“Humane” Immigration Enforcement and Latina Immigrants in the Detention Complex

Abstract

We explore the criminalization of Latina immigrants through the interwoven network of social control created by law, the justice system, and private corporations—the immigration industrial complex. Considerable scholarly research has focused on understanding the overtly coercive practices of deportation and the consequences for families and communities; less attention has been devoted to the social control mechanisms of detention facilities and “Alternative to Detention Programs” (ATD programs) operating in the United States. We know relatively little about the consequences for immigrant populations, especially of the purported “humane” practices in the enforcement apparatus. Based on existing documents produced by governmental offices, including Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, Government Accountability Office, nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, and private correctional facilities, we conducted semistructured interviews with 11 immigration lawyers who have access to women who are and/or have been detained, are in supervised ATD programs, are/were in deportation proceedings, or attempt(ed) to claim asylum. An examination of immigration confinement, especially the laws and policy decisions behind the exponential increase in these detentions, reveals important gender dynamics in these practices. The subtle and benevolence-signaling discourse evoking “family,” “motherhood,” and the care of children masks the harsh “business as usual” tactics that treat women and their children in ways indistinguishable from those used in the criminal justice system. We contend that this feminized and infantilized language functions to conceal widespread civil and human rights violations, physical and sexual violence, and mistreatment reproduced by the immigration detention system today.

The expansion of “crimmigration,” mass detention, and deportation

“…The Geo Group Inc. also runs the ISAP. Thus, the privatization of immigration enforcement goes hand-in-hand with its criminalization, enhancing enforcement beyond incarceration into the everyday surveillance of immigrants' lives (Gómez Cervantes, et al, 2017), and following a longer trend in the expansion of the multibillion-dollar criminal justice system (Golash-Boza, 2016;Guevara Urbina & Espinoza Alvarez, 2016;Juárez et al, 2018;Welch, 2000). Importantly, although in 2016 the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the end to private prisons, this was not the case for immigrant detention centers.…”

“…In addition to skyrocketing detentions, DHS and ICE aim to augment the number of immigrants under supervision in Alternative to Detention Programs (ATD), such as the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP). These programs enroll immigrants who do not qualify for mandatory detention and utilize GPS ankle monitoring devices, voice recognition software, and in‐person check‐ins to surveille and track immigrants who are awaiting an immigration court appearance or deportation proceedings (Gómez Cervantes, Menjívar, & Staples, ). Although most of these immigrants have never committed a crime, these techniques serve to visibly criminalize their presence as their daily routines are marked by these devices.…”

Discipline and Commoditize: How U-Visas Exploit the Pain of Gender-Based Violence

“…ORR officials insist that detention programs for unaccompanied children are care -providing facilities, claiming, “This is NOT detention” but “custodial care” (Terrio, 2015, p. 105). Alternative-to-detention programs use discourses around family and motherhood to subject immigrant women to extraordinary surveillance while sparing them outright detention, deportation, and removal (Gómez Cervantes et al, 2017). U-Visas grant survivors legal status if they consent to extensive disciplining and advance the carceral agenda.…”

Reconceiving Immigration Politics: Walter Benjamin, Violence, and Labor

“…Latina/o Studies has studied humanitarianism discourses and policy practices that highlight “family,” “motherhood,” and the care of children, like the “Alternatives to Detention” (ATD) program. Andrea Gómez Cervantes and coauthors argue that these measures—which include releasing women with ankle monitors instead of bond, and “intensive supervision appearance programs”—contribute to the ongoing criminalization of immigrant women (2017, 282–3). They note that although ATD measures are championed as humanitarian alternatives, the treatment of women and their children in these programs is indistinguishable from practices proper of the criminal justice system (2017, 271).…”