'Regrettable but Necessary'? A Historical Study of the UK Immigration Detention Estate and Its Opposition

This article explores both the official history of immigration detention in the United Kingdom as well as a lesser-known narrative of challenges to the practice. After outlining the legislative development of the U.K. detention estate, the study uses original research to demonstrate that Parliament, the courts, and civil society have historically been the sites of disagreement with both the supposedly benign nature of immigration detention as well as its promulgation as an ancillary tool to immigration control. The article also employs explanatory and normative theories to make sense of the continuing expansion of immigration detention across liberal states despite the moral outcry. The primary finding is that the U.K. government's attempts to normalize immigration detention have not been wholly successful.