Geopolitical Reverberations of US Migrant Detention and Deportation

The View from Ecuador

Bibliographic Data

ID4766046
AuthorsNancy Hiemstra (0000-0003-1617-1210, Emerson College, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume17
Issue2
Pages293-311
Publication date2012-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeopolitics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14650045.2011.562942
OpenAlexW2033446343
LanguageEN
Citations received44
References cited9

While recent scholarship has paid critical attention to the changing relationship between territory and borders, there remains much to be said about the ways in which borders are being pushed outwards via immigration enforcement. In this paper, I argue that one must look outside the borders of the policymaking state to understand the geopolitical depth and breadth of immigration enforcement policies and practices. I examine ways in which US migrant detention and deportation reverberate in Ecuador. Research in Ecuador with detained migrants' family members and deported migrants shows that the impacts of these policies are far from contained along with the migrant's incarcerated and “removed” body; instead, they extend spatially and temporally beyond US borders, and into local, personal spaces and places in Ecuador. I demonstrate that scrutiny of the extra-border geographies of immigration enforcement policies allows us to identify the uneven, unpredictable, and sometimes violent ways in which these policies expand in practice. This research also suggests that detention and deportation do not meet US policymakers' stated objective of deterring future migration

Criminology · Deportation · Enforcement · Geopolitics · Immigration · Immigration detention · Immigration law · Immigration policy · Law enforcement · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Refugee · Scholarship · Scrutiny · Sociology · Law · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub