- Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel peace prize winner
The criminalization of immigration is a huge issue within the U.S government and criminal justice system. The negative views and beliefs of all immigrants having criminal ties is due to the media portrayal which only shows immigrants when they do something illegal or commit a horrendous act. This has fed the fear American citizens have of immigrants. For instance, after the event of 9/11 there was so much hatred, fear, and discrimination which fueled Islamophobia and affected Muslim immigrants. The U.S criminalizes immigrants out of fear of terroristic threats/events and getting their jobs and resources taken away by immigrants. Since immigrants are seen as threats, the criminal justice system treats them as less than human while expecting them to follow laws better than U.S citizens. Immigrants are in fact not a threat to American jobs and resources. They also do not commit many crimes. Crimes committed by immigrants are less than those committed by Americans in the U.S. Immigrants do not commit crimes due to fear of police, immigration status, and deportation. Immigration was not always illegal and was not taken seriously until the last 70 years. In the early 1900’s immigration between the Mexican-U.S border was common and not frowned upon like it is now and the immigration laws that were first created were not taken seriously. The criminalization of immigration has created a disconnect between all undocumented immigrants and the police which is rooted in fear and discrimination like that of the Black population in the U.S.