Unmitigated Harms of Immigration Detention: An Ethical Analysis of the State’s Justification for Detaining Non-Citizens

• In Event: Crimmigration and the New Era of Enforcement

Abstract

In the United States approximately 40,000 non-citizens are detained each day. Detention is commonly justified by the claim that the State’s purported right to protect its citizens overrides the liberty of individual detainees. However, upon further examination of this claim, it is clear that the severe harms suffered by non-citizens while detained rise to such a level that they supersede the State’s right to protect its citizens. Such harms include prolonged use of solitary confinement, sexual assault, substandard mental health treatment, physical assault, substandard medical care, loss of dignity, general trauma, and the trauma of being separated from one’s family. Given that immigration detention is civil detention, any arguments based on theories of punishment or any notion of desert fall short of justifying such conditions. When one further considers the special cases of children and LGBTQ individuals, the harms are more pronounced. Once the aforementioned harms have been established, an argument will be made that such harms override the State’s interest in protecting its citizens and therefore immigration detention should be abolished

Author

• Jennifer A. Bulcock, Cabrini University