From Mexico to the Bahamas, Mauritania to Lebanon, Turkey to Saudi Arabia, South Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia to Thailand, immigration-related detention has become an established policy apparatus that counts on dedicated facilities and burgeoning institutional bureaucracies. Until relatively recently, however, detention appears to have been largely an ad hoc tool, employed mainly by wealthy states in exigent circumstances. This paper uses concepts from diffusion theory to detail the history of key policy events in several important immigration destination countries that led to the spreading of detention practices during the last 30 years and assesses some of the motives that appear to have encouraged this phenomenon. […]
United States
How and Why Immigration Detention Crossed the Globe
This paper details the history of key policy events in various countries that led to the global diffusion of detention practices during the last 30 years and assesses some of the motives that appear to have encouraged this phenomenon. In telling this story, this paper seeks to flesh out some of the larger policy implications […]
A Survey of Private Contractor Involvement in U.S. Facilities Used to Confine People for Immigration-related Reasons
The private prison industry in the United States has grown significantly during the last several decades and along with it there has been an apparent increase in the outsourcing of services at facilities used for immigration detention purposes. However, while much has been written about private ownership and management of detention facilities, the phenomenon of […]
Immigration Detention and the Law: U.S. Policy and Legal Framework
This Global Detention Project working paper is intended to assist scholars, activists, practitioners, and concerned members of the public in taking stock of the current state of U.S. immigration detention policies. The paper covers everything from the country’s relevant international legal commitments and the grounds for detention provided in domestic law, to recent court rulings […]
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement – FOIA Case Number 07-FOIA-51185
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Catrina M. Pavlik-Keenan) – Letter to the Global Detention Project (Michael Flynn) 7 November 2007 […]
What’s the Deal at Manta?
The United States said it would restrict its activities at Manta to anti-drug efforts—so why is it messing with migrants and more? […]
