INS Detention

Beginning in 1980, a policy ordering the detention of anyone seeking to enter the U.S. without valid documents went into practice. This reversed a three-decade-long practice of only holding those considered dangerous or likely to flee. Theoretically, people seeking asylum are eligible for parole, but most are not released. In 1981, the average stay in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) custody was four days. A decade later, 54 days is the average.

In 1996, the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act mandate detention for certain categories of immigrants and expand the list of crimes for which noncitizens can be deported. A serious felony conviction was once needed to warrant deportation; now shoplifting can be justification enough, even if the offender has lived, worked, and paid taxes in the U.S. for years. In 1998, Human Rights Watch reports that INS is detaining about 15,000 people, a 70% increase from 1996.

Undocumented workers, refugees fleeing persecution and conflict, and legal permanent U.S. residents with criminal convictions comprise the population in INS detention centers. There is a sub-population of "indefinite detainees" or "lifers," who have orders of deportation but cannot be sent away. This happens to people from Cuba, because the U.S. has no diplomatic relations with that nation; people from such places as Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, which havenšt signed repatriation agreements and therefore donšt take deportees; and Palestinians and those born in refugee camps, who are deemed stateless.

2:00 a.m. Arrest and Documentation of Twelve-Year-Old Boy, Imperial Beach, CA. Susan Meiselas, 1989