State Control, Carcerality, and Wellbeing among Asylum Seekers

• In Event: Latinx Immigrant Detention, Deportation, and the Carceral State

Abstract

Although a robust amount of scholarship has documented the consequences of detention among immigrants in recent years, for righteous reasons. Detained immigrants constitute only a small share of the vast number of immigrants under state control, most (over 4.7 million in 2022) are not detained. The control of immigrants outside the detention center falls within the logics, technologies, and ideologies of the carceral state, reproducing a continuum of control and punishment that shapes the everyday lives of immigrants and the communities where they live. One of the means of state control beyond the walls of the detention center is “alternative to detention programs” (ATDs) and routine ICE check-ins. ATDs involve multiple forms of surveillance ranging from GPS ankle bracelets, smartphones, phone calls, and surprise home visits, paralleling community corrections programs and technologies utilized within the criminal legal system. Limited scholarship has delved into the consequences of these programs on immigrants’ wellbeing. Using carceral logics and the social determinants of health frameworks, this study examines the experiences of immigrants undergoing the asylum process who are also entrenched into these forms of state control. Using in-depth interviews with 47 Latine asylum seekers, we examine the costs and burdens of state control on multiple axes of wellbeing including emotional and physical health, social ties, and financial stability. Our study sheds light on the consequences of these programs that, although they seem more “humane” in reality reproduce carcerality into the everyday wellbeing of asylum seekers as they navigate the asylum process and try to build a life in their new destination.

Authors

• Andrea Gomez Cervantes, Wake Forest University

• Brittany Battle, Wake Forest University