By Gary J. Hale and Jie Ma

U.S. immigration policy remains murky in substance as well as legislatively incomplete. Polarization of the issue by American politicians and legislators has resulted in both punitive and permissive policy pronouncements over the last four U.S. presidential administrations, most of which have done little to deter migrants from crossing through Mexico into the U.S. in search of a better life.

From a policy perspective, the flow of migrants through Mexico to the United States is seemingly unstoppable — with many believing that U.S. government efforts to curtail this activity have failed. If the intent of previous and existing federal immigration laws and reforms was to conduct immigration processing in an orderly manner, the U.S. government has not succeeded. The current situation on the U.S.-Mexico border demonstrates that walls, fences, barricades, bridges, patrols, technology, and laws do not deter illegal entries. Media coverage of the “border crisis” — including reports of individual crossings and the so-called “caravans” moving through Mexico — has added to the perception that there is no end in sight to the swell of migrants at the southern border.

This research paper reviews some of the implications of at least 30 migrant caravan iterations that were detected traversing Mexico en route to the U.S. from 2017 to 2022. The migrant caravan phenomenon is viewed from a broad perspective and distilled down to the individual iterations to assess commonalities between caravan waves and to determine which “push” and “pull” factors were in place when the caravans were formed and mobilized. The individual caravan iterations are also compared against permissive and punitive U.S. and Mexican immigration policies at the time to assess any discernable cause and effect. Our analysis provides evidence that punitive policies may negatively affect the creation and movement of caravans, while permissive immigration policies may create an impetus for migrant movements. Recommendations for future action are included.

Houston, TX: Baker Institute for Public Policy, 2023. 24p.

By Mizue Aizeki, Ghita Schwarz, Jane Shim, and Samah Sisay

Cruel by Design: Voices of Resistance from Immigration Detention, a report by the Immigrant Defense Project and the Center for Constitutional Rights, shows how the harms associated with ICE detention practices are embedded in the structures of the immigration control regime rather than a manifestation of a broken system. In doing so, it offers a summary of U.S. detention laws to illustrate how the system is designed to make it as easy as possible for the federal government to exclude and deport people. It also shows how the detention system deploys multiple tactics to undermine the ability of individuals to fight deportation. In addition, the report highlights the stories of people who’ve been held in ICE detention, and their resistance and resilience in the face of a draconian system. Piecemeal reforms alone will not be sufficient for remedying the cruelty of this system. What is ultimately required is far-reaching transformation, one aimed at ending detention as a tool of the U.S. regime of exclusion.

New York: Immigrant Defense Project and Center for Constitutional Rights, 2022.  49p.

By Adam G. Lichtenheld,

Libya is a key destination and transit point for people on the move. Since 2017 – when the European Union (EU) endorsed a deal between Italy and Libya to crack down on irregular migration from Africa to Europe along the Central Migration Route – Libyan authorities and local armed groups have detained thousands of refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers in the country.

An increasing number of reports from human rights organizations have revealed that detainees face massive overcrowding, dire sanitary conditions, and rampant human rights abuses. While there has been significant discussion of the potentially harmful effects of the current detention system in Libya, little is known about arrest and detention patterns and which refugee and migrant profiles are more vulnerable to being detained.
This report examines the social, economic, and demographic determinants of detention of refugees and migrants in Libya. Drawing on surveys of 5,144 refugees, migrants, and asylum-seekers, it compares the profiles and characteristics of those who reported being detained and those who did not in order to identify what factors make people on the move more likely to end up in detention. While the report focuses on the Libyan context, its findings have implications for understanding the drivers, dynamics, and consequences of migrant detention elsewhere. This is important given the growing trend among EU and other Western countries of outsourcing asylum and migration control to transit states in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

Mixed Migration Centre, 2019. 36p.

By Sabine de Graaf

This literature review summarises research that has been conducted on the impact of family separation on a child, demonstrating how separation from a parent can cause harm to a child. The purpose of the reviews is to provide an indepth overview of recent academic insights and discussions on the impact of ‘family separation’ from a number of different perspectives and contexts and focusses on academic literature from various disciplines published in the past 10 years. [1] The first part of the review considers the impact of family separation in a general context of imprisonment, looking at the impact of parental incarcerations, as well as the specifics of incarceration of either the mother or the father on a child. The second part of the review demonstrates that similar negative impacts on children are seen in the context of family separation as a result of deportation. [1] The main question considered to define the literature review was: What is the impact of family separation on the well-being of children? Literature was sought via Google Scholar, narrowing the search from a period covering 2010-2020. The focus is on studies undertaken in the UK, supplemented by studies done in the US. The key words for the search that were used in a variety of combinations were: family separation, parental incarceration, parental imprisonment, paternal imprisonment, maternal imprisonment. Bibliographies of relevant literature results were cross-referenced to find further relevant studies and discover emerging themes and debates such as the role of family factors in intergenerational transmission of offending (discussed in 1.3).  

London: Bail for Immigration Detainee, 2020. 21p.

By Rudy Schulkind

The introduction of automatic deportation for so called ‘foreign criminals’ convicted and sentenced to 12 months or more under the UK Borders Act 2007 (unless certain exceptions apply including the right to a private and family life), followed by further provisions in 20121 and 20142 , has led to an increasingly strident regime that makes it mandatory to separate a child from a parent. That is, so long as any harm that is caused to the child, parent or partner is not ‘excessive’. In the case of children, these provisions are relied upon by the Home Office and the courts to override the government’s statutory duty to promote and safeguard the welfare of children. Through our legal casework BID has witnessed first-hand the devastating impact this regime is having on families and communities. We have undertaken this research so that we can shine a light on this cruel and inhuman policy. Our research is primarily based on interviews with fathers facing deportation from the UK. It is the words of those directly affected that form the substance of the report. The testimonies of the fathers we spoke to are powerful and often heart-breaking, and paint a picture of an entirely broken system that cannot be in the public interest. Section 1 of the report examines the sprawling impact of the deportation system, from the individuals punished permanently and given no second chance because they don’t have a British passport, to the children and families treated as collateral damage. Families were placed in extreme practical, financial and emotional hardship by extended periods of uncertainty under the constant threat that family life will be brought to a permanent end. Not only were the fathers we interviewed prevented from working, they faced repeated periods of detention that were traumatic for the entire family and placed an even greater practical burden on the mother. A particular focus of this section is the devastating impact deportation has on children. In the interviews we carried out, fathers facing deportation reported their children developing anxiety; crying constantly; unable to let their dad out of their sight; withdrawing from everything; loss of appetite; difficulty sleeping; having nightmares; and in one particularly serious case self-harm and attempted suicide. In addition to these testimonies we present evidence of recent academic insights about enforced parental separation in a number of different contexts. Somewhat unsurprisingly the evidence  overwhelmingly finds that being forcibly and permanently separated from a parent generally has severe consequences for a child’s wellbeing and long-term development. Section 2 of the report concerns access to justice. The removal of legal aid and successive legislative changes have had a particularly detrimental effect on people seeking to appeal deportation. Interviewees explained the myriad interlocking barriers to justice they had been forced to confront. These include the complexity of immigration law and the prohibitive cost of private representation, as well as practical obstacles for those deprived of their liberty. The frequent and excessive use of detention, itself an injustice, leads to additional practical barriers to challenging deportation, particularly where this takes place in a prison. The first-hand evidence from our interviews reflect a dysfunctional system designed to make it practically impossible to even access a fair hearing. Alongside this we also present evidence from our own Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) project. We have found the ECF scheme to be unnecessarily burdensome and entirely inaccessible to unrepresented individuals. 

London: Bail for Immigration Detainees, 2021. 40p.

By Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) , Medical Justice and the Public Law Project

This report explores the use of GPS Electronic Monitoring (EM), which is more colloquially referred to as ‘GPS tagging’, as one of the conditions of an individual being released from immigration detention on bail. Anyone residing in the UK and who is subject to either deportation proceedings or a Deportation Order may be tagged as part of their immigration bail conditions [1]. Two recent changes introduced by the Home Office have greatly increased both the number of people monitored and the intrusiveness of the monitoring technology. First, in November 2020 the Home Office transitioned from radio frequency electronic monitoring (EM) to a far more intrusive system of Global Positioning System (GPS) electronic monitoring for people on immigration bail [2], thereby monitoring the wearer’s location at all times. Second, since 31 August 2021 the home secretary has a duty to electronically monitor those on immigration bail who reside in England and Wales and who could be detained because they are subject to deportation proceedings or a Deportation Order (‘the duty’)[3]. From 31 August 2022, the duty has also applied to those residing in Scotland or Northern Ireland, although it is not expected to become available in Northern Ireland until November 2022[4]. As a result of these two changes, electronic monitoring is now a mandatory condition for many people on immigration bail in the UK, and the overwhelming majority of those subject to it will be fitted with a GPS tag [5]. This research is based on a review of medical-legal assessments written by clinicians concerning the impact of electronic monitoring, conducted by Medical Justice, and interviews with 19 of Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID)’s former clients who have been fitted with a GPS tag as part of their immigration bail conditions. Through these two streams of research, this report seeks to provide a snapshot of the everyday experiences of wearing a GPS tag whilst on immigration bail.   

London: Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Medical Justice, 2022. 49p.

By Rudy Schulkind and Idel Hanley

New research published today by Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Medical Justice documents the devastating impact upon immigration detainees in prisons of conditions amounting to indefinite solitary confinement. People held for immigration reasons (including torture survivors and those with serious vulnerabilities) are locked in their cells for over 22 hours a day, most often 23.5, with people sometimes being held in their cells for days at a time and unable to take a shower. Some are self-harming, attempting suicide and unable to sleep or eat. They report existing in a state of endless despair. Physical symptoms include involuntary shaking, memory loss and physical pain. As one man told us:

“I didn’t enter prison with mental health problems but I’m not the same person I was. My mind is not the same. I’m not sure if what has happened to be can be repaired.”

Another said: “It just feels illegal because of what it’s doing to my mind and body. If this isn’t breaching my rights, then what will? It’s as though I’ve fallen into a crack that the Home Office opened and I can’t get out.”

The research released today is based on interviews with 5 immigration detainees and on medico-legal reports produced by doctors, as well as reviews of case files that argue for the release of people held in prolonged confinement – either solitarily or with a cell-mate. 

Key findings: Five disturbing statements describe people being pushed to the limit of what a human being can be expected to endure. Two people described the experience as torture. Their statements are distressing to read but they have been included in this report.  The medico-legal reports illustrate severe impact on health including the exacerbation of pre-existing mental health conditions and the onset of new conditions. The severe harm caused is reflected in the literature on the impact of solitary confinement on health. It can cause long-term and even irreversible harm and may increase the risk of suicide. Prolonged solitary confinement is prohibited by the United Nations and can amount to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. The report also finds that in individual cases and in official correspondence the Home Office has failed to engage with the issue of prolonged solitary confinement in prisons.  It appears that severely restrictive prison conditions are not being considered when assessing the proportionality of immigration detention.   

London: Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) and Medical Justice, 2021. 33p.

By Rebecca Gambler; et al.

Each year, EOIR issues decisions for hundreds of thousands of cases of foreign nationals charged as removable under U.S. immigration law. EOIR is facing a significant and growing backlog of cases pending before the immigration courts. At the start of fiscal year 2023, EOIR’s backlog was about 1.8 million pending cases—more than triple the number of pending cases at the start of fiscal year 2017. In 2017, GAO reported on EOIR’s management practices, including how it manages and oversees workforce planning and immigration judge hiring. GAO was asked to review various EOIR management functions, including actions taken since GAO’s 2017 report. This report assesses, among other things, EOIR’s (1) workforce planning practices; (2) judge performance appraisal program; and (3) policies and procedures for reporting quality data to the public. GAO analyzed EOIR staffing data from fiscal years 2017 through 2022—the most current data available. GAO reviewed EOIR documentation and interviewed officials from headquarters and four immigration courts selected to include different caseloads, among other factors. What GAO Recommends GAO is making six recommendations to improve, among other things, EOIR’s workforce planning, judge performance appraisal program management, and data quality practices. EOIR identified ongoing and planned steps to address these recommendations.   

Washington, DC: GAO, 2023. 61p.  

By Matthew Chang

What does adequate legal representation for noncitizen criminal defendants look like? After the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Padilla v. Kentucky, criminal defense attorneys became responsible for advising clients if and when there might be immigration consequences that accompany acceptance of a guilty plea deal, such as a potential risk of deportation. Currently, the criminal and immigration representation are completely divided. This Comment argues that the Padilla mandate alone, while important, fails to adequately provide noncitizen criminal defendants their Fifth Amendment Due Process Right and Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel. Using the Supreme Court’s legal analysis in Padilla and similar cases, I contend that the criminal and immigration divide is not so discrete. Inadequate representation in either criminal or immigration courts is considered a failure of the Fifth Amendment. Nevertheless, one way to rectify this constitutional shortcoming is to create and implement government-appointed counsel for all noncitizen criminal defendants facing criminal and removal proceedings. This Comment evaluates local, government-enacted immigration public defender programs that have experienced great success within California. Further, this Comment posits that to fully comply with the Fifth Amendment’s requirement of adequate representation, Congress must follow suit and expand quality legal access across the nation for noncitizens facing deportation proceedings, modeled after successful immigrant defender programs in California.

112 J. Crim. L. & Criminology Online 29 (2022).

By Frohar Poya

In Europe, undocumented migrant women constitute one of the most at-risk groups across several socio-economic domains, with frequent, severe and often tragic consequences for these women, as well as their children and families. Already in the pre-COVID period in Europe, undocumented migrant women suffered financial exploitation, often exposed to discrimination, homelessness, intimate partner and domestic violence, and sexual harassment and abuse, both at work and in the public sphere. During and post-COVID, the inequalities and discrimination to which undocumented migrant women are subjected have intensified. This briefing paper summarises the key areas of concern and offers a number of recommendations to inform EU and national decision makers and stakeholders for improved formulation of policy responses and strategies to address the situation of undocumented migrant women in Europe. The main intention of this paper is to highlight the lack of protection of undocumented migrant women, and to help ensure their well-being during the post-COVID pandemic period, in particular, in the context of a number of key international legal instruments, including the EU Fundamental Rights Charter.

St Gilles,

Belgium: HumMingBird project , 2023.  11p.

By R. J. B. Bosworth

From the Preface: “My task… has been to unveil the lives of Italians under a generation of dictatorship, be they men, women or children, party officials and party intellectuals or anti-Fascists, landowners and industrialists or workers and peasants, all coming from the many and varied regions of Italy or, on occasion, emigrants passed beyond the national border. It is, of course, an impossible protect. Aspiring to write the tout history of a totalitarian society is a delusion. Yet any reader who consults the book’s pages will find that a vast array of people rum up »n my tale and that it spans from Sardinia to Sicily, from Tumi to Reggio Calabria, from Trieste to Bari and beyond. There are many stories in the pages that follow and my hope must be that readers will find them emblematic and will draw a general picture from their impressionist detail.”

London. Penguin. 2005. 689p.

Gioconda Herrera, Carmen Gómez

This open access regional reader examines emerging issues around new migration patterns in South America and their relationship with changing migration policies over the last twenty years. The first part of the book looks at conceptual discussions on mixed and survival migration, the link between migration and extractivism, and the specific character of transit migration. A second part examines how these debates have led to transformations in state policies, and the shift in government policies from a human rights-based approach towards more restrictive ones. Finally, the third section revisits the relationship between racism, xenophobia and colonialism in contemporary migrations. As such this book makes an interesting read to students, academics, policy makers and all those working in the field.

Springer Cham

Sabrina Marchetti

This open access short reader offers a systematic overview of the scholarly debate on the experiences of migrant domestic workers at a global level, in the past as well as in present time. It tackles the nexus between migration and domestic work with a multi-layered approach. The book looks into the issue of (paid) domestic work in migratory contexts by investigating the feminization of migration, thereby considering the larger framework within which this specific phenomenon takes place. The author explains notions such as the “international division of reproductive labor” or “global care chains” which emphasize the inequality in the way care and domestic tasks are distributed today between middle-class women in receiving nations and migrant domestic workers. Moreover, the book shows how women migrating to work in the domestic work and private care sector are facing a complex landscape of migration and labor regulations that are extremely difficult to navigate. At the same time, this issue also addresses employers’ households who cannot find appropriate or affordable care among declining welfare states and national workers reluctant to take the job, whilst legal regulations make difficult to hire a domestic worker who is a third country national. As such this book offers an interesting read to academics, policy makers and all those working in the field.

Springer Cham

Edited by Robert T. Chase

This volume considers the interconnection of racial oppression in the U.S. South and West, presenting thirteen case studies that explore the ways in which citizens and migrants alike have been caged, detained, deported, and incarcerated, and what these practices tell us about state building, converging and coercive legal powers, and national sovereignty. As these studies depict the institutional development and state scaffolding of overlapping carceral regimes, they also consider how prisoners and immigrants resisted such oppression and violence by drawing on the transnational politics of human rights and liberation, transcending the isolation of incarceration, detention, deportation and the boundaries of domestic law.

Durham, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. 440p.

Jill Ahrens, Russell King

This open access book brings novel perspectives to the scholarship on transnational migration. The book stresses the complexity of migration trajectories and proposes multi-sited field studies to capture this complexity. Its constituent chapters offer examples of onward migration spanning all major world regions. The contents exemplify a range of interdisciplinary approaches, including both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. The result is an impressive remapping and reconceptualisation of global migration and mobility, of interest to students and policy-makers alike.

Springer Cham

Irina Isaakyan, Anna Triandafyllidou, Simone Baglioni

Through an inter-subjective lens, this open access book investigates the initial labour market integration experiences of these migrants, refugees or asylum seekers, who are characterised by different biographies and migration/asylum trajectories. The book gives voice to the migrants and seeks to highlight their own experiences and understandings of the labour market integration process, in the first years of immigration. It adopts a critical, qualitative perspective but does not remain ethnographic. The book rather refers the migrants’ own voice and experience to their own expert knowledge of the policy and socio-economic context that is navigated. Each chapter brings into dialogue the migrant’s intersubjective experiences with the relevant policies and practices, as well as with the relevant stakeholders, whether local government, national services, civil society or migrant organisations.  The book concludes with relevant critical insights as to how labour market integration is lived on the ground and on what migrants ‘do’ with labour market policies rather than on what labour market policies ‘do’ to or for migrants.

Springer Cham

By Nichola Cadet  

There is a limited evidence base on the needs and experiences of older people who are on probation. Despite increased recognition of the impact of age on the prison population, this has not yet translated into probation policy and practice. Research is also complicated by a lack of agreement regarding what is meant by ‘older’ in the criminal justice context, with the majority of research conflating ‘offender’ and ‘prisoner’. A systematic review (Merkt et al., 2020) identified that ages 45-65 have been used in research studies for ‘older offenders’, but advocated age 50 as an appropriate age cut off. This is because of ‘accelerated ageing’ experienced by virtue of the prison environment and the lived experiences of many people prior to coming into custody. Cumulative disadvantage across the life course means that, for people in prison, their age can be viewed as ten years older than their chronological age. HM Prison & Probation Service (HMPPS) and HM Inspectorate of Prisons now cite 50 as the age at which people should be defined as older. Despite policy think tanks, campaigning organisations, researchers and the Justice Committee repeatedly calling for a strategy for older offenders, this was only accepted by HM Government in 2020. While the strategy has been prepared by the Ministry of Justice, the emphasis remains on those in custody rather than people across prison and probation, and has yet to be published. This is a missed opportunity. Of course, older people in prison, if released, will be subject to licence supervision, so there are some direct parallels between the prison experiences of older people and those on probation. Age is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, however the issue has faced less attention than other diversity characteristics, such as gender, race and ethnicity, and the intersections across diverse populations. Probation services do have a long history of considering the needs of younger people in the probation system, particularly in terms of their transition from youth to adult services. Therefore, the service is well placed to ensure that measures can be put in place to meet the needs of older people on probation too, and the transitions they may face as they age. We are living in an ageing society, which means that probation services increasingly need to not only consider the needs of people on probation, but the needs of the professional workforce. This paper provides an overview of what the research literature tells us about the needs and experiences of older people in the criminal justice system. Statistics around age/ageing and the numbers of older people on probation are considered, highlighting links with reducing reoffending pathways and how they may be experienced differently by older people. Practical suggestions are made to support practitioners, policymakers and commissioners to develop services to ensure that they are age-inclusive against a backdrop of an ageing workforce and an ageist society.  

Manchester, UK: HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2022. 17p. 

By Alexis A. Aronowitz

From the cover: Virtually every country' in the world is affected by the scourge of human trafficking, either as a source, transit, or destination country, or a combination thereof. While countries have long focused on international trafficking, internal movement and exploitation within countries may be even more prevalent than trans- border trafficking. Patterns of trafficking vary across countries and regions and are in a constant state of flux. Countries have long focused on trafficking solely for the purpose of sexual exploitation, yet exploitation in agriculture, construction, fishing, manufacturing, and the domestic and food service industries is prevalent in many countries. Here, Aronowitz takes a global perspective in examining the nefarious underworld of human trafficking, revealing the nature and extent of the harm caused by this hideous criminal practice. Taking a victims-oriented approach, this book focuses on the different groups of victims, as well as the various forms of and markets for trafficking, many of which have been overlooked due to an emphasis on sex trafficking. The author also examines the criminals and criminal organizations that traffic and exploit their victims and explores less-ffequendy-discussed forms of trafficking— in organs, child soldiers, mail-order brides, and adoption, as well as the use of the Internet in trafficking. Drawing on her own field and research experiences in various parts of the world, the author offers real-life context throughout the book through descriptions of a number of cases with which she was involved or learned about in her travels.

Santa Barbara. PRAEGER. An Imprint of ABC-CLIO. 2009. 290p.

Forward by Condoleezza Rice

The Department of State is required by law to submit a Report each year to the U.S. Congress on foreign governments’ efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons. This Report is the eighth annual TIP Report. It is intended to raise global awareness, to highlight efforts of the international community, and to encourage foreign governments to take effective actions to counter all forms of trafficking in persons. The U.S. law that guides anti-human trafficking efforts, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, as amended (TVPA), states that the purpose of combating human trafficking is to punish traffickers, to protect victims, and to prevent trafficking from occurring. Freeing those trapped in slave-like conditions is the ultimate goal of this Report—and of the U.S. government’s anti- human trafficking policy. Human trafficking is a multi-dimensional threat. It deprives people of their human rights and freedoms, it increases global health risks, and it fuels the growth of organized crime.

U.S. Department Of State Publication 11407 Office Of The Under Secretary For Democracy And Global Affairs And Bureau Of Public Affairs. Revised June 2008. 295p.

Speaking of the years since 1945, the writers of this Report on Torture remark: “Never has there been a stronger or more universal consensus on the total inadmissibility of the practice of torture; at the same time the practice of torture has reached epidemic proportions.” On Human Rights Day, 1972, Amnesty International launched a worldwide campaign against the systematic use of torture by governments.

Report on Torture contains authoritative discus­sions of the history of torture, problems of legal definition, the medical and psychological aspects of torture, legal remedies, and a country-by country inventory of the use of torture by many governments as a means of extracting information and exercising political and social control over their citizens. There is information here on sixty- two countries, including the United States, but Report on Torture stresses that "to criticize one government is not to praise another about which Amnesty has no information.”

NY. Farrar, Straus and Giraux.. 1975. 283p.