Beware of notarios: Neoliberal governance of immigrants as crime victims
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480613491521 |
| Date | 01 August 2013 |
| Published date | 01 August 2013 |
| Author | Jamie G Longazel,Benjamin Fleury-Steiner |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Theoretical Criminology
17(3) 359 –376
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480613491521
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Beware of notarios: Neoliberal
governance of immigrants as
crime victims
Jamie G Longazel
University of Dayton, USA
Benjamin Fleury-Steiner
University of Delaware, USA
Abstract
Drawing on David Garland’s (1996, 2001) observations about the ‘limits of the sovereign
state’, we seek in this article to develop a critical understanding of the recent response
in the USA to ‘notario fraud’—an unlawful act committed when a non-lawyer poses as
an immigration attorney. While efforts to protect immigrants from fraud on their surface
represent a counter to recent anti-immigrant policies, our analysis of materials distributed
by what we term an anti-notario fraud apparatus suggests that such activity amounts
to neoliberal governance. Specifically, we study immigrant advocacy groups’ discourse
around the issue and argue that anti-notario efforts are akin to responsibilization. We
also study how law enforcement officials discuss the issue and theorize how a one-
dimensional framing of notarios as villains supports the neoliberal regime by protecting
the state’s sovereignty to manufacture what Nicholas De Genova (2002) has called
‘deportability’.
Keywords
Deportability, exploitation, immigration, neoliberalism, notario fraud
Corresponding author:
Jamie G Longazel, University of Dayton, 300 College Park Ave, Dayton, OH 45420-1442, USA.
Email: jlongazel1@udayton.edu
491521TCR17310.1177/1362480613491521Theoretical CriminologyLongazel and Fleury-Steiner
2013
Article
360 Theoretical Criminology 17(3)
Introduction
Immigration law and politics under neoliberalism1 has been characterized by an encour-
agement of increased immigration to satisfy economic imperatives on one hand and
punitive laws, which, on the other hand, criminalize these very populations (e.g. Calavita,
2005; Varsanyi and Nevins, 2007). Under such arrangements, immigrants themselves
have been responsibilized and scapegoated as attention is diverted away from the struc-
tural roots of immigration itself as a complex social problem (Fleury-Steiner and
Longazel, 2010; Longazel, 2013; Longazel and Fleury-Steiner, 2011; Nevins, 2007). At
the same time, these inherent contradictions create a workforce that is ‘deportable’ and
therefore exploitable (De Genova, 2002).
While criminalization and attendant exploitation has understandably garnered
increased scholarly attention in recent years, it is also important to recognize that not all
crime-control initiatives have been anti-immigrant. Some, to the contrary, have taken a
decidedly pro-immigrant stance, constructing immigrant populations as potential crime
victims. In this respect, looking narrowly at the criminalization of immigrants may over-
look what emerges as a vitally important question for understanding immigration law
and politics in the neoliberal era: How are attempts to protect immigrants as potential
crime victims connected to broader patterns of governance?
In this article, we argue that governmental and organizational responses to ‘notario
fraud’—an unlawful act committed when a non-lawyer poses as an immigration attorney
and defrauds immigrants by promising to offer legal advice or services—can best be
understood within the context of neoliberal governance. Although attempts to protect
immigrants from fraud and deportation on their surface appear benevolent and may
indeed seem to buck the tide of widespread criminalization, we argue that the core of
these practices remains more or less the same: an exploitative immigration system
escapes critique and is allowed to carry on. That is to say, by responsibilizing immi-
grants, anti-notario fraud efforts place unreasonable expectations on immigrants seeking
to navigate a notoriously arduous legal regime (e.g. Coutin, 2000, 2007; Johnson, 1996),
obscure, if not outright legitimize, state violence (e.g. deportation), and enable exploita-
tion to continue unencumbered. We also contend that a narrow official framing of immi-
grants as potential victims and notarios as villains helps to protect state sovereignty over
the ability to manufacture ‘deportability’ (De Genova, 2002) and enables an otherwise
oppressive regime to posture as benevolent.
We begin by situating the case of notario fraud theoretically, relying primarily on
David Garland’s (1996, 2001) insights about the ‘limits of the sovereign state’. After dis-
cussing the contours of the present inquiry, we move to an analysis of anti-notario fraud
discourse. This analysis proceeds in two parts and draws analytically from Garland’s
(2001: 137) conception of a ‘criminology of the self’ and a ‘criminology of the other’.
Specifically, we examine materials distributed by both immigrant advocacy groups (Part
1) and federal and state officials (Part 2). This analysis enables us to illustrate the extent
to which the state relies on the two-pronged strategy of responsibilization and symbolic
enforcement and ultimately sets us up to problematize each of these anti-notario fraud
methods as amounting to neoliberal governance. In the article’s concluding section, we
reflect on the implications of this research for future scholarship and advocacy.
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