Emphasizing the ‘Complex’ in the ‘Immigration Industrial Complex’

Abstract

This article contributes to scholarship that conceptualizes an ‘immigration industrial complex’, but argues against assertions that the complex represents a ‘confluence of interests’ or an unintended consequence of immigration policy enforcement. Instead, law regulates immigration and constructs ‘illegality’ in the interests of global (US) capital. This analysis has two implications. First, private government contractors are only one segment within a broader complex. Second, enforcement through policing, detention, and deportation may not appear to serve the short-term interests of businesses that depend on undocumented workers, but these practices reflect state investment in the expansion and accumulation of capital. The article refocuses attention toward our collective ‘race to the bottom’.