Jailing Immigrant Detainees: A National Study of County Participation in Immigration Detention, 1983-2013

Abstract

Hundreds of county jails are involved in detaining immigrants facing removal proceedings, a civil process. In exchange, local jails receive per diem payments from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration detention thus presents a striking case of commodification of penal institutions for civil confinement purposes. Yet we know very little about the counties participating in this arrangement and the predictors of their participation over time. Our study offers the first systematic analysis of immigration detention in county jails using new and comprehensive panel data on jails across the United States. First, we find that the number of counties confining immigrant detainees steadily increased between 1983 and 2013, with the largest growth concentrated in small to medium sized, rural, and Republican counties located in the South. Second, our regression analyses point to a number of significant predictors of county participation in immigration detention: (a) worsening labor market conditions, combined with growing excess bed space for the criminal inmate population, (b) an increasing Latino population up to a certain threshold level, and (c) increasing Republican Party strength. These findings have important implications for current debates raging across the United States about the proper role of local communities in detaining immigrants.

Crimmigrating Narratives: Examining Third-Party Observations of US Detained Immigration Court

“…This research adds to the growing number of empirical studies of US immigration court in the past decade (Eagly 2015;Eagly and Shafer 2015, 2020a, 2020bRyo 2016Ryo , 2018Ryo , 2019aRyo and Peacock 2018;Asad 2019). Our questions also resonate with theoretical research covering both the criminalization of immigration enforcement and the "immigrationization" of penal systems in the global North (Brandariz 2021).…”

“…First, the Fort Snelling court's jurisdiction is unique in that it handles cases from a number of states-North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota-considered to be new and reemerging settlement gateways for recently arrived immigrants (Donato et al 2008;Passel and Cohn 2016). 10 Previous work shows that unauthorized immigrants are more susceptible to ICE apprehension in new gateway states and mostly rural parts of the Midwest, where labor market conditions have worsened, the Latino population has increased, and conservative politics have strengthened (Moinester 2018;Ryo and 9. Also per EOIR guidelines, IJs have the authority to close an immigration hearing at any time and ask any court visitor to identify themselves and their purposes for attending trial.…”

Immigration policy, immigrant detention, and the U.S. jail system

“…Overall, the findings underscore the need to understand the connection between intensified immigration enforcement, immigrant detention, and the conditions of U.S. jails. As pointed out in the paper, ICE's arrest and detention efforts rely on the cooperation of the U.S. criminal justice system (Ryo & Peacock, 2020). While cooperating with ICE can be a source of revenue for many jails suffering from budget shortfalls, these arrangements may contribute to overcrowding.…”

Understanding Immigration Detention: Causes, Conditions, and Consequences

“…Emerging research, however, suggests that economic factors may be only one predictor of county involvement in immigration detention. In my study with Peacock (Ryo & Peacock 2018b), we find that in addition to county unemployment rates, racial and political factors are important determinants of county participation in detention (for a state-level study of the uneven spatial distribution of immigration detention, see Moinester 2018). An important corollary to why and how local jails might serve as suppliers of detention bedspaces is whether and to what extent local governments might be generating the demand for such bedspaces.…”