current research projects

The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains hundreds of thousands of noncitizens in the U.S. interior each year, representing the world’s largest immigration detention system. Although evidence suggests that the conditions and practices of immigration detention mirror those of criminal incarceration, we know far less about how detention experiences expose immigrants to unique vulnerabilities that worsen their health even after deportation  In this project, we use cross-sectional survey data on recently deported Central American migrants to examine the extent to which duration in detention and experiences while in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities are associated with the self-rated health following deportation. 

Growing research has begun to explore how the U.S. immigration detention system mirrors the punitive arm of criminal incarceration and produces similar deleterious outcomes. Yet much of this scholarship focuses on the effects of detention on individuals and families during confinement or after release on bond. Far less is known about how the harms of detention reverberate after deportation, particularly how they shape the resettlement experiences of deported migrants. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with deported migrants in El Salvador, I show how micro-level experiences in immigration detention produce harms that shape the resettlement process. I find that detention produces enduring material, embodied, and economic harms that intensify macro-level vulnerabilities following removal, not only for deported individuals but also for the families who depend on them. Together, these harms shape the everyday lives of deported person as they rebuild their lives amid already precarious conditions.