The Migrant's Jail - (Politics and Society in Modern America) by Brianna Nofil (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This book is a history of a century of migrant detention, showing how immigration bureaucracy and the criminal justice system gave rise to this peculiar form of imprisonment in the United States. Historian Brianna Nofil tracks the political evolution of immigration policy but also follows the money, uncovering the network of individuals, municipalities, and private corporations that profited from immigrant detention. From the incarceration of Chinese migrants in the furthest reaches of New York at the turn of the twentieth century to the jailing of Caribbean asylum seekers in Gulf South lockups in the 1980s and 90s, Detention Power uncovers how the criminal justice system and immigration law enforcement have long collaborated, shared resources, and pursued a common project of incarceration and racial control. As Nofil shows, sheriffs and city commissions throughout the U.S. capitalized on contracts with the immigration service by expanding their jails and, in some cases, building separate "migrant jails" to secure federal detainees, effectively transforming incarcerated migrants into local commodities. Nofil's archives include records of district courts, presidential administrations, the immigration service, and legal aid groups, as well as overlooked local sources from communities at the heart of the detention business. At stake is the history of how immigrants who have been unwanted as citizens and workers were nevertheless coveted for their value in a "detention market" that brought federal money to local communities. Nofil is attentive to the backlash this form of imprisonment sparked even as she shows the longstanding role of immigration policing in the building of our mass incarceration society"--

Book Synopsis

A century-long history of immigrant incarceration in the United States

Today, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains an average of 37,000 migrants each night. To do so, they rely on, and pay for, the use of hundreds of local jails. But this is nothing new: the federal government has been detaining migrants in city and county jails for more than 100 years. In The Migrant's Jail, Brianna Nofil examines how a century of political, ideological, and economic exchange between the U.S. immigration bureaucracy and the criminal justice system gave rise to the world's largest system of migrant incarceration. Migrant detention is not simply an outgrowth of mass incarceration; rather, it has propelled carceral state-building and fostered intergovernmental policing efforts since the turn of the twentieth century.

From the incarceration of Chinese migrants in New York in the 1900s and 1910s to the jailing of Caribbean refugees in Gulf South lockups of the 1980s and 1990s, federal immigration authorities provided communities with a cash windfall that they used to cut taxes, reward local officials, and build bigger jails--which they then had incentive to fill. Trapped in America's patchwork detention networks, migrants turned to courts, embassies, and the media to challenge the cruel paradox of "administrative imprisonment." Drawing on immigration records, affidavits, protest letters, and a variety of local sources, Nofil excavates the web of political negotiations, financial deals, and legal precedents that allows the United States to incarcerate migrants with little accountability and devastating consequences.

Review Quotes

"A truly interdisciplinary work. . . . Highly recommended."---Ruth Ennis, H Soz Kult

"Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Book Award, Immigration and Ethnic History Society"

"Essential reading....this is history at its best: it aids our understanding. Brianna Nofil's book offers original scholarship informed by deep and wide-ranging research. It is an engrossing read and essential to understanding our world today."---Marilyn Lake, Australian Book Review

"Winner of the Frederick Jackson Turner Award, Organization of American Historians"

"Winner of the Ellis W. Hawley Prize, Organization of American Historians"

"Winner of the First Book Award, Immigration and Ethnic History Society"

"Finalist for the Center for Presidential History Book Prize, Southern Methodist University"

"A frightful story that should be better known."-- "Choice"

"Nofil's book, dense with archival evidence, documents how the federal government has long warehoused immigrants in local jails, and, in so doing, evaded oversight and responsibility for horrific, even deadly, conditions."---New Yorker

"A revealing, potent history of mass incarceration and deportation, told through the stories of migrants in American jails."---Martin Chilton, The Independent

"Compelling. . . . An insightful and alarming history of the nation's failures in detaining and deporting migrants."-- "Kirkus"

About the Author

Brianna Nofil is assistant professor of history at William & Mary.