ABSTRACT
Links between criminality and immigration have been propagated for centuries. In the seventeenth century, French Huguenots fleeing persecution were depicted as Catholic spies seeking to subvert English identity. At the turn of the twentieth century, Jewish and Irish immigrants were vilified in the press and blamed for increasing crime levels and rent racketeering. In many countries today, much undocumented migration is considered illegal; one can be culpable of the crime of simply crossing national boundaries. However, the socio-legal construction of the so-called ‘illegal immigrant’ is a relatively recent phenomenon.
