117 Fenton Hall
1021 E. 13th
UO campus
Criminal Alien-Nations: Child Migrants to the United States Deported as “Criminal Alien” Adults
presented by Tobin M. Hansen
PhD candidate, UO Department of Anthropology
What are the motivations for and the consequences of deporting long-time U.S. residents as “criminal aliens”? This research examines the exclusionary logics and mechanisms by which some childhood arrivals to the United States are ensnared in crime control regimes and, as adults, are incarcerated, designated “criminal aliens,” and deported to Mexico. It also explores the aftermath of deportation as men forge ahead with their lives in unfamiliar northern Mexico communities.
This talk will situate deportation’s social, gendered, and legal processes that render it a forcible sociopolitical displacement. I argue that deportees’ extreme hardship and multiple vulnerabilities recast the moral valuation of “criminal alien” deportation itself.
Tobin Hansen received a CLLAS Graduate Research Grant in support of this work.