Document Type
Essay
Abstract
In his 2024 book, Welcome the Wretched, Professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández questions why it is that non-citizens who have committed crimes are slated for removal from this country. After all, he notes, “Migrants don’t bring crime here. It’s already here. It always has been and always will be.”
We may not readily admit it, but crime in the United States is truly All-American. Section I of this Essay tries to shed light on the widespread nature of criminality in the United States by recounting my own crimes and those of family and friends, with the goal of pushing the reader to consider the com-monality of crime in their own lived experience. Section II considers why it is that “migrant crime” is considered separate from citizen crime, focusing on racial disparities in investigation and prosecution as well as the two-fold pun-ishment scheme facing non-citizen criminals. Finally, Section III considers reinserting the possibility of second chances into U.S. immigration law so as to allow for the possibility of non-citizen criminals to continue their imperfect lives in the United States alongside our imperfect citizens.
Recommended Citation
Kit Johnson,
All-American Crime: Reflections on Welcome the Wretched by César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández,
47 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 581
(2025).
Available at: https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview/vol47/iss4/3