TY - JOUR
T1 - Becoming an Immigrant? Border Harms and “British” Men with Previous Convictions in British Immigration Removal Centers
AU - Godshaw, Dan
N1 - The acceptance date for this record is provisional and based upon the month of publication for the article.
PY - 2020/8/8
Y1 - 2020/8/8
N2 - In the context of heightened debate around increasingly hostile immigration policies, the detention and deportation of people with long-standing connections to the United Kingdom (UK) have, within the last few years, received public attention. Such individuals—people who were born in or came to the UK as children—make up a significant proportion of the “foreign criminal” population in detention. This article examines how those individuals with long-standing links, who also have criminal convictions, are often “erased” by the British state. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with men currently and formerly held in immigration removal centers, I argue that institutional failings in immigration and local authority care “guide” some who grow up in the UK toward (and into) the criminal justice system. Shunning responsibility for these failings, the British state enacts a further punishment through immigration detention and attempted deportation. Despite acts that resist and problematize foreignness, detained “Brits” experience specific harms that change the way they feel about identity and belonging in Britain. These processes highlight the ways that national identity and immigration status intersect with class, gender and race to produce traumatic experiences of cultural denationalization.
AB - In the context of heightened debate around increasingly hostile immigration policies, the detention and deportation of people with long-standing connections to the United Kingdom (UK) have, within the last few years, received public attention. Such individuals—people who were born in or came to the UK as children—make up a significant proportion of the “foreign criminal” population in detention. This article examines how those individuals with long-standing links, who also have criminal convictions, are often “erased” by the British state. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with men currently and formerly held in immigration removal centers, I argue that institutional failings in immigration and local authority care “guide” some who grow up in the UK toward (and into) the criminal justice system. Shunning responsibility for these failings, the British state enacts a further punishment through immigration detention and attempted deportation. Despite acts that resist and problematize foreignness, detained “Brits” experience specific harms that change the way they feel about identity and belonging in Britain. These processes highlight the ways that national identity and immigration status intersect with class, gender and race to produce traumatic experiences of cultural denationalization.
KW - Immigration Detention
KW - masculinities
KW - Race and racialisation
KW - Class
KW - British identity
KW - Criminal Justice
KW - Looked after children
KW - Mental health
KW - Crimmigration
KW - Young Arrivers
KW - border control
U2 - 10.1007/s10612-020-09524-2
DO - 10.1007/s10612-020-09524-2
M3 - Article (Academic Journal)
SN - 1205-8629
VL - 28
SP - 225
EP - 241
JO - Critical Criminology: An International Journal
JF - Critical Criminology: An International Journal
IS - 2
ER -