Immigration Detention Reborn, 1981–1982

Immigration detention was formally reborn in the United States when the Reagan administration reinstituted a policy of detention in 1981. And at that moment, the new detention policy applied exclusively to Haitians. Chapter 3 documents how and why Haitian asylum seekers were the first targets of the revived detention program; it considers how the Reagan administration’s concerns about surging numbers of asylum seekers and anxiety over mass migration to the United States also influenced its decision to redeploy immigration detention. Finally, this third chapter documents the government’s early efforts to construct its new detention system and the movement that emerged to resist it.

Conclusion

The conclusion examines the United States’ detention practices in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the global spread of immigration detention that saw countries around the world constructing their own detention regimes from the United States’ model. It then conducts a brief examination of the problem that emerges at the intersection of state sovereignty and universal human rights; it closes with a survey of the contemporary movement against immigration detention, asking what future there might be for a world in which liberty and freedom of movement are treated as inalienable human rights.

Construction of and Resistance to the Detention Regime, 1981–1991

Chapter 4 explains how the government’s blanket detention policy came about and why the Haitian-only detention policy was subsequently expanded to include all inadmissible aliens. This chapter charts the growth of the new detention system in its first decade, including the introduction and use of the first private, for-profit prisons in the United States. In addition, chapter 4 illustrates the wide-ranging resistance movement that developed alongside the growing detention system, documenting the role played by detainees as well as their allies in the streets, courtrooms, and halls of Congress. The campaign of legal resistance is a particular focus of this fourth chapter because many of the most important legal challenges to the burgeoning immigration detention system came from Haitians.

Guantanamo

Chapter 5 examines the government’s first detention camp at the U.S naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the experience of the Haitian refugees—the original Guantanamo detainees—held there from 1991 to 1994. An important part of this history also involves the government’s detention of HIV-positive Haitians in the world’s first and only “HIV prison camp.” Examining the political and legal challenges to the government’s use of off-shore detention at Guantanamo, this chapter illuminates the history of the legal struggle over the government’s authority to detain in such extraterritorial facilities and debates over how far the U.S. Constitution might reach beyond the United States’ territorial boundaries, and when exercising the U.S. Constitution can lead to human rights abuses.

Introduction

This chapter introduces the problem of immigration detention and reviews its history, noting that the policy of detention was discontinued in 1954 but then began to re-emerge in the 1970s and was formally reinstituted in 1981. What led to the return of immigration detention in the United States and how did the detention system become the behemoth that it is today, the introduction asks. It then lays out the main arguments and framework of the book, emphasizing the central role that Haitians have played in the history of immigration detention and making connections to the broader history and scholarly literature of immigrant and refugee resistance, race and citizenship, and mass incarceration. The introduction concludes with a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book.

Making a Path for the Return of Immigrant Detention, 1973–1980

Chapter 1 examines the U.S. government’s response to the Haitian “boat people” from 1973 to 1980, finding that the government immediately met them with a policy of denial of asylum, implementing a set of practices, including detention, meant to deter Haitians from seeking asylum on American shores. This first chapter also chronicles the earliest resistance to detention by detained refugees and their allies and the advocacy campaign for Haitian refugees that developed in the 1970s that included political mobilization and legal resistance. The most notable achievement of the resistance came in the landmark case Haitian Refugee v. Civiletti, striking a lethal blow to the government’s Haitian Program which involved the detention and expedited removal of Haitians. Despite this victory for the refugees, the government’s efforts to exclude and deter Haitian asylum seekers during the 1970s cleared the way for the return of immigrant detention in the following years.

Reinforcing the Detention System, 1994–2000

Haitian detention at Guantanamo Bay continued to focus attention on U.S. detention practice in 1995 as the government’s detention of hundreds of unaccompanied Haitian youth generated enormous controversy and loud calls for their freedom. Chapter 6 documents this struggle over child detention before it moves to an examination of two key pieces of legislation in 1996 that had a decisive impact on the history of immigration detention in the U.S. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) were measures that consummated the marriage of immigration restriction and mass incarceration, devastated immigrant communities, and led to an enormous expansion of the immigration detention system. Finally, chapter 6 illustrates what the immigration detention system had become by the late 1990s and how, despite the extraordinary power and cruelty of the system, detainees continued to exercise resistance.

The Refugee Crisis of 1980

Chapter 2 examines the Caribbean refugee crisis of 1980 and the government’s response. After more than one hundred thousand Cubans and tens of thousands of Haitians arrived on American shores in a matter of months, the Carter administration implemented a policy of detention for both groups. But this temporary response mutated into a more permanent policy of long-term detention for Haitians (as well as several hundred Cubans) and ultimately into the more widespread use of detention for asylum seekers. This chapter also explores the origins and early history of the Krome Avenue Detention Center in Miami, a site that remained central to the history of immigration detention and also documents attempts by the government to create its first refugee processing center and detention facility outside of the mainland United States, in Fort Allen, Puerto Rico. Ultimately, the Carter administration’s treatment of Haitian asylum seekers at this critical moment in 1980 enabled the succeeding administration to dramatically expand the role of detention in the U.S. government’s immigration enforcement arsenal.