Detention and Deportations

Governments have long relied on detention to enforce immigration laws. In recent years, this practice has become an increasingly common feature of immigration law enforcement. At one point, the United States confined approximately fifty thousand people in immigration detention centers each day, setting it apart from the rest of the world in the size of its immigration detention system. It is not alone, however, in tapping the state’s power to use detention as a means of regulating cross-border movement by people. Other immigrant-receiving countries, notably western European nations, also confine individuals suspected of violating immigration law. Governments do not promote immigration detention on the basis that detainees merit punishment. Rather, confinement is typically justified as a means of identifying potential immigration law violators, examining whether they have a rightful claim to remain in the country, and, if not, facilitating deportation. Though immigration detention on some scale is a common practice in immigrant-receiving nations, it is not without critics. With immigration detention’s growth has come increased scrutiny from academics, advocates, policymakers, journalists, and others, especially since 2015. Academics grapple with how immigration detention operates, immigrants and advocates routinely challenge aspects of confinement with varying degrees of success, journalists disclose salient features of immigration detention, and policymakers occasionally engage in internal examinations of their own government’s detention practices. Regardless of the source, these critiques have created a growing body of literature about immigration detention. This article groups selected discussions of immigration detention into broad categories: Statutes, Litigation, Conditions of Confinement, the use of Private Prisons to detain suspected immigration law violators, and Policy Development and Growth of immigration detention as a governmental policy. It also identifies works that provide a general overview of immigration detention.