Malleable detention: The restructuring of carceral space within U.S. immigration detention
| Published date | 01 October 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14624745221109539 |
| Author | Luis A Romero |
| Date | 01 October 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Malleable detention: The
restructuring of carceral
space within U.S.
immigration detention
Luis A Romero
Texas Christian University, USA
Abstract
The expansion of immigration detention in the United States has been attributed to policy,
privatization, and anti-immigrant racialization. This research extends understandings of
immigration detention’s growth by focusing on how Immigr ation and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) maintains the necessary space to detain migrants during thi s expan-
sion. In this article, I in troduce the concept of “malleable d etention:”the flexible strat-
egies and methods used to restructure sp ace within immigration detent ion. I base this
concept on findings from an analysi s of the T. Don Hutto Detention Center - a deten-
tion site that has remained ope n despite various abuses, protests, and closures. Us ing
statements from ICE officials, i ntergovernmental servi ce agreements (IGSAs) between
ICE and local governments, governm ent reports, nongovernmental rep orts, and news-
paper accounts, I find that the Hut to site displayed three forms of malleable det ention.
Detention was made mallea ble through repurposing non-detent ion space into deten-
tion space, maintaining flexibility in the detained populations, and reconfigur ing con-
tracts that helped keep detention open. Beyond the Hu tto case, the malleable
detention concept extends to de tention sites throughout the U.S. This provide s evi-
dence into how ICE is able to su stain enough detention spa ce that makes the U.S.
the largest detaine r of immigrants in t he world.
Keywords
immigration detention, crimmigration, immigration and customs enforcement, T. Don
Hutto Detention Center, malleable detention, carceral spaces, detention contracts
Corresponding author:
Luis A Romero, Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies, Texas Christian University, Rees-Jones
Hall, 2901 West Lowden Street, TCU BOX 298926, Fort Worth, TX 76109, USA.
Email: luis.romero@tcu.edu
Article
Punishment & Society
2023, Vol. 25(4) 848–866
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14624745221109539
journals.sagepub.com/home/pun
Introduction
“This isn’t about whether or not we’re going to detain people. We are going to continue to
detain people, and we’re going to continue to detain people on a large scale. This is about
how we detain those people…” (Political Transcript Wire, 2009; emphasis added).
-John Morton, Director of ICE, 2009–2013
Immigration detention, while classified as administrative and civil detention, has been
carceral in practice and comparable to the punishment characteristic of prisons
(Lima-Marín and Jefferis, 2019). Similar to prisons in the criminal-legal system, immi-
gration detention has been marked by regimented routines, surveillance, abuse, isolation
and shaped by private prison companies (Romero, 2021). Current research on detention
underscores the resemblance to incarceration, including the use of power by immigration
officers (Bosworth, 2019; Campesi, 2015), solitary confinement (Franco et al., 2020),
feelings of imprisonment in detention (Russell and Rae, 2020), and the use of legal
systems to maintain detention (Broeders, 2010; Haddeland and Franko, 2021).
Additionally, immigration detention has seen exponential growth both in terms of the
number of detained migrants and in the number of detention facilities in the United States
over the past thirty years, similar to the incarceration boom (Ryo and Peacock, 2018).
This expansion has been attributed to detention’s vital role in the immigration enforce-
ment regime, mostly operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
As noted by Ryo (2019), the U.S. is the largest detainer in the world, detaining over
320,000 people in fiscal year 2017. The average daily population in detention increased
in U.S. from under 6800 people in 1994 to over 52,000 people per day in 2019, an
all-time high
1
(Kassie, 2019).
Research on the expansion of immigration enforcement and detention has focused
on policy (García Hernández, 2014; Wilsher, 2012), privatization (Ackerman and
Furman, 2013; Conlon and Hiemstra, 2017; Doty and Wheatley, 2013), and anti-
immigrant racialization (Chavez, 2013; Mohamed and Farris, 2020; Romero, 2022)
as reasons for this growth. Yet, an aspect of immigration detention that remains under-
studied is how the U.S. has maintained the necessary space for the record number of
detained migrants, especially in the midst of pressure from anti-detention movements,
a breakdown in the partnerships between immigration enforcement agencies and local
governments and calls from Congress to reduce the number detained migrants (Lanard,
2019). Without the necessary sites to detain migrants, immigration detention would
not be possible.
In this article, I contribute to this literature by examining how the necessary space to
detain migrants is maintained during the expansion of detention. Using intergovernmen-
tal service agreements (IGSAs) between ICE and local governments, government and
nongovernmental reports, statements from ICE officials, and newspaper accounts,
I analyze the case of the T. Don Hutto Detention Center
2
and outline how ICE adapted
this detention site during the detainment boom. The Hutto detention site is a particularly
valuable case study to provide an understanding into how immigration detention can be
Romero 849
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