Understanding Immigration Detention

his comprehensive volume explores the development of immigration detention in, between, and across different states and regions, and the human impact on asylum seekers. In so doing, the study provides an innovative overview of the spread of immigration detention policy around the world, an international survey of detention policy and practice, and a catalogue of the human impact of these policies. Its original chapters, written by experts in their jurisdiction, use policy studies, law, ethnography, and interviews with former detainees and policymakers to offer new and illuminating insights. The volume includes chapters on immigration detention regimes not only in traditional destination states but also in migrant-sending and transit states. Collectively, the case studies contribute to broader debates in political science about public policy, immigration, and state power; in migration studies about migrant journeys, executive enforcement, and protection and expulsion; and in law and policy studies about plenary power, the roles of international law and the courts, and evolving rights for non-citizens. Now implemented globally, it is timely to collect, compare, and analyse immigration detention policies and practices worldwide.