Springing Amir

Abstract

For a 2016 article on immigration detention in Canada, I co-created a composite case study named Amir. At the end of writing, I left him indefinitely incarcerated. This article provides an opportunity both to suggest more ethical ways to research detention, and to query White scholarly acquiescence to anti-Black racism and the build-up of detention systems. To spring Amir, I slide a series of four, interrelated doors: (1) discretionary release; (2) a writ of habeas corpus; (3) the end of anti-Black, anti-Muslim, and anti-refugee discrimination in Canada; and (4) the abolition of detention. I conclude with a reflection on promising methodological directions leading toward a new horizon of immigrant and racial justice.

The next jailor: An empirical study of danger to the public immigration detentions in Canada (summer 2021)

“…Perhaps more importantly, the public attention prompted Canadian police agencies to step up their efforts to track down and deport criminals with no status or contingent status in Canada (Ruddick, 1996). The trend towards greater immigration enforcement continued and, in 2013, Parliament passed The Faster Removal of Foreign Criminals Act , which made more people with status in Canada subject to mandatory deportation because of criminality (Silverman, 2021).…”