Coordinating Crimmigration in the Caribbean Borderlands

In the U.S., the rise in cooperation between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement has been called “crimmigration” a process which criminalizes predominantly nonwhite migrants. This phenomenon, however, is not limited to the U.S. border. Through the Third Border Initiative and Operation Bahamas, Turks, and Caicos, the U.S. has coordinated with CARICOM and other Caribbean nations to serve as a transnational arm of immigration enforcement for the U.S. Further, the Guantanamo Bay detention center and the Ramey Border Patrol station in Cuba and Puerto Rico, respectively, extend the reach of the U.S. Border Patrol into the Caribbean. While in other work I explore the transnational links bridging the U.S. and the Caribbean into a shared crimmigration space, this paper focuses on role of Caribbean nations themselves in doing the work of bordering either of their own citizens or other migrants crossing their borders to reach destinations in the U.S. and neighboring countries. For example, as Garcia Peña (2016) emphasizes, the racialized treatment of Haitians in the Dominican Republic cannot be separated from both the linkages between U.S. and Caribbean racial projects and the ongoing criminalization of migration within and beyond the Caribbean. This paper takes the Caribbean as a starting point to explore the ways in which immigrant and military collaborations within the Caribbean expand the reach of U.S. border enforcement and turn the region into a borderland space. If borderlands highlight the blurry lines where border communities merge and the reality that border-crossings reflect the ongoing crossings of people, ideas, and cultures, the coordination between the U.S. and Caribbean highlights its social and cultural connectivity. I explore how Caribbean nations have made the phenomenon of crimmigration transnational through a historical examination of policies linking Caribbean migrant pathways throughout the region to the U.S.