The Immigration Law Death Penalty

Due to the aggravated felony provisions of US immigration law, a legal permanent resident of the United States convicted of a crime—that is neither severe nor even a felony—can be deported with no due process. Despite the severity of these provisions and the fact that tens of thousands of legal permanent residents have been deported under these provisions, few people have heard of aggravated felonies. This theoretically rich and deeply researched book brings aggravated felony provisions from the shadows to the spotlight. Sarah Tosh makes a cogent case that we need to abolish these racially biased and harmful provisions. This book is indispensable for any student or scholar of immigration or critical race theory. * Tanya Golash-Boza, author of Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism * In immigration law today, there is nothing more harmful to migrants than having ICE throw two words in their direction: aggravated felony. Looking well past the legal arguments, Tosh turns the aggravated felony from a technical legal concept to real-life anxiety. Through immigration court observations and interviews, Tosh shows the damning impact of adding immigration consequences to criminal legal processes, revealing the modern immigration law system’s reliance on criminal history to be rife with bias and short on justice. But through it all, Tosh also finds passionate advocates whose strategic thinking slows ICE’s efforts—and sometimes even carries the day for migrants. * César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, author of Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants * Through extensive interviews and direct observations, Tosh exposes the injustices at the heart of the American deportation regime and the strategies of legal resistance mobilized to resist it. * Alex S. Vitale, author of The End of Policing * A powerful and illuminating in-depth examination of the history, politics, and social factors behind the ‘aggravated felony’ legal category. Tosh’s rich analysis deconstructs this invented category, laying bare how it operates as a mechanism to funnel racialized immigrants to deportation. Tosh’s original charting of lawyers’ and advocates’ creative strategies to get around the most detrimental effects of the aggravated felony also seeds hope for pushing back against inherently discriminatory and unjust criminal and immigration laws. Invaluable. * Nancy Hiemstra, author of Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime *