand the conversation on how we view immigrants, migration, and the path to citizenship.

Amazing. Thorough. Informative. Relevant.

I am certain that you will find this book as relevant as it can get when it comes to issues we face as a society. Even though we hear all day long about immigration, few truly understand how complex this issue is and, perhaps most importantly, why we need to talk about it more. The reason is people. At the end of the day, human beings, such as you and me, are being locked up and facing unimaginable amounts of adversity.

Cesar takes us deep into the intricacies of the "Industrial Prison Complex", and invites us to do something about it. This book should be read by everyone, everywhere.

Thanks Cesar for writing this. And also thank you Timothy for narrating the book in such an engaging manner.