Immigration Detention Inc.

Nancy Hiemstra

• 20 juni 2025
• 9780745349466

Samenvatting:

Two experts in the field shine a critical light on the political economic practices of US immigration detention

“Who knew that hatred driven by racism could be so lucrative? ... A resounding and meticulously researched exposé” Ravi Ragbir, immigration activist and co-founder of New Sanctuary Coalition

“A vital and troubling look at the grotesque practices of the privatized immigration detention industry” Reece Jones, author of Nobody is Protected and White Borders

“The most thorough breakdown of the immigration enforcement industrial complex that I have ever read” Todd Miller, journalist and author of Build Bridges, Not Walls

The United States has the largest immigration detention system in the world. In the 1980s, it held fewer than 5,000 people each day. By 2024, that number was 39,000, and today it is increasing sharply again. While Republicans are often the loudest voices against immigration, the detention system expands no matter which party is in power.

Immigration Detention Inc. is a damning investigation of the ways immigration detention generates income while those imprisoned are starved, sickened, and exploited on a daily basis. Drawing on over a decade of research and focusing on detention centers in New Jersey and New York, Nancy Hiemstra and Deirdre Conlon follow the money to map public and private financial relationships and trace how detention contracts for food, medical care, and in-facility stores are fought over to the penny. By breaking down how immigration detention works, they reveal a profit-driven system that harms and corrupts communities across the U.S. At a decisive moment in history, the call is clear: dismantle immigration detention systems everywhere.

Nancy Hiemstra is the author of Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime. She is Associate Professor at Stony Brook University in Long Island, New York, U.S.

Deirdre Conlon is co-editor of Carceral Spaces and (with Hiemstra) of Intimate Economies of Immigration Detention. Working in the U.S. and U.K., she is Associate Professor at the University of Leeds, U.K.

The United States has the most extensive immigration detention system in the world, expanding from a capacity of less than 5,000 detainees per day in the 1980s to 52,000 by 2019. While the most vociferous anti-immigrant rhetoric may be attributed to Republicans, US detention infrastructure has grown exponentially regardless of the political party in power, as reports of abysmal detention conditions pile up.

Nancy Hiemstra and Deirdre Conlon provide a damning exposé of the ways immigration detention generates income while those detained are starved, sickened, and exploited as a matter of routine detention operation. Drawing on over a decade of research and focusing on detention centers in New Jersey and New York, the authors map public-private financial relationships and trace how detention contracts for food, medical care, and in-facility stores are fought over to the penny. By dissecting the inner workings of immigration detention, they show a system governed by a capitalist logic that produces sickening and corrupting dependencies in communities across the US.

Coming at a pivotal social and political moment, Immigration Detention Inc. makes the case for dismantling immigration detention regimes everywhere.