Translated by Ana Carla Farrèr Gonçalves. Original article published as: Brandariz José Ángel, Crimigración: los riesgos del uso creciente del derecho migratorio en el marco del sistema penal, Revista Derecho Penal y Criminología (Vol. 45/119) 2024, pp. 145-170.
Abstract
In March 2024, the fifth global congress on crimmigration studies was held in Portland (USA). Over the last fifteen years, crimmigration has become a fundamental framework for studying the processes of criminalisation of irregular mobility and, more generally, the growing interrelation between criminal law and immigration law. This paper presents the main lines of debate surrounding the theory of crimmigration. Alongside this, it analyses an aspect that has not received sufficient attention in the international literature on the subject, namely the tension between the objectives of migration control and those of criminal control. This tension, which manifests itself both at the regulatory level and even more so in the application of the law, has given rise in various countries to different punitive models, which generally tend to prioritise the interests of migration control over those of criminal law and the criminal justice system..