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How Texas Jails Built Migrant Incarceration

November 21, 2024 (1 min read)

Prof. Brianna Nofil, Texas Observer, Nov. 19, 2024

"... Today, the relationship between localities and the federal immigration service is hotly contested in Texas, as the federal courts debate Governor Greg Abbott’s efforts to allow local law enforcement to arrest migrants on illegal entry charges, and as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to rent bed space in Texas jails for migrant detention. Yet these contemporary fights point to an enduring historical reality—mass deportations have long relied on local jails, local police power, and local community support. Even though immigration control is a federal responsibility, immigration officials have spent decades farming the dirty work of detention out to local partners (and later, to private corporations). Working with localities enabled the immigration service to insulate itself from some of detention’s worst abuses, arguing that episodes of violence and neglect were carried out by contractors rather than the federal government itself. Nowhere has this pattern been more evident than in Texas. ..."

Prof. Brianna Nofil