Crimmigration and the australian legal lexicon: Reflecting on border control, theory and the lived experience

Abstract

The punitive responses of governments to certain types of mobility have generated intense public interest and captured the attention of scholars writing from across the globe. Billed as a new thesis, crimmigration has provided a theoretical hook for the analysis of the increasing convergence of criminal and immigration law, strategies and technologies, in different nation-states. In this chapter, I examine the development of the crimmigration thesis and the extent to which it has become part of our Australian legal lexicon. Reflecting on its uptake, reach and limitations, this chapter makes the case for careful appraisal of the impact of Stumpf’s crimmigration thesis and the need to look beyond crimmigration law/policy to disentangle the impacts of laws, policies, practices and discourses of the securitization of migration. This chapter argues for closer inspection of these impacts through analyzing the lived experiences of non-citizens and those responsible for enacting crimmigration legal processes - judicial officers and lawyers.