Haymarket Books, Punishing Immigrants: U.S. Immigration Enforcement and the PIC OR Karen Manges Douglas and Rogelio Sáenz, The Criminalization of Immigrants & the Immigration-Industrial Complex
Haymarket Books, Whose Security? Communities Resisting Post-9/11 Global Security Framework (featuring Sadie Barnette, Omar Farah, Silky Shah, Tarek Z. Ismail)
Mizue Aizeki, Geoffrey Boyce, Todd Miller, Joseph Nevins and Miriam Ticktin, Smart Borders or a Humane World? OR Mijente, Just Futures Law & No Border Wall Coalition, The Deadly Digital Border Wall
Harsha Walia, Undoing Border Imperialism [free copy of ebook available here]
Cesar Cuauhtemoc Garcia Hernandez, Abolishing Immigration Prisons
Geraldo Cadava, A. Naomi Paik & Catherine Ramirez, From “Crisis” to Futurity: Migration and Borderlands in the 21st Century
Immigrant Defense Project & Center for Constitutional Rights, Cruel By Design: Voices of Resistance from Immigration Detention
Caging Borders and Carceral States: Incarcerations, Immigration Detentions, and Resistance, edited by Robert T. Chase
Cecilia Menjívar, Immigration Law Beyond Borders: Externalizing and Internalizing Border Controls in an Era of Securitization
Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
Todd Miller, Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the US Border around the World
Leisy Abrego, Mat Coleman, Daniel E Martínez, Cecilia Menjívar, Jeremy Slack, Making Immigrants into Criminals: Legal Processes of Criminalization in the Post-IIRIRA Era
micah, Prison Abolition Resource Guide OR Mariame Kaba, Transform Harm
Lisa Marie Cacho, Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected
Queer and Trans Migrations: Dynamics of Illegalization, Detention, and Deportation (edited by Eithne Luibhéid and Karma R. Chávez)
James Kilgore, Understanding E-Carceration: Electronic Monitoring, the Surveillance State, and the Future of Mass Incarceration OR Mijente, Tech Wars (a 5-part course designed for anyone interested in studying technology and data as the new frontier in organizing against the systems of enforcement and criminalization that harm our communities).
Detention Watch Network, Families for Freedom, Immigrant Defense Project, & National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, Deportation 101: A Community Resource on Anti-Deportation Education and Organizing
Project NIA, Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) Abolition 101
Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move
Routledge Handbook on Immigration and Crime edited by Holly Ventura Miller and Anthony Peguero
Undeterred (documentary about community resistance in the rural border town of Arivaca, Arizona)
Freedom for Immigrants, The Immigration Detention Syllabus
As you engage with the materials, we encourage you to reflect on the materials in whatever way you process—whether through provocations, questions, or discussions.
To facilitate discussion, we invite you to join us for a panel discussion with scholars and community members on this topic to reflect together and find different ways to challenge our understanding. More information on the panel is available under Scholar Series. We also welcome your own reflections and questions through our reflection form.
If you are looking for asynchronous reflection, we offer the following questions to guide your reflection:
Who or what has informed and shaped your understanding of crime and criminality? What is a "crime" and who gets to define it?
In what ways did the readings/videos/podcasts challenge your current understanding of criminalization and borders, particularly within immigration?
Think critically about the border as a method. What roles do borders play in racial capitalism and settler colonialism?
What does abolition or police-free or borderless futures mean to you? What does it require from you, and what are you willing to commit to?
Option 1: Develop a monthly plan outlining how you will commit to learning more about the history of the land you occupy, building relationships with Indigenous peoples, and paying land taxes for your occupation.
Option 2: Unpack and dismantle your personal reliance on carceral solutions. Reflect on why you or someone you care for has called the police in the past. Use dontcallthepolice.com to research community-based alternatives (in your city, state, wherever you are housed) to offer you the support you were looking for.
Option 3: Donate time, skills, and/or money to grassroots organizations and initiatives such as La ColectiVA, Detention Watch Network, Midwest Immigration Bond Fund, #NoTechforICE, #AbolishICE, and #TakeBackTech; invest in mutual aid networks such as DC Mutual Aid Network or Indigenous Mutual Aid Groups; and help in reallocating city budgets by defunding the police. A comprehensive database on local mutual aid networks across the nation is available here.
Option 4: Create a weekly or monthly donation plan based on your income and generational wealth to redistribute your wealth. Use this master list to identify organizations, networks, and funds you plan to commit to.