Extended punishment: criminalising immigrants through surveillance technology

Abstract

While the social costs of immigrant detention have been well-established, less is known about immigrants who continue to be monitored by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after their release from custody. Some immigrants are enrolled in Alternatives to Detention programmes and must wear an electronic monitor (EM). Drawing on 21 months of ethnographic observations, semi-structured interviews, and conversations with immigrants in Los Angeles who have been released from detention with an EM, this study examines how EM operates as a surveillance tool that influences the immigrant's relationship with the state, community, and self. Release from detention could conceivably provide an immigrant with the benefits of reintegration into a coethnic community. However, under surveillance, the immigrant loses access to co-ethnic social capital, as the state fractures their safety net. Thus, EM operates as a tool of legal violence, creating a new axis of stratification and producing the unequal distribution of autonomy and resources. EM generates a condition of 'extended punishment' that consists of material and social harms that affect immigrants, families, and communities.

Collective Liminality: The Spillover Effects of Indeterminate Detention on Immigrant Families

“…Not only is apprehension a necessary precursor to deportation, it actively constrains the ability to prevent deportation, through restrictions on movement and communication, greater difficulty accessing support from relatives and attorneys (Ryo & Peacock 2019), and fewer options for avoiding deportation. Undocumented family members may feel particularly helpless because they have to continue to avoid ICE while also trying to fight their loved one's deportation (Martinez‐Aranda 2020). Thus, collective liminality begins at the moment an immigrant is apprehended and is plunged into a state of desperation and prolonged waiting.…”

Relational Risk: How Relationships Shape Personal Assessments of Risk and Mitigation

“…Ryo (2013), for instance, finds migrants’ decisions to forgo legal channels and embark on perilous border crossings reflect personal beliefs about immigration law, which are shaped by the experiences of relatives and community norms. The concept I outline here invites further consideration of familial ties and community relations, and how migration decisions reflect relational work that imparts sensed security against potential danger across the border, especially given ongoing surveillance of immigrant populations in the United States (Martinez-Aranda 2022). Relational inoculation facilitates such illuminating provocations.…”

Immigration and Immigrant Policies, Health, and Health Equity in the United States

“…During this same period, there has been a proliferation of the US immigration surveillance system through the expansion of electronic monitoring and technologies that are used as alternatives to detention (e.g., ankle monitors) that are stressful, invasive, painful, and exclusionary. 105 Alongside the growth of border enforcement and detention apparatuses, interior immigration enforcement has also increased. One notable example is the revitalization of immigration raids, coordinated and often militarized enforcement actions by which immigration agents make any number of immigration arrests, often in coordination with other law enforcement agencies.…”