Immigration imprisonment is a choice

In a new online magazine called Inquest: A Decarceral Brainstorm, I wrote about options available to the Biden administration to reduce the size of ICE’s prison population. “In immigration prisons, mundane administrative decision-making masks physical trauma and violence. Under President Obama, they thrived. In the era of Donald Trump, they were glorified. Under President Biden, they should close. Instead, they are filling,” I wrote in Immigration Imprisonment is a Choice.

Describing specific concrete actions that the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security could take, my essay aims to move the conversation about immigration prisons toward the politics of migration and away from the law of migration. It’s not legally necessary for there to be more people inside ICE’s prisons now than there were when Biden took office. That there are is an illustration of the politics of migration. Read more at Inquest.