Performing Homeland Security within the US Immigrant Detention System

Abstract

This paper examines the critical role played by the US immigrant detention and deportation apparatus in the construction of contemporary imaginaries of homeland security. I argue that the detention system works performatively by substantiating a paradoxical relationship between security and insecurity for system employees. Through research conducted in Ecuador with detained migrants' families and deported migrants, I scrutinize the behavior of detention personnel and the experiences of detainees. Data illustrate how the US detention system becomes an integral part of the governmental apparatus behind homeland security imaginaries. First, employees are disciplined through the constant repetition of narratives in which immigrants are immoral and untrustworthy. Second, the detention system is structured in such a way as to require employees to perceive detainees as sources of insecurity, through inconsistent policies, conditions of detention, and high volume and mobility of detainees. Consequently, I contend, employees' interactions with detainees play an important and under-recognized role in performing homeland security imaginaries by perpetuating and reinforcing negative tropes of immigrants as criminalized, dangerous outsiders. The paper contributes to understanding ways in which multiple and overlapping governmentalities work recursively in the country's immigration apparatus, as well as shedding light on the typically opaque detention and deportation process.