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Pilsen Community Books is honored to welcome César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a leading scholar of “crimmigration" (the intersection of criminal and immigration law), and Raf Rodriguez to the store for a moderated coversation on themes from Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants and Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the “Criminal Alien” as well as more recent developments in immigration enforcement and detention in places like Chicago, Minneapolis, and beyond. Together, they’ll discuss both the visible and less visible systems shaping migrant detention and deportation today.

This event is a fundraiser for the Midwest Immigration Bond Fund (MIBF). Funds raised will directly support MIBF’s work posting immigration bonds to free residents and intended residents detained in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Minnesota, helping reunite families and allowing people to fight their immigration cases from home rather than from detention.

César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández is the Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and a professor of law at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. He’s one of the country’s leading scholars on immigration enforcement and detention, with a focus on the intersection of criminal and immigration law, called “crimmigration.” He is the author of Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants (2019), Crimmigration Law (2015), and Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the “Criminal Alien” (2024). His writing and commentary have appeared in outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, and TIME, and he’s widely cited in national and international media on immigration policy and detention. César writes the Immigration Matters column for SCOTUSblog and publishes Immigration Law Unhinged, a free weekly Substack newsletter.

Raf Rodriguez is a board member of the Midwest Immigration Bond Fund (MIBF). As part of MIBF’s “Bond Squad,” Raf helps post immigration bonds directly with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to help secure the release of people held in immigration detention. Through this work, Raf supports efforts to reunite families and help detained residents and intended residents across the Midwest fight their immigration cases from home rather than from detention.

Midwest Immigration Bond Fund facilitates a revolving immigration bond fund to pay immigration bonds that frees individuals from ICE custody and gathers community to advocate for the abolition of immigration detention and surveillance.