Twenty Years after IIRIRA: The Rise of Immigrant Detention and its Effects on Latinx Communities Across the Nation

"Twenty Years after IIRIRA: The Rise of Immigrant Detention and its Effects on Latinx Communities Across the Nation" argues that corporate interests, specifically CoreCivic and the GEO group - two companies that operate nine out of the 10 largest immigrant detention centers in the U.S. housing 45 percent of all detained immigrants in 2014 -- "have helped to fuel the growth of immigration detention and to convert the criminalization of immigrants into a profitable industry." Both groups have spent large amounts of money lobbying federal officials for increases in detention budgets, including the "bed mandate" passed in 2009 that requires ICE to hold a minimum of 34,000 immigrants per night in detention. As a result, their profits have soared in recent years, at a time when the undocumented population has decreased.

The authors also contend that federal officials have "applied a double standard" when it comes to the detention system, often locking people up and potentially banishing them from the country for minor offenses, such as traffic violations or possession of marijuana. Moreover, mandatory detention tends to distort democracy as immigrant detainees are counted by the Census as residents of the community in which the detention facility is located, not their home communities, thereby sending more federal dollars to the detention communities and increasing their representation in Congress.

The authors also cite studies showing how the "effects of deportation and ultimately deportation start at the individual level but reverberate to the family and community levels." The paper includes a time series regression analysis tracing the influence of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 and other developments since 1996 on the "criminalization of immigrants," measured through the ratio of the average daily population of detained immigrants divided by the total number of noncitizens residing in the United States. The paper concludes with a series of recommendations, including the repeal of all mandatory detention legislation and the repeal of the bed mandate, as well as greater transparency and more effective data management from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Nicholas V. Montalto, Diversity Dynamics).

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