By The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

The machinery of mass deportation, through which millions are separated from their families and communities, is hidden in plain sight. Each year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removes tens of thousands of people from the US on private charter flights operated out of airports across the country, including Boeing Field in King County. Reports have surfaced of egregious human rights abuses on some flights, and violations of immigrants' rights to due process are routine. Using the Freedom of Information Act, UW student researchers and the UW Center for Human Rights obtained ICE's national database tracking these flights, and are following the money to document the corporations and municipalities that profit from ICE Air's deportation flights.

Seattle: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington 2019

By Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program

The United States maintains the world’s largest immigration detention system, detaining tens of thousands of people in a network of facilities, including those managed by private prison corporations, county jails, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). At the time of writing, ICE is detaining over 35,000 people, including long-term residents of the United States, people seeking asylum, and survivors of trafficking or torture. Instead of finding refuge, these people are held in ICE custody for extended periods, enduring inhuman conditions such as solitary confinement (dubbed “segregation” by ICE), where they are isolated in small cells with minimal contact with others for days, weeks, or even years. In many instances, such conditions would meet the definition of torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights law. Solitary confinement causes a range of adverse health effects, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), self-harm, and suicide risks. Prolonged confinement can lead to lasting brain damage, hallucinations, confusion, disrupted sleep, and reduced cognitive function. These effects persist beyond the confinement period, often resulting in enduring psychological and physical disabilities, especially for people with preexisting medical and mental health conditions or other vulnerabilities. In recognition of this well-documented harm, ICE issued a directive in 2013 to limit the use of solitary confinement in its facilities, especially for people with vulnerabilities. A 2015 memorandum further protected transgender people, emphasizing solitary confinement as a last resort. In 2022, ICE reinforced reporting requirements for people with mental health conditions in solitary confinement, highlighting the need for strict oversight. Despite these directives, however, government audits and whistleblowers alike have repeatedly revealed stark failures in oversight. This report – a joint effort by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Harvard Law School’s Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program (HIRCP), and researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) – provides a detailed overview of how solitary confinement is being used by ICE across detention facilities in the United States, and its failure to adhere to its own policies, guidance, and directives. It is based on a comprehensive examination of data gathered from ICE and other agencies, including through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, first filed in 2017, and partly acquired after subsequent litigation. It is further enriched by interviews with 26 people who were formerly held in immigration facilities and experienced solitary confinement over the last 10 years. Executive Summary The study reveals that immigration detention facilities fail to comply with ICE guidelines and directives regarding solitary confinement. Despite significant documented issues, including whistleblower alarms and supposed monitoring and oversight measures, there has been negligible progress. The report highlights a significant discrepancy between the 2020 campaign promise of U.S. President Joseph Biden to end solitary confinement and the ongoing practices observed in ICE detention. Over the last decade, the use of solitary confinement has persisted, and worse, the recent trend under the current administration reflects an increase in frequency and duration. Data from solitary confinement use in 2023 – though likely an underestimation as this report explains – demonstrates a marked increase in the instances of solitary confinement. This report exposes a continuing trend of ICE using solitary confinement for punitive purposes rather than as a last resort – in violation of its own directives. Many of the people interviewed were placed in solitary confinement for minor disciplinary infractions or as a form of retaliation for participating in hunger strikes or for submitting complaints. Many reported inadequate access to medical care, including mental health care, during their solitary confinement, which they said led to the exacerbation of existing conditions or the development of new ones, including symptoms consistent with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. The conditions in solitary confinement were described as dehumanizing, with people experiencing harsh living conditions, limited access to communication and recreation, and verbal abuse or harassment from facility staff. etc.....

New York: Physicians for Human Rights, 2024.  50p.

By Yves Guermond

The crisis of citizenship in democratic countries is a topic that I am accustomed to study and that I have developed in a recent book [1]. A definitive definition of the concept is hazardous as as it it continuously evolves across the centuries. It is presently caught in the crossfire between two emerging trends: the the diversification of the public sphere with the extension of critical analysis, and and on on the the other side the growth of various kinds of cosmopolitism.

Academia Letters. 2024. 3p.

By Gilberto Rosas &Virginia Raymond

The Covid-19 emergency only deepens the crisis of inhumanity in the U.S. carceral immigration system. The only way to truly protect migrant lives is to abolish detention.

North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) — Fall 2020 . 289-295, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10714839.2020.1809086

By Amalia Campos-Delgado & Karine Côté-Boucher

By focusing on the externalisation of US bordering into Mexico, we consider the institutional setting that both limits and channels gestures of care and empathy in migrant detention. Working within a framework that highlights the connections between the global and the intimate, and by proposing to read these connections as they unfold into an intimate geopolitics of humanitarian borderwork, we unpack the effects of Mexico’s recent shift towards humanitarian border politics on the interactions between detained migrants and border agents. Together with the material scarcity in which border officers operate, horrendous detention conditions and increased investments in detention facilities, this shift produces care-control dynamics that are specific to bordering in transit countries. We identify three ‘tactics of empathy’ deployed by Mexican border officers as they attempt to morally legitimise border control in this new environment, while concurrently avoiding legal liabilities and taming migrants under their custody. We argue that these tactics are less a manifestation of an ethics of care than a response to situations occurring in transit migrant detention where morality and instrumental rationality become entangled.

Geopolitics, Feb. 2022.

Edited by Walter Schweidler

It was in ancient Greek philosophy where the idea arose that there is a supreme law before which any civil law created by human societies has to be justified. Since then the concept of natural law not only remained one of the paradigms of Western civilization but has shaped the development of international legislation in general. The understanding of the significance of the idea of a natural law for the philosophical presuppositions of our current concepts of human rights and human dignity is still dependent on the analysis of its relation to the different cultures and civilizations on earth.

Germany: Academia Verlag, 2012, 327p.

By Angela Müller

This book combines legal and philosophical perspectives to address the question of whether states are bound by human rights when they act with effects on people abroad—states’ extraterritorial human rights obligations. Taking an innovative approach, it begins with a profound legal analysis of the issue at national, supranational, and international levels and then engages in depth with counterarguments against extraterritorially applying human rights, on the basis of which it develops its own ethical justificatory theory of extraterritorial human rights obligations. The book closes the circle by showing what the practical implications of this theory for the interpretation (and possible evolvement) of human rights law would be. In a world where critiques of, and resistance to, the general idea of universal human rights are on rise, the book contributes to closing the gap between judicial and normative perspectives on extraterritorial human rights obligations by inquiring into the ethical underpinnings of this topical legal challenge. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students in human rights, international law, and more broadly in political philosophy, philosophy of law, and international relations.

London; New York:Taylor & Francis, 2024.373p.

By Yves Guermond

The crisis of citizenship in democratic countries is a topic that I am accustomed to study and that I have developed in a recent book [1]. A definitive definition of the concept is hazardous as it continuously evolves across the centuries. It is presently caught in the crossfire between two emerging trends: the diversification of the public sphere with the extension of critical analysis, and on the other side the growth of various kinds of cosmopolitism.

The leading classes became aware progressively of the depreciation of the notion of citizenship and of the need to fill the gap of an ideological perspective and of the necessity of an admitted goal for a large majority of the population throughout the diverse tendencies. In France the idea has been secularism (laïcité), meaning that the religious influences must be set aside to maintain an ideal social live. The problem is that these religious influences often stem from the various cultural backgrounds of the local population.

Academic Letters. July 2021. 3p.

By Kim Voss, Fabiana Silva & Irene Bloemraad

Activists do not just ‘name’ problems faced by migrants; they ‘frame’ them, constructing a particular meaning of the social world. Activists in the United States are especially likely to use rights language. Some appeal to human rights; others call on the history and resonance of civil rights. Those who contest immigrant inclusion often instead evoke ‘American values’. Are these competing frames persuasive? Drawing on a survey experiment of California voters, we examine whether these frames affect support for undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens in need. We find that although respondents agree that food insecurity, sexual harassment, and inadequate health care violate the human rights of citizens and noncitizens equally, a human rights frame does not equalise support for government action to address the situation. Indeed, overall, respondents are much less supportive of government action for undocumented immigrants than citizens; neither rights nor value frames mitigate this inequality. The civil rights frame, relative to the American values frame, actually decreases respondents’ support for government action, for citizens and noncitizens alike. The type of hardship also matters: in scenarios concerning sexual harassment, legal status is not a barrier to claims-making. These findings reveal some limits of rights language for mobilisation around immigration.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2019.

By Valeria Gomez

Using the procedural due process framework set forth by the Supreme Court in Mathews v. Eldridge, I argue that the current geographic distribution of immigration courts violates respondents’ rights to procedural due process by inhibiting their ability to appear, present evidence, and secure counsel. In so doing, I highlight the detrimental effects that geography has on remote communities, such as their ability to build pipelines towards access to counsel. Finally, I weigh and propose alternative solutions that balance the government’s interests in efficiency with the respondents’ interests in having a meaningful opportunity to avoid the harsh consequences of deportation.

Wisconsin Law Review, 2023. 45p.

Legally reviewed by Miriam Domer

Though some may mistakenly believe otherwise, noncitizens (also called undocumented immigrants) have a number of legal rights in the United States. These may include the right to due process and a jury trial in certain court proceedings, the right to payment for their work, the right to defend against deportation, and many more.

People who are facing deportation or who have had their Constitutional rights violated may have legal recourse through a number of immigrant-focused resources.

Legal Rights Guide. https://www.legalfinders.com/immigrants-legal-rights-guide/ 2022. 22p.

Edited by Barak Kalir and Malini Sur

This book is a collection of ethnographies of transnational migration and border crossings in Asia. Interdisciplinary in scope, it addresses issues of mobility and Diaspora from various vantage points. Unique to this volume is an emphasis of studying globalisation from below, privileging the narratives and views of —people on the move˜ ­ or the transnational underclass ­ and their sense of belonging to places and communities. The collection is further distinguished by its focus on the sources of authority and the social configurations that are created in the intersections between legality and illegality across Asia. Though previous studies on transnational flows have deconstructed the notion of nation-states as having fixed political boundaries, and have engaged in spaces beyond the nation-states, seldom has an entire region, Asia, been privileged in one integrated volume. We emphasize hitherto marginalized debates that have significant policy relevance. Other than a serious academic interest from lecturers and students, we are confident that the book will be of significant interest for development practitioners and NGOs.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012. 268p.

By Lucia Bird.

Domestic laws criminalising human smuggling in Africa diverge significantly from the approach set out in the UN Smuggling Protocol.

This brief analyses how African states have criminalised human smuggling in their nation. This research found that 22 states have criminalised the ‘smuggling of migrant’s broadly as defined in the UN Smuggling Protocol, which specifies that the intent of the perpetrator must be to reap a ‘financial or material benefit.’ It finds that even these states have diverged significantly from the approach set out in the Smuggling Protocol, and highlights concerning trends before recommending best practice.

ENACT - Africa, 2020. 12p.

Edited by Yumiko Nakanishi

This book analyzes issues in human rights law from a variety of perspectives by eminent European and Asian professors of constitutional law, international public law, and European Union law. As a result, their contributions collected here illustrate the phenomenon of cross-fertilization not only in Europe (the EU and its member states and the Council of Europe), but also between Europe and Asia. Furthermore, it reveals the influence that national and foreign law, EU law and the European Convention on Human Rights, and European and Asian law exert over one another.

The various chapters cover general fundamental rights and human rights issues in Europe and Asia as well as specific topics regarding the principles of nondiscrimination, women’s rights, the right to freedom of speech in Japan, and China’s Development Banks in Asia.

Protection of human rights should be guaranteed in the international community, and research based on a comparative law approach is useful for the protection of human rights at a higher level. As the product of academic cooperation between ten professors of Japanese, Taiwanese, German, Italian, and Belgian nationalities, this work responds to such needs.

Cham: SpringerNature, 2017. 218p.

Edited By Mark Gibney, Gamze Erdem Türkelli, Markus Krajewski, Wouter Vandenhole

"The Routledge Handbook on Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations brings international scholarship on transnational human rights obligations into a comprehensive and wide-ranging volume. Each chapter combines a thorough analysis of a particular issue area and provides a forward-looking perspective of how extraterritorial human rights obligations (ETOs) might come to be more fully recognized, outlining shortcomings but also best state practices. It builds insights gained from state practice to identify gaps in the literature and points to future avenues of inquiry. The Handbook is organized into seven thematic parts: conceptualization and theoretical foundations; enforcement; migration and refugee protection; financial assistance and sanctions; finance, investment and trade; peace and security; and environment. Chapters summarize the cutting edge of current knowledge on key topics as leading experts critically reflect on ETOs, and, where appropriate, engage with the Maastricht Principles to critically evaluate their value 10 years after their adoption. The Routledge Handbook on Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations is an authoritative and essential reference text for scholars and students of human rights and human rights law, and more broadly, of international law and international relations as well as to those working in international economic law, development studies, peace and conflict studies, environmental law and migration."

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 500p.

Edited by Max Gallien and Florian Weigand.

The Routledge Handbook of Smuggling offers a comprehensive survey of interdisciplinary research related to smuggling, reflecting on key themes, and charting current and future trends. Divided into six parts and spanning over 30 chapters, the volume covers themes such as mobility, borders, violent conflict, and state politics, as well as looks at the smuggling of specific goods – from rice and gasoline to wildlife, weapons, and cocaine. Chapters engage with some of the most contentious academic and policy debates of the twenty-first century, including the historical creation of borders, re-bordering, the criminalisation of migration, and the politics of selective toleration of smuggling. As it maps a field that contains unique methodological, ethical, and risk-related challenges, the book takes stock not only of the state of our shared knowledge, but also reflects on how this has been produced, pointing to blind spots and providing an informed vision of the future of the field. Bringing together established and emerging scholars from around the world, The Routledge Handbook of Smuggling is an indispensable resource for students and researchers of conflict studies, borderland studies, criminology, political science, global development, anthropology, sociology, and geography.

London: Routledge, 2021. 484p.

Edited By Charles C. Jalloh, Kamari M. Clarke, and Vincent O. Nmehielle .

Development and Challenges. “On 27 June 2014, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union adopted the Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights (‘Malabo Protocol’). The Malabo Protocol, which seeks to establish the first-ever African court with a tripartite jurisdiction over human rights, criminal and general matters is aimed at complementing national, sub-regional and continental bodies and institu- tions in preventing serious and massive violations of human rights in Africa through, among other things, the prosecutions of the perpetrators of such crimes as specified in the statute annexed to the treaty.

Cambridge University Press. (2019) 1,200 pages.