Immigration Detention: Investigating the Expansion and Global Diffusion of a Failed Project

The project examines the diffusion and expansion of immigration detention between and within three country case studies (Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), despite the harms detention produces and its failure to meet stated policy objectives. Despite these failings, immigration detention systems are expanding across the world. Why? This project has two aims. First, it seeks to understand why immigration detention policies continue to be pursued and how they have diffused globally (Aim 1). What are the state and non-state agents of diffusion, what is their role in the diffusion of this policy and what interests do they have in immigration detention? What functions does immigration detention play beyond stated policy goals? Second, the project critically assesses resistance to immigration detention (Aim 2). Why have academics and activists been unable to convince policymakers of basic truths about detention, such as its failure to deter? Where have they been effective at resisting the expansion of detention and how might we learn from their successes? And finally, how has the Covid pandemic affected detention practices and NGO activism? Here, I adopt a participatory research approach with NGOs as key collaborators in the research design, execution, and dissemination. In asking these questions, the project engages and contributes to a number of academic literatures, including on (1) policy diffusion/transfer; (2) social movements; and (3) race and colonialism.