The necessity for the emerging field of CrImmigration has been in response to several recent law enforcement trends and Supreme Court judicial decisions. These have served to dramatically expand the types of crimes that can lead to deportation and have normalized detention as a standard way of policing immigrant offenders.

Historically, immigration law called for the deportation of immigrants who had been convicted of a “serious crime of moral turpitude.” Such crimes were considered evidence of the charged party’s lack of good moral character. They included such heinous crimes as murder, sexual assault, aggravated assault, and robbery. Other aggravated felonies, such as serious drug and firearm charges, were also grounds for deportation.

In the past, immigrants who had committed less serious offenses would not have been subject to the same removal proceedings as those who had committed serious crimes of moral turpitude. Instead, they would have faced the same judicial outcomes as other U.S citizens under the American criminal court system. In the new era of CrImmigration however, non-U.S. citizens who commit lesser offenses are now in direct jeopardy of going through removal proceedings and being deported in addition to their criminal charges and penalties.