Instructor(s): Audrey Macklin

The term ‘crimmigration’ was coined by Juliet Stumpf in her 2006 article, The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, and Sovereign Power, 56 Am U L Rev 367. Crimmigration describes the nexus between criminal and immigration law and enforcement. One scholar described crimmigration as ‘a new system of social control that draws from both immigration and criminal justice but is purely neither.’ Although immigration law is a branch of administrative law (like environmental, securities, or labour law), non-citizens have long been subject to negative stereotypes and discourses that solder a linkage of immigration with crime. The label ‘illegal immigrant,’ affixed to people who breach the provisions of an immigration statute is a stark example. This course explores how immigration law increasingly draws on techniques and logics associated with the penal governance, and also how the criminal law has been mobilized to turn breaches of immigration law in criminal offences, and to create crimes applicable only to non-citizens. Topics include the production of irregular or ‘illegal’ status, race and the legacy of colonialism, migrant detention, ‘hostile environment’ policies that surveille and stigmatize non-citizens, deportation, counter-terrorism, anti-smuggling, and denationalization. 

LEARNING OUTCOMES 

Students will: 

  • Explore the concept of crimmigration, its origins, and how immigration law increasingly adopts penal governance techniques to criminalize non-citizens. 
  • Analyze the roles of race and colonial legacies in policies such as migrant detention, deportation, and surveillance in creating a ‘hostile environment’ for non-citizens. 
  • Investigate key topics like irregular immigration status, counter-terrorism, anti-smuggling, and denationalization to understand their legal, social, and human rights implications. 
  • Build the ability to critically engage with scholarly literature, legal frameworks, and media, while forming and presenting informed legal arguments about the crimmigration system. 
Evaluation
30% participation: Students will be required to submit 3 assignments, each worth 10%. A non-exhaustive range of possible assignments include a 2-3 page ‘reaction paper’ to a weekly set of readings; a critical comment on a media report relevant to course topics (500 to 750 words); a brief in-class presentation on one or more readings; observation of administrative tribunal hearing; draft ‘op-ed’ on policy issue relevant to course topics. 70% final exam: Students will write an in-class, 3 hour 'limited' open book final exam. They will be permitted to bring into the exam a maximum 3-page printed course summary.
Academic year
2025 - 2026

At a Glance

First Term
Credits
3
Hours
2
Perspective course

Enrolment

Maximum
25

18 JD
2 LLM/SJD/MSL/SJD U

5 Criminology / Sociolegal Studies graduate students

Schedule

W: 10:30 am - 12:20 pm