By Annika Lindberg

Deportation limbo traces the efforts of two Nordic welfare states, Denmark and Sweden, to address the so-called implementation gap in deportation enforcement. It offers an original, empirically grounded account of how often-futile, injurious policy measures devoted to pressuring non-deported people to leave are implemented and contested in practice. In doing so, it presents a critique of the widespread, normalised use of detention, encampment, and destitution, which routinely fail to enhance deportations while exposing deportable people to conditions that cause their premature death. The book takes the ‘deportation limbo’ as a starting point for exploring the violent nature of borders, the racial boundaries of welfare states, and the limits of state control over cross-border mobility. Building on unprecedented access to detention and deportation camps and migration offices in both countries, it presents ethnographic material capturing frontline officials’ tension-ridden efforts to regulate non-deported people using forced deportation, incarceration, encampment, and destitution. Using a continuum of state violence as the analytical lens, the book offers a uniquely comprehensive account of how the borders of Nordic welfare states are drawn through practices that subject racialised ‘others’ to expulsion, incarceration, and destitution. The book is the first to systematically document the renewed deportation turn in Denmark and Sweden, and to critically examine its implications: for the people targeted by intensified deportation measures, and for the individual officials, institutions, and societies enforcing them. It offers an important, critical contribution to current debates on the violence of deportation regimes, the politico-bureaucratic structures and practices that sustain them, and their human costs.

Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2023. 205p.

Edited by Jeremiah O. Asaka and Alice A. Oluoko-Odingo

This book investigates contemporary human security issues in East Africa, setting forth policy recommendations and a research agenda for future studies. Human security takes a people-centered rather than state-centered approach to security issues, focusing on whether people feel safe, free from fear, want and indignity. This book investigates human security in East Africa, encompassing issues as diverse as migration, housing, climate change, displacement, food security, aflatoxins, land rights, and peace and conflict resolution. In particular, the book showcases innovative original research from African scholars based on the continent and abroad, and together the contributors provide policy recommendations and set forth a human security research agenda for East Africa, which encompasses Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti. As well as being useful for policy makers and practitioners, this book will interest researchers across African Studies, Security Studies, Environmental Studies, Political Science, Global Governance, International Relations, and Human Geography.

London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 255p.

Edited by Ravi K. Thiara, Stephanie A. Condon and Monika Schröttle

This book draws together both: theory and practice on minority/migrant women and gendered violence. The interplay of gender, ethnicity, religion, class, generation and sexuality in shaping the lives, experiences and choices of minority/migrant women affected by violence has not always been adequately theorised within much of the existing writing on violence against women. Feminist theory, especially the insights provided by the concept of intersectionality, are central to the editors’ conceptual frameworks.

Leverkusen-Opladen,Verlag Barbara Budrich,  2011. 426p.

By Denise Brennan

Life Interrupted introduces us to survivors of human trafficking who are struggling to get by and make homes for themselves in the United States. Having spent nearly a decade following the lives of formerly trafficked men and women, Denise Brennan recounts in close detail their flight from their abusers and their courageous efforts to rebuild their lives. At once scholarly and accessible, her book links these firsthand accounts to global economic inequities and under-regulated and unprotected workplaces that routinely exploit migrant laborers in the United States. Brennan contends that today's punitive immigration policies undermine efforts to fight trafficking. While many believe trafficking happens only in the sex trade, Brennan shows that across low-wage labor sectors—in fields, in factories, and on construction sites—widespread exploitation can lead to and conceal forced labor. Life Interrupted is a riveting account of life in and after trafficking and a forceful call for meaningful immigration and labor reform.All royalties from this book will be donated to the nonprofit Survivor Leadership Training Fund administered through the Freedom Network.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. 302p.

By Maureen Meyer and Adam Isaacson

In particular, we analyze how the National Guard deployment has driven migrants to travel through more remote areas where they are more likely to fall prey to criminal groups, and how smugglers are adapting to this new shift. The report further examines how this crackdown has overwhelmed migrant detention centers, heightened concerns of inadequate screening of potential asylum seekers, and resulted in a rapid increase in asylum requests in Mexico. Finally, the report examines how U.S. assistance has supported Mexico’s migration enforcement and border security efforts along its southern border. The report’s final section provides recommendations on how the Mexican government can work to ensure the safety and well-being of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, and root out any corruption and abuse linked to security forces and migration agents who interact with these vulnerable populations. It also provides recommendations on how the U.S. government can support these efforts, while upholding its own national and international commitments to asylum seekers.   

Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2019. 56p.

By  Parveen Parmar , Madeline Ross , Sophie Terp , Naomi Kear, Briah Fischer  Molly Grassini , Sameer Ahmed. Niels Frenzen , and Elizabeth Burner   

Climate change, poverty, and violence increasingly drive migration to the United States. United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detain some individuals while awaiting determination of immigration status or potential deportation. Over the last two decades, more than 200 individuals died in ICE detention. In this study, we aim to identify systemic issues related to deaths of individuals in ICE detention to potentially mitigate further harm. Methods: The ICE Office of Detention Oversight conducts investigations after each death in detention, producing a report called a “Detainee Death Review”. To identify systemic issues in these deaths, we used thematic analysis to review 55 Detainee Death Reviews available between 2011 and 2018. Findings: We identified 3 major themes of pervasive issues—Detainee Not Patient, System Over Patient, and Grossly Substandard Care— and 11 subthemes. Subthemes of culture of shortcuts, delays in care, and poor care delivered were present in the vast majority of cases. Subthemes biasand discrimination, language injustice, falsification of and inconsistencies between records and reports, willful indifference, security over health, communication breakdown, inadequate resources, failure of protective mechanisms, missing/ignoring red flags, and failure of emergency response were also prominent. Interpretation: This study identified underlying systems issues within the medical care provided in ICE detention. While there are issues with language services, discrimination, and inadequate response to medical emergencies, the greatest issue is the lack of independent, external review. Greater transparency is required, so that adherence to basic standards of care for individuals in ICE detention can be better evaluated.

The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, 2:2021

By Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes and Mary J. Lopez

The increase in immigration enforcement during the past two decades has led to a larger number of immigrants being detained in the U.S. criminal justice system. Using data from the 2006–2018 Annual Survey of Jails, we examine the impact of immigrants being held for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the conditions in U.S. jails. We find that increases in the number of detainees held for ICE are related to higher noncitizen jailed populations that are not offset by reductions in their citizen counterparts, likely contributing to worse confinement conditions. This is reflected in the higher levels of overcrowding and understaffing, as well as in the longer stays in jail and more physical assaults associated with a larger number of ICE detainees. These findings prove robust to using data on two local interior immigration enforcement programs responsible for the growing number of immigrant detainees in local jails—287(g) agreements and Secure Communities—as instruments to address the endogeneity of the number of ICE detainees with respect to jail conditions. The results are driven by slightly over half of U.S. counties located either along the United States– Mexico border or in states with a large or fast-growing immigrant population. 

Criminology & Public Policy 202022022:21:433-460

By Emily Ryo

During the summer of 2018, the US government detained thousands of migrant parents and their separated children pursuant to its zero-tolerance policy at the United States–Mexico border. The ensuing media storm generated unprecedented public awareness about immigration detention. The recency of this public attention belies a long-standing immigration enforcement practice that has generated a growing body of research in the past couple of decades. I take stock of this research, focusing on the causes, conditions, and consequences of immigration detention in the United States. I also discuss critical tasks for future research, including (a) examining the role of local governments, the private prison industry, and decision makers responsible for release decisions in maintaining the detention system; (b) extending the field of inquiry to less-visible detainee populations and detention facility guards and staff, for a fuller understanding of detention conditions; and (c) investigating not only direct but also indirect consequences of detention.

Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 15;97-115, 2019.

By Diego Chaves-González and Carlos Echeverría-Estrada

More than 5 million Venezuelans have left their country due to the ongoing political and economic crises there. More than 4 million of these refugees and migrants have moved to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. This has challenged receiving-country governments to rapidly rethink their policies for admitting and granting status to newcomers, and to consider how to adapt education, health-care, and other systems to support both migrants and the communities in which they settle. The COVID-19 pandemic that hit the region in early 2020 has added a further layer of complexity, as well as new risks for people on the move.

This fact sheet presents a profile of refugees and migrants travelling across 11 Latin American and Caribbean countries in 2019—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uruguay. The data analyzed come from the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM), through which the International Organization for Migration (IOM) collects information about refugee and migrant demographic characteristics, labor market participation, trip details, difficulties encountered while travelling, and more.

Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2020. 31p.

By Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera

Migration trends in the Americas recently have undergone a significant transformation. During the past few years, an increasing number of migrants and asylum seekers from different parts of the hemisphere—and other regions of the world, including Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and the African continent—have been undertaking a very long and arduous journey to the United States. Migrant mobility has been facilitated by sophisticated smuggling networks (that operate often in tandem with other criminal organizations) and corrupt officials.

Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, 2022. 15p,

By Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera and Beatriz García Nice

  Forced migration or forced displacement continues to relocate millions of people around the world. The category includes refugees, migrants, and internally displaced persons, and it is a direct result of persecution, conflict, other events seriously disturbing public order, and generalized human rights violations. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that more than 82.4 million people are currently forcibly displaced—more than twice the number of people as a decade ago. Of those, women and girls make up 50 percent of displaced populations; they are, in general, at a higher risk of violence.  

Washington, DC: Wilson Center, 2021. 9p.

By Viktor Marsai

Cooperation with “gatekeeper countries” — transit countries that can help mitigate the flow of irregular migrants — is a key instrument used by Europe to protect its borders, and should be used more consistently by the United States.1

Such collaboration could prevent millions of people from illegally entering destination countries. Without the assistance of those gatekeepers, Europe would have faced a much higher number of illegal immigrants. Therefore, this type of collaboration could be seen as a cornerstone of European migration policy. The United States, on the other hand, pays less attention to gatekeeper states, and focuses on the thin border line as the main protection strategy.

Gatekeeper countries, of course, are only part of the solution, and the concept must be integrated into a much broader and complex immigration and border protection policy that includes physical barriers, human resources, deterrence factors, and a consistent application of existing rules (e.g., detention and deportation). But an effective border regime cannot exist without the cooperation of transit countries.

This paper compares the role of gatekeeper countries in the European and the U.S. contexts. It analyzes the ways different actors are utilizing (or not) transit countries to reduce the number of illegal arrivals. It argues that different historic, economic, and social developments have shaped and altered policies and strategic thinking in the transatlantic region.

Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies, 2023. 12p.

Asylum in the United states

  Each year, thousands of people arriving at our border or already in the United States apply for asylum, a form of protection from persecution. Asylum seekers must navigate a difficult and complex process that can involve multiple government agencies. Those granted asylum can apply to live in the United States permanently and gain a path to citizenship and can also apply for their spouse and children to join them in the United States. This fact sheet provides an overview of the asylum system in the United States, including how asylum is defined, eligibility requirements, and the application process  

Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, 2022. 14p.

By The American Immigration Council

For generations, the United States has been a place of safe haven for people seeking freedom and safety. In 1980, Congress passed the Refugee Act, codifying basic refugee protections into law and enshrining a global commitment to asylum which emerged from the tragedy of the Holocaust. In the decades since then, hundreds of thousands of refugees and asylees have been granted status, strengthening communities around the nation, contributing economically, and enriching the national fabric.

But in the 21st century, a global displacement crisis is affecting nearly every country in the world. Multiple nations across the Western Hemisphere have become destabilized due to a wide variety of factors, including rising authoritarianism, political assassinations, natural disasters, powerful transnational criminal organizations, climate change, and the global socioeconomic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The end result is humanitarian migration at levels far above what the 20th-century system can handle.

Presidential administrations of both parties have failed to meet this challenge. Instead of an orderly, humane, and consistent approach to humanitarian protection and border management, we have been left with a dysfunctional system that serves the needs of no one: not the government, border communities, or asylum seekers themselves.

Today, the U.S. government faces an enormous challenge. The number of asylum seekers seeking to enter each day is significantly higher than the number the United States can process at official border crossings. The location and manner of crossings varies widely across the border, often changing unpredictably based on misinformation, rumor, or the demands of powerful transnational criminal organizations which maintain control over many of the migration routes with a bloody fist. The system is constantly at risk of bottlenecks and overcrowding, building the perception of chaos at the border. And inside the United States, underfunding, neglect, and deliberate sabotage have left the adjudicatory process in shambles.

Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, 2023. 60p

By The American Immigration Council

The United States has broad authority to detain certain categories of immigrants, migrants, and others seeking humanitarian protection as their proceedings wind their way through the immigration legal system. This detention is “civil” by definition (as opposed to criminal), meaning that immigration detention should not be punitive in nature. Despite this technical legal distinction, most of the immigration detention infrastructure is indistinguishable from the criminal detention context, in some instances using the same facilities and private corporations to operate detention centers and jails. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) states that the purpose of immigration detention is twofold: 1) to protect the wider community from those noncitizens who may pose a safety risk; and 2) to ensure that the individual will comply with any immigration proceedings (including removal). For the last two decades, there has been increasing interest in the United States and abroad to create and expand alternatives to detention for noncitizens who would otherwise be sent to immigration detention centers. This is due to an increasing understanding that detention is fundamentally harmful and inhumane—especially to immigrants of color— that there are alternatives that can achieve similar objectives to those the government is pursuing, and that there has been very little meaningful reform of immigration detention itself. For example, the current standards that govern the conditions of most immigrant detention centers, the Performance-Based National Detention Standards, were explicitly based on criminal pre-trial detention and were written in 2011, with minor updates made in 2016 and no updates in the years since then. Study after study has shown that alternatives to detention programs are generally more humane and more cost-effective than immigration detention.

Washington, DC: American Immigration Council, 2022. 9p.

By Evan J. Criddle

For generations, the United States has grappled with high levels of illegal immigration across the U.S.-Mexico border. This Article offers a novel theoretical framework to explain why legal order remains elusive at the border. Drawing inspiration from Lon Fuller’s “interactional view of law,” I argue that immigration law cannot attract compliance unless it is general, public, prospective, clear, consistent, and stable; obedience with its rules is feasible; and the law’s enforcement is congruent with the rules as enacted. The flagrant violation of any one of these principles could frustrate the development of a functional legal order. Remarkably, U.S. immigration law violates all of these principles in its treatment of asylum seekers. As the number of asylum seekers pursuing entry to the United States has risen sharply in recent years, these legality deficits have become increasingly salient. No wonder, then, that even the most aggressive deterrent measures — from mass prosecution to family separation to the construction of steel border walls — have failed to solve the United States’ border crisis. The United States faces an urgent dilemma: it may preserve the Immigration and Nationality Act (“INA”) in its current form, denying protection to too many forced migrants and reserving broad discretion to the Executive Branch, or it may establish a functional legal order at the border. It cannot have both.

If lawmakers were serious about establishing legal order at the border, there are measures they could take to strengthen the immigration system’s structural integrity. They could eliminate the Attorney General’s discretionary authority over asylum. They could clarify ambiguities in the INA to promote greater consistency, stability, and congruence in immigration adjudication and enforcement. They could extend protection to all forced migrants who face a serious risk of death, torture, rape, or other serious harm abroad, including victims of gang violence and gender-based violence. In short, they could enact laws that asylum seekers could rationally obey. To the extent that lawmakers are unwilling to take these steps, it is fair to question their commitment to establishing a functional legal order at the border.

UC Davis Law Review, Vol. 53; 2003.

By UNODC

Trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a violation of human rights that severely impacts the lives of its victims and undermines the security and well-being of societies as a whole. As the 2020 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons confirms, trafficking in persons is widespread around the world. Whilst the crime is mostly registered as a domestic phenomenon, it also has a transnational nature, where countries can be a country of origin, transit or destination, and sometimes all three at once. Given its magnitude, quantification of the crime can be difficult, particularly given that it also affects most industries and sectors and is connected to other forms of organised crime. For this reason, solutions to address the crime can neither be isolated nor merely involving governments. The complexity of trafficking in persons requires a holistic, coordinated and multi-stakeholder effort that spans geographies and sectors. Public agencies’ interventions require a multi- agency approach, but in addition the private sector must actively engage in this fight.

Examples of how public-private partnerships can be effective in sustaining these efforts are multi- pronged. For instance, private sector companies have at their disposal a wide range of technological tools that can be used to support governments’ anti-trafficking efforts. Private companies have the capacity to identify and address cases of trafficking and exploitation in their supply chain. In that regard, the public sector might acquire new skills and additional knowledge on sustainable procurement processes, how companies identify and manage risks and the multiple forms that trafficking can take. Finally, public-private partnerships can significantly facilitate investigations to trace the financial gains or organised criminal activities such as those involving trafficking in persons.

Vienna: UNODC, 2021. 124p.

Edited by Richard C.M. Mole

Europe is a popular destination for LGBTQ people seeking to escape discrimination and persecution. Yet, while European institutions have done much to promote the legal equality of sexual minorities and a number of states pride themselves on their acceptance of sexual diversity, the image of European tolerance and the reality faced by LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers are often quite different. To engage with these conflicting discourses, Queer Migration and Asylum in Europe brings together scholars from politics, sociology, urban studies, anthropology and law to analyse how and why queer individuals migrate to or seek asylum in Europe, as well as the legal, social and political frameworks they are forced to navigate to feel at home or to regularise their status in the destination societies. The subjects covered include LGBTQ Latino migrants’ relationship with queer and diasporic spaces in London; diasporic consciousness of queer Polish, Russian and Brazilian migrants in Berlin; the role of the Council of Europe in shaping legal and policy frameworks relating to queer migration and asylum; the challenges facing bisexual asylum seekers; queer asylum and homonationalism in the Netherlands; and the role of space, faith and LGBTQ organisations in Germany, Italy, the UK and France in supporting queer asylum seekers.

London: UCL Press, 2021. 279p.

Edited by Nancy Nicol, Adrian Jjuuko, Richard Lusimbo, Nick J. Mulé, Susan Ursel, Amar Wahab and Phyllis Waugh  

Envisioning Global LGBT Human Rights: (Neo)colonialism, Neoliberalism, Resistance and Hope is an outcome of a five-year international collaboration among partners that share a common legacy of British colonial laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy and gender identity/expression. The project sought to facilitate learning from each other and to create outcomes that would advance knowledge and social justice. The project was unique, combining research and writing with participatory documentary filmmaking. This visionary politics infuses the pages of the anthology. The chapters are bursting with invaluable first hand insights from leading activists at the forefront of some of the most fiercely fought battlegrounds of contemporary sexual politics in India, the Caribbean and Africa. As well, authors from Canada, Botswana and Kenya examine key turning points in the advancement of SOGI issues at the United Nations, and provide critical insights on LGBT asylum in Canada. Authors also speak to a need to reorient and decolonise queer studies, and turn a critical gaze northwards from the Global South. It is a book for activists and academics in a range of disciplines from postcolonial and sexualities studies to filmmaking, as well as for policy-makers and practitioners committed to envisioning, and working for, a better future.

London: University of London Press, 2018. 462p.

Edited by Veronica Federico • Simone Baglioni

This open access book discusses how, and to what extent, the legal and institutional regimes and the socio-cultural environments of a range of European countries (the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and the UK), in the framework of EU laws and policies, have a beneficial or negative impact on the effective capacity of these countries to integrate migrants, refugees and asylum seekers into their labour markets. The analysis builds on the understanding of socio-cultural, institutional and legal factors as “barriers” or “enablers”; elements that may facilitate or obstruct the integration processes. The book examines the two dimensions of integration being access to the labour market (which, translated into a rights language means the right to work) with its corollaries (recognition of qualifications, vocational training, etc.), and non-discriminatory working conditions (which, translated into a rights language means right to both formal and substantial equality) and its corollaries of benefits and duties deriving from joining the labour market. It thereby offers a novel approach to labour market integration and migration/asylum issues given its focus on legal aspects, which includes most recent policy changes and legal decisions (including litigation cases). The robust, evidence-based and comparative research illustrated in the book provides academics and students, but also practitioners and policy makers, with up to date knowledge that will likely impact positively on policy changes needed to better address integration conundrums.

Cham: Springer Nature/Imiscoe, 2021. 264p.