Part 1: On the Inside: Stories from Immigration Detention

Part One, “On the Inside: Stories from Immigration Detention,” provides introductory readings and resources for understanding the U.S. immigration detention system and a list of immigration detention story projects.

Understanding the Immigration Detention System

Introductory readings

Canon, Dan, “A System Designed to Make People Disappear,” Slate, 2017

Dow, Mark, American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons. University of California Press, 2004.

Hefner, Tony. Between the Fences: Before Guantanamo, there was the Port Isabel Service Processing Center. Seven Stories Press, 2010.

“I’m 15 Years Old. Please, President Obama, Set Me Free to Live My Life,” Huffington Post, 2016.

“Kapijimpanga: The U.S. is Trying to Deport Me, But You Can’t Deport My Story,” Voice of OC, 2017.

Ndaula, Malik with Debbie Satyal, “Rafiu’s Story: An American Immigrant Nightmare,” in Keeping Out the Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today. Columbia University Press, 2008.

Soerens, Maria-Jose. “I work with Migrant Detainees. Which Immigration Narrative Do You Want to Hear?” Sojourners.

Use Freedom for Immigrants' interactive map of all U.S. immigration detention facilities to locate a facility near you:

Freedom for Immigrants (formerly CIVIC - Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement) created this map. It is a comprehensive map of all U.S. immigration detention facilities, broken down by facility operator (i.e. privately-run, ICE-run, or county/city-run). It also contains information about how many people are detained in each facility per day, the cost per person per day, and more.

Documentary: Lost in Detention, PBS (2011)

Freedom for Immigrants, Call Me Libertad: Poems Between Borders

Freedom for Immigrants, Detention Stories: Life Inside California's New Angel Island

Freedom for Immigrants, Community Bonds: Life Inside Immigration Detention in Massachusetts:

Freedom for Immigrants and NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic, Prolonged Detention Stories

Freedom for Immigrants, “Words Beyond Walls” in

States of Incarceration: A National Dialogue of Local Histories

CultureStrike, Visions from the Inside 2015 and 2016

Detention Watch Network, Voices from Detention:

Immigrant Defense Project, Indefensible Podcast Series

American Friends Service Committee, Stories of Detention

Greg Constantine, Seven Doors: Stories of Immigration Detention

A list of migration podcasts curated by Will Coley