The attitude towards ‘the immigrant’ is changing. Where they used to be seen as a necessity, they are now looked upon with distrust. A consequence of this new attitude is the ‘merging’ of immigration law policy and criminal law. Examples of this in the Netherlands are a law proposal to criminalize illegal stay and a mandatory quorum of illegals that have to be deported each year. In our research we have compared the ‘crimmigration’ discourse in both Arizona and the Netherlands.
Arizona’s law SB1070 has been the main legal focus in the research. The enactment of the law has been cause of many protests. The public’s fear was focused mainly on civil rights violations; the legal discussion was focused on the federalism issue, brought to Courts by the Obama administration. However, with the Supreme Court handing down its landmark decision in Arizona vs. United States, the legal focus will shift towards the civil rights spectrum.
In the most recent elections in the Netherlands, the immigration question seems to have been pushed to the background. However, it remains a vital issue when placed in the context of ‘Euro-skepticism’, which has played a major role , as much of the immigration policy making is done by the supra national European legislator.
We have seen that in the American context the federal government has been a ‘mitigating factor’ in the crimmigration debate to counterbalance draconian immigration policy. We hope that despite recent Euro-skepticism the EU will have a similar mitigating effect.