The Banality of Crimmigration—Can Immigration Law Recover Itself?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please find attached a copy of this article with some suggestions.

I found the personal writing style direct and refreshing. It was easy to read and sped me along in its narrative progression.

There are a few places in which the language should be more academic and there are also some places where the claims go further than is warranted by the evidence, and I have highlighted these in text.

The article becomes more polemical and less analytical as it progresses, and this is particularly the case with the second part of the article. I found the second part, about what Canadian experience can tell us about moving away from crimmigration law, confused and unconvincing.

- On the one hand it purports to suggest ways in which Canadian immigration politics might provide the rest of the world ways out of the crimmigration turn, but on the other reinforces that Canada is in the midst of its own crimmigration turn without any end in sight.

- On the one hand, Canadians are supportive of immigration, and so crimmigration shouldn't have happened here, and on the other hand, crimmigration law helps maintain public support for immigration.

- On the one hand, Canada provides lessons for other jurisdictions, on the other the immigration politics of Canada is sui generis.

Furthermore, although it promises to make suggestions for how to confront the crimmigration turn, there is little in the way of practical suggestions.

I think that there is an interesting analysis that can be made about why a state like Canada with historically high support for immigration has also succumbed to the crimmigration turn. But this second section needs reconceptualising to highlight these.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

I am grateful to the reviewers for the helpful suggestions for improvements.  Here is an overview of the changes I have made:

1. In response to the first reviewer’s comments about bring more clarity to my argument about the Canadian case, I have reworked the analysis in the final section to streamline the argument. I have also more clearly signposted the argument with additional introductory and concluding comments in sections two and three.
2. Regarding the request for additional practical suggestions, I have added a small amount of additional text, and have also added a summary of the suggestions that were already in the text so that they are more visible.
3. In response to the second reviewer’s request for more connection to existing literature, I have added some additional text and a number of new footnotes (these changes are also responsive to a number of the margin comments by reviewer #1).
4. I have added details to respond to the second reviewer’s questions about the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Safe Third Country Agreement.
5. In response to the second reviewer’s good point about the Express Entry discussion I have added additional analysis and some references to the literature the reviewer mentions.
6. I have carefully reviewed the comments written in the margins by the first reviewer. Of the twenty comments, I have been able to respond to eighteen in the way the reviewer requested.  I have also “accepted” the text deletions this reviewer suggested. I did not make any change in response to the comment at line 247 because I was not sure I understood it. I did not make any change in response to the comment at line 274 as I do not agree that these factors are not within the ambit of “crimmigration” that Stumpf describes.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article represents a really nice reflection on the ongoing relevance of the 'crimmigration' phenomenon and how normalised it has become. I very much enjoyed the ways in which this was tied clearly to politics in this article, as this is a theme many other crimmigration papers, so focused on the law, don't really address and yet it is clearly central to the phenomenon. 

Three recommendations I would make to improve the article

1. The article is very heavily reliant on the Stumpf 2006 paper and I appreciate why, given the focus of the paper is showing the ongoing relevance and predictive power of this. However, the paper could cite other sources for example when saying that the crimmigration has become mundane/no longer shocking or that the US is not alone in this practice or that crimmigration as a phenomenon is bound up with politics (which may arguably be in part due to its punitive/criminal framing?). This would provide a generalist reader with a greater sense of the background to all of this, rather than the individual examples of news stories often given. That is not to say it needs huge amounts of re-writing, just more academic literature in its citations.
2. There are a two points where the relationship between the legislation you are citing and the crimmigration phenomenon needs a clearer explanation than that given: the Balanced Refugee Reforms legislation discussed on page 5 and the Safe Third Country Agreement mentioned on page 7. 
3. On page 8 you make an interesting point about the Express Entry system and that this mirrors the crimmigration system in focusing on government control rather than individual agency. I think fully exploring this in a bit more detail is necessary to make this argument work especially as this point also seems likely to be helpful to your arguments that politics is inherently involved and whether crimmigration is inevitable. A bit of a dip into the wealth of literature on the arguments around the extent of 'sovereignty' or that immigration control is integral to statehood and the important role these ideas play in legitimising (whether we agree that it should or not) this level of power might be helpful here. 

 

Author Response

I am grateful to the reviewers for the helpful suggestions for improvements.  Here is an overview of the changes I have made:

1. In response to the first reviewer’s comments about bring more clarity to my argument about the Canadian case, I have reworked the analysis in the final section to streamline the argument. I have also more clearly signposted the argument with additional introductory and concluding comments in sections two and three.
2. Regarding the request for additional practical suggestions, I have added a small amount of additional text, and have also added a summary of the suggestions that were already in the text so that they are more visible.
3. In response to the second reviewer’s request for more connection to existing literature, I have added some additional text and a number of new footnotes (these changes are also responsive to a number of the margin comments by reviewer #1).
4. I have added details to respond to the second reviewer’s questions about the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Safe Third Country Agreement.
5. In response to the second reviewer’s good point about the Express Entry discussion I have added additional analysis and some references to the literature the reviewer mentions.
6. I have carefully reviewed the comments written in the margins by the first reviewer. Of the twenty comments, I have been able to respond to eighteen in the way the reviewer requested.  I have also “accepted” the text deletions this reviewer suggested. I did not make any change in response to the comment at line 247 because I was not sure I understood it. I did not make any change in response to the comment at line 274 as I do not agree that these factors are not within the ambit of “crimmigration” that Stumpf describes.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I enjoyed reading this paper and think that the 'banality' framing is original and important.

On a minor, typographical note, Footnotes 55 and 70 are incomplete.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am satisfied with the changes the author has made and really enjoyed the paper.