From Jim Crow to Juan Crow

This chapter details how the expanded criminalization trap terrorized immigrant communities in the United States, with the threat of not only criminal justice consequences but immigration consequences as well. It investigates a small group of Corporate America and Wall Street executives who have been instrumental in creating and preserving the immigration policies that have forced millions of people to live “in the shadows” as far less than equal members of the society. While many immigration issues contribute to racial injustice, the chapter focuses on whether the people, as a country, are going to continue allowing undocumented residents of the United States to be ruthlessly exploited and treated as a virtually permanent underclass. To address that issue, and demonstrate how the ultra-wealthy profit off immigrants' pain, the chapter seeks to understand how the immigration policies work in practice. Ultimately, it looks at the US policy makers' lack of genuine interest in discouraging undocumented migration into the United States and how this is intimately related to the fact that most US corporations are more than happy to benefit from an expanded and more easily exploitable labor market.