Immigrant detention extends the prison industrial complex’s racial and gendered reach

Evidence

One obvious and very urgent aspect of the work of decriminalization is associated with the defense of immigrants’ rights. The growing numbers of immigrants—especially since the attacks on September 11, 2001—who are incarcerated in immigrant detention centers, as well as in jails and prisons, can be halted by dismantling the processes that punish people for their failure to enter this country without documents. Current campaigns that call for the decriminalization of undocumented immigrants are making important contributions to the overall struggle against the prison industrial complex and are challenging the expansive reach of racism and male dominance. When women from countries in the southern region are imprisoned because they have entered this country to escape sexual violence, instead of being granted refugee status, this reinforces the generalized tendency to punish people who are persecuted in their intimate lives as a direct consequence of pandemics of violence that continue to be legitimized by ideological and legal structures. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 292

Categorization

• XREF: Extends Davis’s prison-industrial-complex analysis from earlier chapters to immigration detention — a distinct carceral site. — connects to: Women’s imprisonment increasingly echoes slavery, colonization, and genocide. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 207; Prison expansion undermines democracy and normalizes incarceration for people of color — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 274; Racism and profit, not crime, drive prison expansion (+4 more)

Related

• Women’s imprisonment increasingly echoes slavery, colonization, and genocide. (similarity 0.83)
• Prison expansion undermines democracy and normalizes incarceration for people of color (similarity 0.80)
• Davis, Angela Y — Are Prisons Obsolete (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Racism and profit, not crime, drive prison expansion #corroborates (0.60)
• Male prisons functioning as the punishment norm drives women’s conditions toward greater repression. #expands (0.55) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 204
• Abolitionist analysis exposes the prison-industrial-AI complex as one system #expands (0.50) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 2601
• The prison system is racism’s most reliable institutional refuge. #corroborates (0.50) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 275
• Feminist parity demands have ironically produced more repressive women’s prisons #corroborates (0.45)