Immigration Detention, Inc.

Abstract

This article addresses the influence of economic inequality on immigration detention. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) detains roughly 350,000 migrants each year and maintains more than 30,000 beds each day. This massive detention system raises issues of economic power and powerlessness. This article connects, for the first time, the influence of economic inequality on system-wide immigration detention policy as well as on individual detention decisions. The article begins with a description of the systemic impact that for-profit prisons have had on the federal immigration detention system, by promoting wide-scale detention. The resulting expansion of detention has led to ever-increasing profitability for the private for-profit prison sector, which allows the companies to exercise even more influence over policymakers to achieve yet higher levels of detention. The influence of wealthy private prison corporations also affects the very nature of immigration detention, leading to the use of jail-like facilities that are the product offered by the private prison industry. The article then describes the mechanisms by which economic inequality dictates the likelihood and length of detention in individual cases. The detention or release decisions made by DHS in individual cases must account for the need to keep numerous detention beds full to satisfy the contracts made with powerful private prison companies. DHS regularly sets bond amounts at levels that are not correlated to flight risk or danger, but rather to the length of time that the individual must be held in detention to keep the available space full. The article presents data, obtained from immigration authorities, regarding detention and bond patterns at a specific detention center that demonstrate this point. The research finds an inverse relationship between the number of newly arriving immigrants in the detention center and the bond amounts set by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). During times when new arrivals were few, the amount required to be released from detention on bond was high; during times when there were many new arrivals, bond amounts were reduced or set at zero. The article also presents another way in which economic inequality affects the likelihood of detention at the individual level. Release and detention are largely controlled through the use of monetary bond requirements, which must be paid in full. The regular use of financial bonds as the exclusive mechanism for release means that those migrants who are most able to pay are most likely to be released, without regard to their likelihood of absconding or endangering the community. Wealth thus determines detention rather than an individualized determination of the necessity of depriving an individual of liberty. The article urges that the role of economic inequality in immigration detention raises troubling issues of democratic governance and the commodification of traditional governmental functions. The current system also leads to an unjustifiable redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich. Looking at immigration detention through the lens of economic inequality offers new lines of theoretical inquiry into immigration detention. It connects the discussion of immigration detention to scholarly critiques of for-profit prisons and the privatization of state security functions more generally. It also brings a new perspective to prior work in the immigration and criminal justice contexts, questioning the fairness and utility of requiring payment of monetary bonds to obtain liberty from detention. The article concludes with recommendations for reform. These reforms would help to sideline the influence of economic inequality in immigration detention decision making.

Disrupting the Traffic Stop–to-Deportation Pipeline: The New York State Greenlight Law’s Intent and Implementation

“…Collaboration with ICE is financially lucrative because it guarantees full jails funded with federal dollars. One study participant reported the Orange County sheriff had said in a meeting that getting an ICE detention center was the best economic thing ever for the county jails (Gilman and Romero 2018).…”

Migrant Detention and COVID-19: Pandemic Responses in Four New Jersey Detention Centers

“…Yet detention infrastructure is not limited to the physical structures where migrants are held. It also includes transportation systems, immigration courts, and the punitive aspects of immigration enforcement that facilitate detention and deportation (Gilman and Romero 2018). It is further characterized by lack of or delayed access to sufficient medical care, a recurrent problem indicated in institutional reports (DHS-OIG 2019a, 2019b; CDC 2021) and a theme of our interviews.…”

“…Internal investigations conducted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — ICE’s parent agency — and the Inspector General have repeatedly raised concerns about conditions and safety at these facilities, including with regard to medical care and pandemic preparation (DHS-OIG 2016, 2019a, 2019b). Researchers have reported extensively on detention facilities pre-COVID, emphasizing poor conditions, lack of oversight, profit-seeking management, and the punitive treatment of detainees (Golash-Boza 2009; Doty and Wheatley 2013; Conlon and Hiemstra 2014; Freed Wessler 2016; Gilman and Romero 2018; Hiemstra 2019). Research has also shown detention to inhibit due process for migrants facing deportation in immigration court, making them less likely to secure legal representation, less likely to win relief from deportation, and more likely to self-deport, as compared to migrants who are on the non-detained docket throughout their proceedings (Kalhan 2010; Eagly and Shafer 2015; Ryo 2017).…”

Family Separation as State-Corporate Crime

“…The privatization—and profitability—of immigration enforcement and related services has garnered significant scholarly attention of late (e.g., Ackerman et al, 2014; Chacón, 2017; Gilman & Romero, 2018), however, the role non-profits play in immigration enforcement has been largely ignored. While private contractors participated in family separation, nonprofits that contract with ORR to care for unaccompanied children played a crucial role without which family separation might not have been possible.…”