Intimate Economies Of Immigration Detention

International migration has been described as one of the defining issues of the twenty-first century. While a lot is known about the complex nature of migratory flows, surprisingly little attention has been given to one of the most prominent responses by governments to human mobility: the practice of immigration detention. Intimate Economies of Immigration Detention provides a timely intervention, offering much needed scrutiny of the ideologies, policies and practices that enable the troubling, unparalleled and seemingly unbridled growth of immigration detention around the world. An international collection of scholars provide crucial new insights into immigration detention recounting at close range how detention’s effects ricochet from personal and everyday experiences to broader political-economic, social and cultural spheres. Contributors draw on original research in the US, Australia, Europe, and beyond to scrutinise the increasingly tangled relations associated with detention operation and migration management. With new theoretical and empirical perspectives on detention, the chapters collectively present a toolbox for better understanding the forces behind and broader implications of the seemingly uncontested rise of immigration detention. This book is of great interest to those who study political economy, economic geography and immigration policy, as well as policy makers interested in immigration.

Bounded by desert and mountains, El Centro, California, is isolated and difficult to reach. However, its location close to the border between San Diego and Yuma, Arizona, has made it an important place for Mexican migrants attracted to the valley's agricultural economy. In 1945, it also became home to the El Centro Immigration Detention Camp. The Shadow of El Centro tells the story of how that camp evolved into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service Processing Center of the 2000s and became a national model for detaining migrants—a place where the policing of migration, the racialization of labor, and detainee resistance coalesced. Using government correspondence, photographs, oral histories, and private documents, Jessica Ordaz reveals the rise and transformation of migrant detention through this groundbreaking history of one detention camp. The story shows how the U.S. detention system was built to extract labor, to discipline, and to control migration, and it helps us understand the long and shadowy history of how immigration officials went from detaining a few thousand unauthorized migrants during the 1940s to confining hundreds of thousands of people by the end of the twentieth century. Ordaz also uncovers how these detained migrants have worked together to create transnational solidarities and innovative forms of resistance.

In this groundbreaking new study, Nick Gill provides a conceptually innovative account of the ways in which indifference to the desperation and hardship faced by thousands of migrants fleeing persecution and exploitation comes about. Features original, unpublished empirical material from four Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded projects Challenges the consensus that border controls are necessary or desirable in contemporary society Demonstrates how immigration decision makers are immersed in a suffocating web of institutionalized processes that greatly hinder their objectivity and limit their access to alternative perspectives Theoretically informed throughout, drawing on the work of a range of social theorists, including Max Weber, Zygmunt Bauman, Emmanuel Levinas, and Georg Simmel

Since 1965 the foreign-born population of the United States has swelled from 9.6 million or 5 percent of the population to 45 million or 14 percent in 2015. Today, about one-quarter of the U.S. population consists of immigrants or the children of immigrants. Given the sizable representation of immigrants in the U.S. population, their health is a major influence on the health of the population as a whole. On average, immigrants are healthier than native-born Americans. Yet, immigrants also are subject to the systematic marginalization and discrimination that often lead to the creation of health disparities. To explore the link between immigration and health disparities, the Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity held a workshop in Oakland, California, on November 28, 2017. This summary of that workshop highlights the presentations and discussions of the workshop.

Immigration detention is an important global phenomenon increasingly practiced by states across the world in which human rights violations are commonplace. Challenging Immigration Detention introduces readers to various disciplines that have addressed immigration detention in recent years and how these experts have sought to challenge underlying causes and justifications for detention regimes. Contributors provide an overview of the key issues addressed in their disciplines, discuss key points of contention, and seek out linkages and interactions with experts from other fields.

Around the world, hundreds of millions of labor migrants endure exploitation, lack of basic rights, and institutionalized discrimination and marginalization. What dynamics and drivers have created a world in which such a huge--and rapidly growing--group toils as marginalized men and women, existing as a lower caste institutionally and juridically? In what ways did labor migrants shape their living and working conditions in the past, and what opportunities exist for them today? Global Labor Migration presents new multidisciplinary, transregional perspectives on issues surrounding global labor migration. The essays go beyond disciplinary boundaries, with sociologists, ethnographers, legal scholars, and historians contributing research that extends comparison among and within world regions. Looking at migrant workers from the late nineteenth century to the present day, the contributors illustrate the need for broader perspectives that study labor migration over longer timeframes and from wider geographic areas. The result is a unique, much-needed collection that delves into one of the world’s most pressing issues, generates scholarly dialogue, and proposes cutting-edge research agendas and methods. Contributors: Bridget Anderson, Rutvica Andrijasevic, Katie Bales, Jenny Chan, Penelope Ciancanelli, Felipe Barradas Correia Castro Bastos, Eileen Boris, Charlie Fanning, Judy Fudge, Jorge L. Giovannetti-Torres, Heidi Gottfried, Julie Greene, Justin Jackson, Radhika Natarajan, Pun Ngai, Bastiaan Nugteren, Nicola Piper, Jessica R. Pliley, Devi Sacchetto, Helen Sampson, Yael Schacher, Joo-Cheong Tham, and Matt Withers

One of Esquire's 50 Best Biographies of All Time Winner of the 2020 Pacific Northwest Book Award | Winner of the 2020 Washington State Book Award | Named a 2019 Southwest Book of the Year | Shortlisted for the 2019 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize What happens when an undocumented teen mother takes on the U.S. immigration system? When Aida Hernandez was born in 1987 in Agua Prieta, Mexico, the nearby U.S. border was little more than a worn-down fence. Eight years later, Aida’s mother took her and her siblings to live in Douglas, Arizona. By then, the border had become one of the most heavily policed sites in America. Undocumented, Aida fought to make her way. She learned English, watched Friends, and, after having a baby at sixteen, dreamed of teaching dance and moving with her son to New York City. But life had other plans. Following a misstep that led to her deportation, Aida found herself in a Mexican city marked by violence, in a country that was not hers. To get back to the United States and reunite with her son, she embarked on a harrowing journey. The daughter of a rebel hero from the mountains of Chihuahua, Aida has a genius for survival—but returning to the United States was just the beginning of her quest. Taking us into detention centers, immigration courts, and the inner lives of Aida and other daring characters, The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez reveals the human consequences of militarizing what was once a more forgiving border. With emotional force and narrative suspense, Aaron Bobrow-Strain brings us into the heart of a violently unequal America. He also shows us that the heroes of our current immigration wars are less likely to be perfect paragons of virtue than complex, flawed human beings who deserve justice and empathy all the same.

Taking a multi-disciplinary perspective, and one grounded in human rights, Unaccompanied young migrants explores in-depth the journeys migrant youths take through the UK legal and care systems. Arriving with little agency, what becomes of these children as they grow and assume new roles and identities, only to risk losing legal protection as they reach eighteen? Through international studies and crucially the voices of the young migrants themselves, the book examines the narratives they present and the frameworks of culture and legislation into which they are placed. It challenges existing policy and questions, from a social justice perspective, what the treatment of this group tells us about our systems and the cultural presuppositions on which they depend.