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ABSTRACT
Beyond privatization: bureaucratization and the spatialities of immigration detention expansion. Territory, Politics, Governance. Immigration detention has become central to models of immigration enforcement in the United States and globally. This paper elaborates a conceptual framework to facilitate critical understanding of detention’s proliferation that goes beyond the role of privatization as well as beyond public–private sector relationships. It draws on a study of immigration detention in Essex County, New Jersey, with a focus on the contractual arrangements delineating detention between public and private entities and actors. Our conceptual framework posits processes of bureaucratization as central to the growth in immigration detention. We understand bureaucratization as a spatialized process of obfuscation that both builds multidimensional webs of interdependence between public and private actors and flattens these relationships into one-dimensional rational economic decisions and exchanges. Through this framework, we see contractual agreements that are remarkable for fostering overlapping, snowballing relationships in the operation of facilities, while they simultaneously conceal powerful influences behind detention’s expansion, mask human rights abuses of detained migrants, and filter out moral concerns from decision-making regarding detention.
摘要
私有化之外：官僚化与移民拘留扩张的空间性。Territory, Politics, Governance. 移民拘留已成为美国与全球移民政策的核心模式。本文阐述一个促进超越私有化的架构与公—私部门关係，批判性理解拘留增长的概念架构。本文运用对位于纽泽西州艾赛克斯郡的移民拘留机构进行之研究，聚焦描绘公共与私人组织及行动者的监禁之契约安排。我们的概念架构，将官僚化置放在移民拘留增加的核心位置。我们将官僚化理解为模煳性的空间化过程，该过程同时建立公共与私人行动者之间的多重面向依赖网络，并将这些关係扁平化为单向的理性经济决定与交换。透过此一架构，我们视契约安排为该设施运作中促进重叠与滚雪球关係的引人注目之处，而契约安排同时隐藏了拘留扩张背后的权力影响，掩饰了对被拘留的移民的人权侵害，并过滤掉拘留决策过程中的道德考量。
RÉSUMÉ
Au-delà de la privatisation: bureaucratisation et les spatialités de l’expansion de la détention de l’immigration. Territory, Politics, Governance. La détention de l’immigration est devenue un élément jouant un rôle clé dans les modèles d’application des lois en matière d’immigration aux États-Unis et dans le monde entier. Cette communication élabore un cadre conceptuel facilitant une connaissance critique allant au-delà de cadres de privatisation et au-delà de rapports entre les secteurs public et privé. Elle s’inspire d’une étude sur la détention d’immigrants dans le comté Essex de l’état du New Jersey, axée sur les dispositions contractuelles délinéant la détention entre entités et acteurs publics et privés. Notre cadre conceptuel présuppose des processus de bureaucratisation comme étant au cœur de l’expansion de la détention d’immigrants. Nous concevons la bureaucratisation comme un processus spatialisé d’obscurcissement tissant des réseaux pluridimensionnels d’interdépendance entre acteurs publics et privés, et aplanissant ces rapports en décisions et échanges économiques rationnels et unidimensionnels. Par le biais de ce cadre, nous découvrons des rapports contractuels qui se distinguent par le fait qu’ils encouragent des rapports d’entraînements se chevauchant dans l’exploitation des installations, alors qu’ils masquent de puissantes intensions derrière une expansion de la détention, en dissimulant des abus des droits de l’homme des migrants détenus, et en éliminant tout souci moral concernant des décisions en matière de détention.
RESUMEN
Más allá de la privatización: burocratización y las espacialidades de la expansión en la detención de inmigrantes. Territory, Politics, Governance. La detención de inmigrantes se ha convertido en el eje central de los modelos del control migratorio en los Estados Unidos y el resto del mundo. En este artículo elaboramos un marco conceptual para entender mejor desde un punto de vista crítico la proliferación de las detenciones que va más allá de los marcos de privatización, y también de las relaciones entre el sector público y privado. Nos basamos en un estudio sobre la detención de inmigrantes en el Condado de Essex, New Jersey, centrándonos en los acuerdos contractuales que se celebran entre entidades y actores públicos y privados para delimitar la detención. En nuestro contexto conceptual proponemos que los procesos de burocratización son fundamentales para el crecimiento en la detención de inmigrantes. Entendemos la burocratización como un proceso espacializado de ofuscación que construye redes multidimensionales de interdependencia entre actores públicos y privados y al mismo tiempo nivela estas relaciones en decisiones e intercambios económicos y racionales unidimensionales. A través de este contexto, observamos acuerdos contractuales singulares que fomentan relaciones solapadas y de rápido crecimiento en el funcionamiento de las instalaciones, pero que ocultan a la vez influencias poderosas tras el crecimiento de las detenciones, enmascaran los abusos de los derechos humanos de los emigrantes detenidos y filtran preocupaciones morales en el proceso de decidir sobre las detenciones.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors express deep gratitude to the editors of this special issue for their patience and energy, with special thanks to Nick Gill for early guidance in the shaping of this article. Deirdre acknowledges the support of colleagues at Saint Peter’s University, New Jersey particularly at the outset of this project.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Calculated by dividing the price per meal by the estimated daily population of ECCF, 2,100; $1,458/2,100 = $0.69 per meal per person. From some questions asked by food providers during the bidding process, it appears that the $1,458 per meal may also include higher quality meals for staff, as well as 100 additional bagged meals per day. It is therefore possible that the per meal cost per person is actually lower than $0.69.
2 Since 2013, the numbers of immigrants detained by ICE per year have been more difficult to trace largely due to shifts in public reporting practices. Some reports suggest that the yearly number of detainees has decreased since 2013. In the second half of 2016, however, there was such a rise in the number of immigrants detained in US facilities that it has been projected that the 2016 total number of detainees (not yet released) may have exceeded ICE’s previous capacity (Barrett, Citation2016).
3 $164 is an average amount calculated at a national scale; as shown in this study there is variability (by state as well as facility) in the per day amount ICE pays to detain people.
4 The project approaches the internal economies of detention through two primary methods. The first is interviewing. We have interviewed around 20 lawyers, volunteers with visitation programmes, members of activist organizations working to improve detention conditions or end detention, and detainees. The second method – and our primary source of data for this particular article – is document review and analysis of news accounts, non-governmental organization reports, publicly available government documents and reports, and documents obtained through FOIAs.
5 The FOIA (5 U.S.C § 552) is a law governing public access to documents controlled by the United States (federal) government. First passed in 1966 and amended numerous times since then, the Act defines what documents must be disclosed and sets procedures for requesting documents. All 50 US states have their own freedom of information laws to oversee disclosure of state and local government documents.
6 Agreements or contracts between different government entities (such as ICE and a county government) are called Inter-governmental Service Agreements. Those between government entities and private companies are known as ‘Memorandums of Agreement’.
7 It is important to note that Essex County’s compliance with the OPRA request, in contrast to other counties’ flagrant non-compliance, has essentially made it the focus of our scrutiny in this article. We recognize this irony and acknowledge that counties that totally ignored our OPRA requests are just as deserving of enquiry.
8 Delaney Hall is supposed to offer a less carceral-like environment for immigrant detainees; they have greater freedom of movement and privileges than detainees held at ECCF.
9 Although inmate complaints on record regarding the quality of the food provided suggest otherwise (Freeman & Major, Citation2012), ‘GD’ in ‘GD Correctional Services’ therefore appears to stand for ‘Gourmet Dining’.
10 GD Correctional Services' contract for ECCF was renewed in 2015 for another three years, with an only slightly higher price tag of $1,547 per meal.
11 We are not suggesting that the food providers and commissary providers necessarily collude to generate conditions that boost commissary sales (see Belcher & Martin, Citation2013). Indeed, in the case of most facilities, such as Essex, two separate companies provide these elements of facility operation. Instead, we point to the larger neo-liberal framework undergirding the development and operation of immigration detention systems, which drives the conceptualization of immigrant detainees as vehicles to profit by multiple entities both public and private.
12 Thanks to Nick Gill for this wording.