Beware of notarios: Neoliberal governance of immigrants as crime victims

Drawing on David Garland’s (1996, 2001) observations about the ‘limits of the sovereign state’, we seek in this article to develop a critical understanding of the recent response in the USA to ‘notario fraud’—an unlawful act committed when a non-lawyer poses as an immigration attorney. While efforts...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Theoretical criminology 2013-08, Vol.17 (3), p.359-376
Main Authors: Longazel, Jamie G, Fleury-Steiner, Benjamin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Deportation
Discourse
Discrimination
Exploitation
Fraud
Governance
Immigrants
Immigration
Immigration Policy
Law Enforcement
Lawyers
Neoliberalism
Sovereignty
U.S.A
Victims of crime
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Summary:Drawing on David Garland’s (1996, 2001) observations about the ‘limits of the sovereign state’, we seek in this article to develop a critical understanding of the recent response in the USA to ‘notario fraud’—an unlawful act committed when a non-lawyer poses as an immigration attorney. While efforts to protect immigrants from fraud on their surface represent a counter to recent anti-immigrant policies, our analysis of materials distributed by what we term an anti-notario fraud apparatus suggests that such activity amounts to neoliberal governance. Specifically, we study immigrant advocacy groups’ discourse around the issue and argue that anti-notario efforts are akin to responsibilization. We also study how law enforcement officials discuss the issue and theorize how a one-dimensional framing of notarios as villains supports the neoliberal regime by protecting the state’s sovereignty to manufacture what Nicholas De Genova (2002) has called ‘deportability’.
ISSN:1362-4806
1461-7439
DOI:10.1177/1362480613491521