Resisting Tough-on-Migrant, Tough-on-Crime Politics

Political and public discourse are both saturated with the stigmatizing narrative that migrants are responsible for rising crime. This is despite the facts that crime is not rising in any noteworthy way and that migrants are not responsible for any increases. The narrative leads directly to demands for tough-on-crime, tough-on-migrant policies: Closed borders, stricter criminal penalties, and additional resources for the police.

Almost all political parties have agreed to treat migration as a security problem. The conflation of migration and insecurity has shifted political discourse to the right, displacing social questions about better living conditions for migrants and people affected by poverty. Fueled by media coverage of isolated violent incidents, a troubling consensus has emerged that presents increasingly severe law-and-order measures as the only solution to perceived insecurity supposedly caused by immigration.

Justice Collective intervenes in this debate in a variety of ways, building power to counter the “migrant crime” narrative and the policies that flow from it. We do this by building coalitions across silos so that we can end the divide between “deserving” and “undeserving” migrants, including those with criminal records; sharing data countering narratives around rising crime; and advocating for ending policies that legislate harsh consequence or non-German citizens with criminal records, including deportation, deportation prison, denials of work permits, and more.