“Welcome the Wretched” – A discussion in defense of the “Criminal Alien”

Monday, 15 April, 2:30-4:00p
Breedlove Conference Room | Rubenstein Library 349
Duke University, West Campus

The Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South is pleased to host a book presentation and seminar conversation with César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández on his book Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the “Criminal Alien.”

Welcome the Wretched caps years of research arguing that immigration and citizenship law in the United States should not consider evidence of criminal activity. Driven by narratives of real migrants leading complicated lives, this is a readable, engaging book for thoughtful people who might not be immersed in migration matters. The book presents a powerful argument for separating immigration enforcement from the criminal legal system, by one of the nation’s foremost “crimmigration” experts.

García Hernández is a legal scholar. He holds the Gregory Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. A nationally recognized legal expert, he writes and teaches about the intersection of criminal and immigration law, including the rights of migrants in the criminal justice system, immigration imprisonment, and race-based immigration policing. García Hernández has been a Fulbright scholar in Slovenia and served two terms on the American Bar Association Commission on Immigration. His scholarly articles have appeared in the California Law Review, UCLA Law Review, Boston University Law Review, BYU Law Review, Maryland Law Review, and Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, among others. García Hernández’s first book, Crimmigration Law, was published by the American Bar Association in 2015. His second book, Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants, was released by The New Press in 2019. His writings have also been published in many venues, including The New York Times, The Guardian, Newsweek, Salon, and La Opinión.