Crimmigration and the carceral fix in Arizona

Abstract

This paper centers Arizona as a critical site in the racialized criminalization of immigrants—a practice known as “crimmigration”—and the associated adaptive reuse of prison infrastructure. Focusing on a closed prison facility in the Town of Marana that is slated to reopen as an immigration detention center, we propose the concept of a “carceral fix,” wherein declining incarceration rates are offset by expanded civil immigration detention. Expanding Gilmore's theory of the “prison fix,” we show how political and legal adaptations enable private and public actors to repurpose existing prison space for immigrant confinement amid unprecedented federal investment and intensified racialized enforcement. “Carcerality” names this expansive system of cordoning, confinement, control of which immigrant detention is part. In doing so, we situate Marana within Southern Arizona's long history of punitive prison politics and anti-Mexican social and legal sentiment, demonstrating how criminalization, racialization, and gang labeling continue to generate and profit from imprisoned populations in a state that has long served as a model for punishment.