On America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants: An Audio Interview with César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández on the Politics of Immigration and the Road Ahead in 2022

The legal scholar and author of “Crimmigration Law” and “Migrating to Prison” on immigration detention reform, midterm elections, and what he’s watching for in 2022.

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On America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants: An Audio Interview with César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández on the Politics of Immigration and the Road Ahead in 2022
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On America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants: An Audio Interview with César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández on the Politics of Immigration and the Road Ahead in 2022

When Joe Biden administration took office in January 2021, there were promises of a new direction in border and immigration enforcement, and that the policies of Donald Trump would be left behind. Now a year later, it seems important to look at what has and hasn’t been done, and what’s to come.

In terms of the immigrant detention system, I thought there would be no better person to talk to than César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, author of Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants. In the following audio interview García Hernández breaks down the actual promises of the new administration, and how they have held up over the last year, including the promise that it would remove private companies from immigration detention. García Hernández discusses immigration detention as a “core component” to the Biden administration’s enforcement regime that follows the footsteps not of Trump, but rather of the previous Barack Obama administration. He also raises concerns to keep an eye on as we move into 2022, a year that will be politically defined by the mid-terms, especially the potential for the administration to drift right to appease Republican hardline pressure. Thanks for listening!

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández was born and raised in the South Texas borderlands in McAllen. He is an expert on the intersection of immigration and criminal law which was the subject of his first book Crimmigration Law, published by the American Bar Association in 2015 and updated in 2021. García Hernández is currently the Gregory William Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and a law professor at Ohio State University, and has been publishing crimmigration.com since 2009 where you can find a repository of his work.

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Author

Todd Miller is Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of The Border Chronicle. He is the author of four books that examine border militarization and its externalization, surveillance technology and industry, climate change, and the search for alternatives. His books include Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019),  Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security (City Lights, 2017), and Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security (City Lights, 2014).

Todd’s forthcoming book is a deep examination of water as a border issue in an age of climate-induced heat waves and drought. It will be published by Seven Stories Press in 2027.

Besides The Border Chronicle, articles by Todd have appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, TomDispatch, and Al Jazeera English, among other places. He has also authored and co-authored reports on border surveillance, the border industrial complex, and climate change for the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute, where he is a fellow.

Todd’s book Storming the Wall received the Izzy Award in 2018 for “path-breaking and in-depth reporting.” He also received first place in “Community immigration reporting” by the Arizona Press Club in 2013. Todd has a bachelor’s degree in Latin American Studies and Journalism from Prescott College, where he is also an adjunct professor.

In his spare time, Todd likes to travel, read, philosophize, and hang out with his two kids—whether it be going to a dance recital or being a basketball coach.