James Kilgore: We Are Living in the Era of Mass Incarceration?

by Amanda on Aug 10th, 2011

James Kilgore, author of We Are All Zimbabweans Now, says that there has been an increase in detentions of immigrants in the United States since 9/11.

Kilgore is no stranger to prison life, having served six and a half years in jail for his activities as a member of the left-wing militant group, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Kilgore had been living as a fugitive in South Africa since 1978 and was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for years before he was arrested and extradited to the US in 2002. His novel, We Are All Zimbabweans Now, was completed while in prison.

Kilgore says heightened security since 9/11 has led to the incarceration of Latinos living without legal documentation, creating a boom in business for private prisons. He compares today’s staggering deportation statistics to the “Repatriation” campaign of the 1930s and Operation Wetback of 1954, “both of which resulted in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Latinos”:

Last week Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) joined a demonstration in Washington D.C. to protest the refusal of President Obama to use his executive powers to halt the deportations of the undocumented. Gutierrez’ arrest came only two days after Obama had addressed a conference of the National Council of La Raza. Conveniently forgetting the history of the civil right struggles that made his Presidency a possibility, Obama reminded those attending that he was bound to “uphold the laws on the books.”

With over 392,000 deportations in 2010, more than in any of the Bush years, many activists fear we are in the midst of a repeat of notorious episodes of the past such as the “Repatriation” campaign of the 1930s and the infamous Operation Wetback of 1954, both of which resulted in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Latinos.