Book Review: Beyond deportation: The role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases

• Published date: 01 December 2020
• Date: 01 December 2020
• Author: Krystlelynn Caraballo
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567719884725
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Part IV concludes the volume with essays that offer visibility to prisoners whose resistance are

typically erased. Dan Berger’s essay on George Jackson reveals the complex image of his legacy,

investigating Jackson as a person as well as a memory. Berger examines Jackson’s impact on prison

abolition movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Douglas K. Miller’s essay builds on Kelly Lytle

Hernandez’s work on Indigenous incarceration in 19th-century California. Miller provides a spa-

tially and temporally broader examination of the links between contemporary mass incarceration

and settler-colonial violence against Indigenous peoples. Miller contends that the settler-colonial

past of the United States has cleared the path for contemporary forms of settler-colonial violence,

including the mass incarceration of Native Americans.

This collection of essays masterfully organizes important contributions to the scholarship on the

carceral state. Each essay connects to the next in a logical and purposeful way. Authors expand each

other’s arguments, creating well-connected theses analyzing the foundations and interconnections of

carceral networks in the United States. This volume makes an impactful addition to the study of

crimmigration and the carceral state. Readers interested in the intersections between racism, incar-

ceration, immigration detention and deportation, and settler-colonial violence will find what they are

looking for within this well-crafted anthology. Inst ructors would find great use for this text in

graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses.

ORCID iD

Manuel A. Ramirez https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2912-6091

Wadhia, S. S. (2015).

Beyond deportation: The role of prosecutorial discretion in immigration cases. New York: NYU Press. 232 pp. $28,

ISBN: 9781479870059.

Reviewed by: Krystlelynn Caraballo , Georgia State Uni versity, Atlanta , GA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/1057567719884725

The debate surrounding the deportation of immigrantsand family separation has becomeincreasingly

polarized amongmedia, politicians, and publicfigures. Crimmigration

1

literature oftenfocuses on the

individual experiences of immigration enforcement or the consequences of deportation. Beyond

Deportation:The Role of ProsecutorialDiscretion in ImmigrationCases by Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

effectively contributes to this discussion by addressing prosecutorialdiscretion through every stage of

the enforcement process, including removal proceedings. The foreword by Leon Wildes opens the

dialogue on prosecutorial discretionby telling the story of his client, JohnLennon of the Beatles. Fans

of the rock band learnmore about the famous singer’s deportation battle, whileothers who are familiar

with the name butnot the legal backstory receivea fascinating introductionto prosecutorial discretion.

Wadhia defines prosecutorial discretion as

a decision by a government employee or attorney or the immigration agency (as opposed to a judge) to

abstain from enforcing the immigration laws against a person or group of persons. In the immigration

context, the decision to exercise prosecutorial discretion favorably is pivotal for the individual because

such discretion functions as a form of protection from removal. ...(p. 1)

Beyond Deportation begins with an introduction to the structure of the immigration process,

including many of the changes post-9/11. Wadhia then follows Wildes’s discussion of the Lennon

470 International Criminal Justice Review 30(4)