A Competing Risk Analysis of Immigrant Detention and Case Outcomes

• In Event: New Applications and Controversies in Survival and Trajectory Models

Abstract

“Crimmigration” refers to the confluence of criminal justice and immigration systems, as millions of defendants are subject to order of removal proceedings. The pre-trial detention of these defendants has today become a normalized practice in order of removal proceedings. Qualitative researchers have noted the temporal and legal ambiguity in these proceedings, which place defendants in a state of residential limbo for long periods of time. We here present quantitative models of the timing of case resolution for all immigration proceedings from United States Department of Justice: Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) from 1996-2013. In particular, we compare various specifications of competing risk event history models, predicting the type and timing of exit from direct immigration control. We find that over half of all defendants experience some type of detention, and detention is associated with increased hazards of deportation, net of controls such as country of origin, language, and region of the proceeding. We also find that the presence of attorneys significantly increases the risk of voluntary departure. We discuss implications for the use of detention and the practice of attorneys in immigration proceedings.

Authors

• Ryan Larson, University of Minnesota

• Christopher Uggen, University of Minnesota

• Linus Chan, University of Minnesota