By Elizabeth G. Kennedy and Alison Parker,, et al.

The US is deporting Salvadorans to death and abuse. Deported to Danger identifies 138 cases of Salvadorans who, since 2013, were killed after deportation from the United States and more than 70 others who were beaten, sexually assaulted, extorted, or tortured. People deported to El Salvador are sometimes targeted by the same abusers they originally fled—such as gangs or former intimate partners—or are targeted for reasons, such as their status as a deportee, their neighborhood of origin, or perceived wealth, that US government officials should take into account when deciding their eligibility for asylum or other protection from deportation. US authorities should strengthen, not further weaken, asylum protections, ensuring that all asylum-seekers receive dignified treatment via procedures that ensure full and fair consideration of their claims. Human Rights Watch also urges the United States to take a step further and offer “complementary protection” to anyone, including Salvadorans, facing a real risk of serious harm upon return. Instead of closing the door on Salvadorans and others fleeing their homelands, the US should ensure their protection.

New York: Human Rights Watch, 2020. 123p.

By Ceres Policy Research Institute

As detention capacity increases, so do ICE apprehensions. This link illuminates certain truths for the immigrant rights movement. If the existence of an immigration detention center brings the harms of ICE’s enforcement presence to a community, the inverse tells us that immigrant community members become safer when a detention facility shuts down. Moreover, it sheds light on how eliminating detention capacity is crucial to scaling back ICE’s enforcement regime. Because immigration detention is the crux of ICE’s deportation pipeline and a driving force behind enforcement activity patterns, shrinking and ultimately abolishing the detention system must be a priority in the fight for immigrant justice. ICE has built and expanded a massive infrastructure of immigration jails, surveillance programs, and enforcement agents. The current enforcement-centered response to migration, supported by ever-increasing Congressional appropriations, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deportations each year. Over the last two decades, the budget for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), which includes its account for immigration detention, has quadrupled. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, detention levels hit historic peaks of more than 50,000 people per day.

Detention Watch Network and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, 2022. 10p.

By Anna O. Law

This book assesses the role of the federal judiciary in immigration and the institutional evolution of the Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Neither court has played a static role across time. By the turn of the century, a division of labor had developed between the two courts whereby the Courts of Appeals retained their original function as error-correction courts, while the Supreme Court was reserved for the most important policy and political questions. Anna O. Law explores the consequences of this division for immigrant litigants, who are more likely to prevail in the Courts of Appeals because of advantageous institutional incentives that increase the likelihood of a favorable outcome. As this book proves, it is inaccurate to speak of an undifferentiated institution called "the federal courts" or "the courts," for such characterizations elide important differences in mission and function of the two highest courts in the federal judicial hierarchy.

Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 282p.

Edited by Anna Triandafyllidou

The Routledge Handbook of Immigration and Refugee Studies offers a comprehensive and unique study of the multi-disciplinary field of international migration and asylum studies. Utilising contemporary information and analysis, this innovative Handbook provides an in depth examination of legal migration management in the labour market and its affect upon families in relation to wider issues of migrant integration and citizenship. With a comprehensive collection of essays written by leading contributors from a broad range of disciplines including sociology of migration, human geography, legal studies, political sciences and economics, the Handbook is a truly multi-disciplinary book approaching the critical questions of: migration and the labour market; integration and citizenship; migration, families and welfare; irregular migration; smuggling and trafficking in human beings; asylum and forced migration. Organised into short thematic and geographical chapters the Routledge Handbook of Immigration and Refugee Studies provides a concise overview on the different topics and world regions, as well as useful guidance for both the starting and the more experienced reader. The Handbook’s expansive content and illustrative style will appeal to both students and professionals studying in the field of migration and international organisations.

Abingdon, Oxon, UK: New York: 2016. 416p.

By Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

When Beatles star John Lennon faced deportation from the U.S. in the 1970s, his lawyer Leon Wildes made a groundbreaking argument. He argued that Lennon should be granted “nonpriority” status pursuant to INS’s (now DHS’s) policy of prosecutorial discretion. In U.S. immigration law, the agency exercises prosecutorial discretion favorably when it refrains from enforcing the full scope of immigration law. A prosecutorial discretion grant is important to an agency seeking to focus its priorities on the “truly dangerous” in order to conserve resources and to bring compassion into immigration enforcement. The Lennon case marked the first moment that the immigration agency’s prosecutorial discretion policy became public knowledge. Today, the concept of prosecutorial discretion is more widely known in light of the Obama Administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program, a record number of deportations and a stalemate in Congress to move immigration reform. Beyond Deportation is the first book to comprehensively describe the history, theory, and application of prosecutorial discretion in immigration law. It provides a rich history of the role of prosecutorial discretion in the immigration system and unveils the powerful role it plays in protecting individuals from deportation and saving the government resources. Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia draws on her years of experience as an immigration attorney, policy leader, and law professor to advocate for a bolder standard on prosecutorial discretion, greater mechanisms for accountability when such standards are

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  ignored, improved transparency about the cases involving prosecutorial discretion, and recognition of “deferred action” in the law as a formal benefit.

New York: New York University Press, 2015.

By Lisa (Leigh) Patel

Illegal. Undocumented. Remedial. DREAMers. All of these labels have been applied to immigrant youth. Using a combination of engaging narrative and rigorous analysis, this book<em>explores how immigrant youth are included in, and excluded from, various sectors of American society, including education. Instead of the land of opportunity, immigrant youth often encounter myriad new borders long after their physical journey to the United States is over. With an intimate storytelling style, the author invites readers to rethink assumptions about immigrant youth and what their often liminal positions reveal about the politics of inclusion in America.

New York: Teachers College Press, 2013. 144p.

By Lisa Meierotto

This book examines the convergence of conservation and security efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona. The author presents a unique analysis of the history of Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, a federally protected border wilderness area. Beginning in the early 1990s, changes to U.S. immigration policy dramatically altered the political and natural landscape in and around Cabeza Prieta. In particular, the increasing presence of Border Patrol has contributed to environmental degradation in the wilderness. Complicated human rights concerns are also explored in the book. Protecting wildlife in an area with high rates of undocumented border-crossing and smuggling results in complex and sometimes controversial conservation policies. Ultimately, the observations and analysis presented in this book illustrate ways in which the politics of race and nationalism are subtly, but significantly, interwoven into border environmental and security policies.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 208p.

By Teresa Hayter

In this new edition of Open Borders, Teresa Hayter assesses the impact of the increasing severity of border controls since they were first introduced and makes the controversial case for their abolition. Hayter focuses on postwar immigration controls, especially the use of such controls against the peoples of former European colonies and East Europeans, and their effects on asylum seekers. She examines the recent history of European coordination of border controls and the notion of ‘Fortress Europe’. Hayter argues that the existence of controls leads to great suffering and abuse of human rights, and that immigration controls are racist and help legitimate racism. She demonstrates that immigration controls have actually had a limited impact on controlling numbers. To illustrate her arguments, she draws on empirical material, especially from Britain in the 1980s and 1990s, relating in particular to the use of detention, arbitrary decision-making and the denial of benefits. She compares British government policies with policies elsewhere in Europe and calls for the free movement of people and the abolition of border controls. The new edition brings this seminal work up to date with a lengthy preface exploring how the practices of the British government over the past few years has continued the process Hayter outlines in the main text – of abusive and irrational border controls and the criminalisation of entire communities. This second edition also updates the bibliography and list of campaigning groups, and ends with a new manifesto for a world without borders, declaring 'no one is illegal!'

London; Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2004. 240p.

By Stijn Aerts  

It is estimated that over the past few years, tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors went missing in the European Union. This is a problem on many different levels: fundamental rights, child protection, managing of migration flows and asylum. From the crime prevention perspective, the fact that children are unaccompanied and the fact that they are off the authorities’ radar are major risk factors. Unaccompanied minors run a significantly increased risk of being trafficked for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation, or criminal exploitation. Chapter one of this report describes the phenomena of child trafficking and unaccompanied minors going missing and how they relate to migration and migrant smuggling, without disregarding intra-EU trafficking. The report goes on to outline the most important international conventions, protocols and declarations for the fight against child trafficking in the EU (chapter two) and the most important EU-wide, cross-border actions to prevent child trafficking and to safeguard UAMs from going missing (chapter three). Chapter four offers the reader an overview of existing resources of the past few years, including research reports, handbooks, and recommendations. The fifth and final chapter highlights and explains some of the most pressing recommendations regarding the prevention of child trafficking, covering the following five categories, from determining the child’s best interest and child-friendly approaches, over cross-border and interagency cooperation, right through to addressing the offender and demand side.

Brussels; European Crime Prevention Network, 44p.

By Ritu Bharadwai, Danielle Bishop, Somnath Hazra,  Enock Pufaa and James Kofi Annan.

Contemporary forms of slavery are often categorised as slavery, slavery-like practices, bonded labour, debt bondage and forced sexual exploitation. These are all interrelated and constitute a continuum.1 According to the Global Estimate of Modern Slavery,2 40.3 million people are living in slavery worldwide, which disproportionately affects the most marginalised, such as women, children and minorities.3 Climate change and climate-induced migration heightens existing vulnerabilities of slavery. Drivers of vulnerability to modern slavery are complex and impacted by many layers of risk. While several socio-economic, political, cultural and institutional risks shape vulnerability, they are increasingly considered to be made worse by climate change impacts and environmental degradation. Climate-induced displacements are becoming unavoidable. The rise of sea levels, salination and flooding are already forcing entire coastal communities – in countries such as the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Sierra Leone – to relocate. And as climate shocks are set to intensify, many more millions will be displaced by climate change in the coming decades. The World Bank estimates that by 2050 climate change will force more than 143 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America from their homes. …

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  Climate change policies increasingly recognise climate-induced migration and displacement as an issue. The Cancún Adaptation Framework (CAF), adopted during COP16 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, provides a conceptual framework to navigate the complexities of climate mobility. CAF recognises three modes of mobility due to climate impacts – migration, displacement and planned relocation4 – allowing for specific climate policies aligned with the distinct features, mobility patterns and outcomes of each impact.5 In 2015, the Paris Agreement on climate change was an unprecedented development of action on migration and climate with the formal inclusion of ‘migrants’ in its Preamble.  

London:  Anti-Slavery International and The International Institute for Environment and Development, 2021. 38p.

By Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

  Modern slavery is everywhere. From the construction of FIFA World Cup stadiums in Qatar to the cotton farms of Uzbekistan, from cattle ranches in Paraguay to fisheries in Thailand and the Philippines to agriculture in Italy, from sweatshops in Brazil and Argentina to berry pickers in Sweden. The production chains of clothes, food and services consumed globally are tainted with forced labour. The world is three times richer in terms of global GDP than it was 30 years ago yet we have historic levels of inequality. Eighty percent of the world’s people say that the minimum wage is not enough to live on, work is more insecure with a predominance of short term contracts or other non-standard forms of employment and both informal work and modern slavery are not only growing but increasingly prevalent in the supply chains of large corporations. In the global private economy, the ILO calculates forced labour generates $150 billion each year but it could be even higher. In all countries, unscrupulous employers and recruiters are increasingly exploiting gaps in international labour and migration law and enforcement. After drugs and arms, human trafficking is now the world’s third biggest crime business.

New York: Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2017. 30p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

The present issue paper explores the extent and circumstances under which different forms of marriage may fall within the scope of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. It combines research methodology and legal analysis to arrive at policy recommendations for countries to consider. The primary data collection was based on 75 expert interviews, involving almost 150 participants from nine countries.1 The interview tool was constructed in a deliberately broad manner to elicit conversations that would capture the reality of these phenomena, which manifested themselves differently in every country, and not to rush to conclusions about whether the conduct fell within the scope of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol…..

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  Out of the almost 150 people who participated in the interviews, the great majority knew about or had direct experience of cases involving certain types of marriage and trafficking in persons. However, others had not made any connections between marriages and trafficking in persons in their line of work or had not encountered any relevant cases. In the cases presented during the interviews, it became apparent that trafficking in persons was most often linked to cases of marriage that showed signs of force, abuse or exploitation. Thus, these characteristics could be recognized as initial indicators for consideration of trafficking in persons. Experts, including from non-governmental organizations, who had interacted with victims noted that there was a low level of reporting of trafficking cases in general, but also of trafficking cases involving elements of marriage.

Vienna: UNODC, 2020. 116p.

By Tadesse Simei Metekia

Based on extensive interviews and field research in Ethiopia, this brief puts forward actionable recommendations. Ethiopia has recently brought perpetrators to justice for trafficking Ethiopian immigrants and subjecting them to various forms of exploitation in countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan and Libya. The state has also demonstrated a growing political will to prevent and prosecute transnational forms of trafficking in persons. Yet, effective prosecution will elude Ethiopia unless it removes the impediments that are limiting its ability to ensure witness availability and bring more masterminds to justice.

ENACT (Africa): 2022. 16p.

By Arezo Malakooti

A number of policy and security changes in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Sahel over the last five years have led to a decrease in mobility options towards Europe. The study aims to measure whether the pattern of vulnerability towards trafficking has shifted for migrants in light of the increased difficulty in reaching Europe. This is achieved through an innovative methodology where a 1600-person survey was conducted with migrants along the routes to North Africa and proxies were used to gauge changes in patterns of vulnerability. Respondents’ experiences with trafficking were also tracked, thereby creating a new set of data in relation to trafficking along routes to Europe.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2020. 108p.

By Christopher Paolella

Human trafficking has become a global concern over the last twenty years, but its violence has terrorized and traumatized its victims and survivors for millennia. This study examines the deep history of human trafficking from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. It traces the evolution of trafficking patterns: the growth and decline of trafficking routes, the ever-changing relationships between traffickers and authorities, and it examines the underlying causes that lead to vulnerability and thus to exploitation. As the reader will discover, the conditions that lead to human trafficking in the modern world, such as poverty, attitudes of entitlement, corruption, and violence, have a long and storied past. When we understand that past, we can better anticipate human trafficking’s future, and then we are better able to fight it.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. 280p.

By Amy D. Lauger, Danielle Kaeble, and Mark Motivans

This report describes BJS’s activities during 2021 and 2022 to collect data and report on human trafficking as required by the Combat Human Trafficking Act of 2015 (34 U.S.C. § 20709(e)). It details ongoing and completed efforts to measure and analyze the nationwide incidence of human trafficking, to describe characteristics of human trafficking victims and offenders, and to describe criminal justice responses to human trafficking offenses. Additionally, it provides information on human trafficking suspects referred to and prosecuted by U.S. attorneys, human trafficking defendants convicted in U.S. district court, and admissions to state prison for human trafficking.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics,. 2022. 6p.

By Lucia Bird

Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, including literature reviews, national surveys and key informant interviews, this exploratory research points to some level of internal and/or external human trafficking in all the countries studied. Victims of human trafficking in the Caribbean region were found to be men, women, boys and girls from the Caribbean as well as from countries outside the region. These victims were found in multiple forms of exploitation including sexual exploitation, forced labour and domestic servitude. This Exploratory Assessment (second edition) was primarily a qualitative exercise and not intended to supply statistics as to the numbers of trafficking victims within each country. The purpose of the research was to provide a starting point for the participating countries to examine human trafficking within their local context and to encourage dialogue about how to combat this crime within the region. Human trafficking exists at some level in the eight countries that participated in this study. The potential for human trafficking to grow makes a strong, pro-active approach to addressing the crime an important issue for the nations of the Caribbean and the region as a whole.

Geneva: International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2010. 268p.

By Beth Mullan-Feroze and Kamena Dorling

The Home Office routinely detains people who are subject to immigration control only to release them again back into the community,1,2 causing them significant harm in the process.3 This includes survivors of trafficking and slavery.4 Survivors are detained either after imprisonment, with many having been wrongly convicted for offences they were forced to commit by their traffickers, and/or because they do not have permission to remain in the UK and have not received the support necessary to enable them to disclose that they have been trafficked. For example, many survivors of trafficking are detained for removal after being picked up during raids on brothels, nail bars and cannabis farms. 1 See Immigration Detention in the UK - Migration Observatory - The Migration Observatory. 2 Out of the 25,282 people who entered detention in the year ending March 2022, there were only 3,447 enforced returns (14%) - Home Office National Statistics, How many people are detained or returned?, May 2022 3 Helen Bamber Foundation, The impact of immigration detention on mental health – research summary 4 The terms ‘trafficking’ and ‘slavery’ are used interchangeably throughout this report, with the primary term being ‘trafficking’. ….

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  The term ‘survivor’ is used throughout this report unless specific reference is being made to Home Office policy, where the language is mirrored and ‘victim’ is used. 5 The Modern Slavery Act 2015 section 49 Statutory Guidance on Identification and Care recognises the impact of trauma and lists the reasons why a person may not self-identify and/or be reluctant to disclose their situation of exploitation. 6 These include the 2016 Shaw Report, the 2018 progress report also undertaken by Stephen Shaw, and the 2019 reports by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and by the Home Affairs Select Committee. 7 Home Office, Draft revised guidance on adults at risk in immigration detention, February 2021 8 Home Office admits new immigration plans may see more trafficking victims locked up | The Independent 9 Home Office National Statistics, How many people are detained or returned? , May 2022 It is well recognised, including in the UK Modern Slavery statutory guidance,5 that survivors can be highly traumatised, and afraid of sharing their experiences of trafficking and exploitation for a multitude of reasons, including but not limited to: shame, fear of stigmatisation, and threats from traffickers who may still be controlling them. Survivors are often fearful of authorities and those authorities frequently fail to identify trafficking indicators, or to act appropriately when such indicators are apparent. Numerous government-commissioned or parliamentary reports and inquiries have already highlighted that the Home Office is failing to identify vulnerable people, or even to release people from detention once identified as vulnerable or trafficked.6 Instead of taking urgent steps to address these existing problems, the government has introduced changes to law and policy over the past year that have worsened the situation. While previous Home Office policy stated that victims of trafficking (among other vulnerable groups) were only suitable for detention in exceptional circumstances, in 2021 survivors of trafficking were brought entirely under the scope of the controversial ‘Adults at Risk’ (AAR) policy,7 despite the government recognising that this would result in more survivors of trafficking being detained.8 Under this policy, being a potential and confirmed victim of trafficking is only an ‘indicator’ that someone is an adult at risk who is more vulnerable to suffering harm in detention. The Home Office has stated that this policy should strengthen this presumption against the detention of those who are particularly vulnerable to harm in detention. However, it has actually increased the detention of victims of trafficking who now face increased evidential requirements to show the harm that detention is causing them. In addition, their immigration and criminal offending history, which could be linked to their trafficking experience, is more likely be weighed up in favour of their continued detention rather than understood in the context of the exploitation they have suffered.

London: Helen Bamber Foundation, 2022. 31p.

By Mark Micallet and Matt Herbert

Irregular migration and human smuggling through the Sahel and North Africa are often assessed and framed through the metric of arrivals in Europe by migrants on boats. According to that metric, 2021 was an important year. On the three major routes connecting Africa to Europe – through the Central Mediterranean, the Western Mediterranean and via north-west Africa – 108 541 migrants arrived in Europe that year. This was the highest number witnessed since 2017, when there was a dramatic collapse in arrival numbers following the rapid growth seen between 2013 and 2017.1 Data for the number of migrants intercepted prior to arriving in European waters is not as comprehensive, but likely to be high, with Tunisia and Libya alone recording 54 512 disembarkations in 2021, the highest levels ever recorded by both countries.2 However, focusing only on the metric of disembarkations of migrants in Europe is problematic. Assessed alone, these figures skew the perspective of what is a highly complex situation. Disembarkation levels, while measuring success or failure of a migrant’s journey, otherwise speak to little, if anything, of how the human smuggling ecosystem in North Africa and the Sahel is changing. Moreover, these statistics obscure the significance of dynamics and shifts in zones of both embarkation and transit, which are

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 46p.

By Thomas Pearson

This dissertation consists of three chapters concerning migration and immigration policy. The first chapter studies how increased U.S. deportations affect Mexican labor markets using variation in migrant networks and Secure Communities (SC), a policy which expanded local immigration enforcement. I show that in the short run, deportations increase return migration and decrease monthly earnings for local Mexicans with less than a high school degree. Deportations also increase net outflows within Mexico and emigration to the U.S. The negative short run effects are not driven by falls in remittance income or increases in crime as deportations increase both the share of households receiving remittances and the total amount received and they do not affect homicide rates. The results instead point to increased labor market competition as a result of return migration. Lastly, I show that the negative short run effects of this labor supply shock are larger in localities with worse infrastructure and less access to the financial sector. These results help explain the large negative effects on earnings as many migrants return to less developed regions where these frictions are prevalent. The second chapter studies how immigration status affects crime reporting and victimization. I focus on Deferred Action for Early Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a policy that temporarily protects youth from deportation and provides work authorization. For identification, I compare likely undocumented immigrants around the policy's age eligibility cut-off over time. DACA eligibility of the victim increased the likelihood that the crime was reported to the police, which is consistent with DACA reducing fears of deportation. DACA eligibility also decreased victimization rates for women. Overall, the results suggest that immigrant legalization increases engagement with police and reduces the likelihood of victimization. The third chapter provides a novel perspective on the Great Migration out of the U.S. South. Using a shift-share identification strategy, my coauthors and I show how millions of Southern white migrants transformed the cultural and political landscape across America. Counties with a larger Southern white share by 1940 exhibited growing support for right-wing politics throughout the 20th century and beyond.

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  Racial animus, religious conservatism, and localist attitudes among the Southern white diaspora hastened partisan realignment as the Republican Party found fresh support for the Southern strategy outside the South. Their congressional representatives were more likely to oppose politically liberal legislation, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and to object to the Electoral College count in 2021. These migrants helped shape institutions that reinforced racial inequity and exclusion, they shared ideology through religious organizations and popular media, and they transmitted an array of cultural norms to non-Southern populations. Together, our findings suggest that Southern white migrants may have forever changed the trajectory of American politics.

Boston, MA: Boston University, 2022. 255p.