Immigration, Security and Crime: borders within borders

DALMASSO CLARA

Maryland

Conferencia; Third CINETS Conference; 2016

CINETS-Crimigration Control International Network of studies

Migrants have suffered, historically, but mostly recently, the ?criminal? label, as immigrate is the first crime any person can commit, prior to any other crime. A migrant is seen as the estranger in the national order, but that is present there, questioning it. And so, it becomes a threat that has to be faced. Immigration is now a security issue that international agendas, organizations and states have to solve. Closed borders illegalize mobility rights and promote de image of the migrant as a criminal. In Argentina, legislation and discourses have modified along history, but constructing a vision of an immigrant as a criminal or as a suspect, changing only the objectives of the threats. Even legal migrants, those who have the permit to reside and work, have to constantly prove that their permanence is ?legal? to every agency of the state they cross, even though Argentina has, since 2003, a supposedly ?open doors law? that many have criticize as only a discursive, but not a practical change. This is why we believe that borders are not only physical distances between countries, with enormous apparatus of biometrical control, army and surveillance, but they reside within countries, in the everyday life of immigrants that have to face the state in its many institutions. We propose to study discourses and laws in this ?borders within borders? and try to expose them.