Search Results (28)

Background/Objectives: Migrant children in family detention facilities often experience frequent relocations and prolonged stays in precarious living conditions. This frequent relocation results in fragmentation of necessary medical care, leading to delays and inadequate medical care. We aim to highlight the critical need for comprehensive medical documentation in immigration detention facilities, a fragmented health care system and potential harm to these children without appropriate medical documentation. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of 165 medical records from children detained at the Karnes County Family Residential Center between June 2018 and October 2020 to evaluate the adequacy of pediatric medical documentation in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) family detention facility. Specific areas of interest included acute care, nutrition, immunization, developmental screening, and tuberculosis screening. Simple descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Results: Only 25% of 418 acute medical care visits included specific diagnoses. There was no documentation regarding follow-up recommendations upon release. 97% of children had a chest X-ray completed for tuberculosis screening, however no follow-up recommendations were documented for those with granulomas. Vaccination histories were inconsistently documented. No nutritional categorizations were completed despite 16% of children being at risk for malnutrition or already malnourished. Conclusions: Our findings revealed significant gaps in documentation, particularly in medical decision-making and clinical reasoning. In a fragmented medical system, inadequate documentation can result in avoidable errors in diagnosis and management. Improving documentation practices is crucial to ensure that all children, regardless of immigration status, receive quality healthcare aligned with national and international standards. Full article

The ILA Study Group began its work by identifying guiding principles that should frame and inform state practices with respect to children in migration. These principles included, but were not limited to, non-discrimination; the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival, and development; the right of the child to express their views on all matters affecting them; and the right to an effective remedy. The Study Group identified some of the most common rights violations for children in migration such as arbitrary age assessment practices; inadequate and age-inappropriate reception policies and facilities; and immigration detention of children and other coercive practices. The Study Group undertook a multidisciplinary approach by summarizing the research documenting the harmful effects of these practices on child health and well-being. It surveyed (1) treaties and international instruments that might recognize a right or remedy for children on the move; (2) regional and international fora where the claims of children could be heard; and (3) the growing body of regional and international jurisprudence upholding the rights of children in migration. Finally, it identified gaps in the international and regional frameworks and formulated recommendations as to how to ensure children in migration are able to enforce their rights and access justice. Full article

Little is known of pediatric clinicians’ experiences with and approaches to taking care of immigrant children who have been in US custody. The objectives of this article are to (1) recognize the challenges facing pediatric clinicians in caring for immigrant children previously in custody, and (2) propose ways that healthcare and legal professionals can collaborate to optimize the wellbeing of formerly detained immigrant children. We identify themes by assessing answers to multiple choice and short responses from a national survey. These findings can help to identify current issues faced by both detained immigrant children and pediatric clinicians, and suggest approaches to addressing these issues. Full article

Unaccounted-for migrant workers (UMWs), who have left their employment placement and whose whereabouts are unknown, make up a vulnerable population in Taiwan. The children of UMWs have a particularly precarious status because they are undocumented/stateless, immigrant, and young. Living with this precarious status limits their children’s rights to survival and development. Moreover, services for female UMWs and their undocumented children are underdeveloped. This study explores the accessibility and availability of social services for UMWs and undocumented children, based on interviews with 12 stakeholders from multiple systems, including a local government, a child welfare placement center, a migrant worker detention center, a hospital, a regional religious center, and a foreign country office. Preliminary findings indicate the following: First, UMWs’ rights to healthcare are not preserved, and they experience greater prenatal risks because their illegal status excludes them from universal health coverage. Second, undocumented children’s rights to survival and development are concerning because these children can be placed in residential care without individualized care or environmental stimulation. Third, children’s rights to cultural identity and permanency are uncertain in that repatriation or adoption does not guarantee their future best interests. Full article

When people move across borders to seek asylum because of violence, conflicts, persecution, or human rights violations, they experience a complex mix of psychological and traumatic downfalls. Often, refugees and asylum seekers’ trauma is compounded by the behaviours of individuals, communities, and the systemic climate of host countries. The United States is host to refugees and asylees from several countries. Evidence shows that several asylum seekers are held up in deplorable conditions in immigration detention centres where they are battling acute trauma. Therefore, consequent to this, coupled with the varying trauma that refugees face, this preliminary scoping review explores the scope and context of available peer-reviewed scholarship on trauma recovery pathways among refugees in the United States to identify gaps for further research. Following the PRISMA-compliant scoping review guidelines, we identified and curated data on the scope and context of peer-reviewed literature on trauma recovery approaches among refugees in the United States. This study identified the following as trauma recovery pathways among refugees: (1) macro-level structural intervention—preventing re-traumatization; (2) culturally sensitive therapeutic intervention; and (3) diagnosis and therapy. This study concludes that little research on the recovery pathways among refugees exists in the United States, hence the need for scholarship in this area. Full article

During the COVID-19 pandemic, not only crowded refugee camps and immigration detention centers, but also receptions were places in which outbreaks occurred. To date there has been no report of the application of a COVID-19 surveillance system in reception centers for unaccompanied foreign minors only, who most of all deserve the utmost attention. Aware of this critical issue, we implemented a pilot COVID-19 surveillance program at the Zendrini center in Milan. It was started in September 2021 and was carried out for 4 months. Nasopharyngeal antigenic swabs were adopted. One day a week, two forensic physicians performed the first antigenic swab to minors who had just entered the center, or a monitoring swab after 15 days to those who were still hosted at the center. Operators were also swabbed for surveillance. A total of 80 subjects were enrolled and divided into 68 (72.5%) unaccompanied foreign minors and 22 (27.5%) operators. A total of 178 antigenic nasopharyngeal swabs were performed and tested negative. Regarding the monitoring activities, it was found that the minimum number of swabs per subject was 1 and the maximum number was 7, with an average value of 2.2 per individual. Having been able to confirm the absence of SARS-CoV-2 within the community represented a way to protect individual and collective health that could not have been pursued otherwise. Only inclusive approaches can allow communities and societies to respond more effectively to this crisis, and reduce the risk of future ones, intended as both upcoming COVID-19 waves and new infectious diseases. Full article

Reflecting the focus of this Special Issue on “Rule of Law and Human Mobility in the Age of the Global Compacts,” this article contributes to the discussion on the threats to the rule of law posed by immigration detention through the lens of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM). In GCM’s Objective 13, states committed to use immigration detention only as a measure of last resort, work towards alternatives and draw from eight sets of actions to realise this commitment. Given the attention the GCM attracts, its nonbinding character and the voluntary nature of its review can be used by states as justification for their inadequate implementation of binding human rights obligations and insufficient reporting on implementation to the supervising bodies. While acknowledging these challenges to the rule of law, this article explores the ways the GCM can actually foster the rule of law in the area of immigration detention. To strengthen the rule of law principles of legality, legal certainty, prohibition of arbitrariness, access to justice and the right to an effective remedy, Objective 13 needs to support a binding human rights regime by preventing arbitrary detention and its implementation at the domestic level. The article discusses the interplay between Objective 13 on the one hand, and, on the other, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and Convention on the Rights of the Child at three levels—the detention provisions, the support provided to states for the implementation of these provisions and the monitoring of states’ implementation—and it proposes means to strengthen the synergies between the two frameworks. Full article

Australia’s brutal carceral-border regime is a colonial system of intertwining systems of oppression that combine the prison-industrial complex and the border-industrial complex. It is a violent and multidimensional regime that includes an expanding prison industry and onshore and offshore immigration detention centres; locations of cruelty, and violent sites for staging contemporary politics and coloniality. This article shares insights into the making of a radical intersectional dance theatre work titled Jurrungu Ngan-ga by Marrugeku, Australia’s leading Indigenous and intercultural dance theatre company. The production, created between 2019–2021, brings together collaborations through and across Indigenous Australian, Kurdish, Iranian, Palestinian, Filipino, Filipinx, and Anglo settler performance, activism and knowledge production. The artistic, political and intellectual dimensions of the show reinforce each other to interrogate Australia’s brutal carceral regime and the concept of the border itself. The article is presented in a polyphonic structure of expanded interviews with the cast and descriptions of the resulting live performance. It identifies radical ways that intersectional and trans-disciplinary performances can, as an ‘act of liberation’, be applied to make visible, embody, address, and help dismantle systems of oppression, control and subjugation. Full article

Past research shows that crises reveal the sensitive spots of established ideologies and practices, thereby providing opportunities for social change. We investigated immigration control amid the pandemic crisis, focusing on potential openings for both challengers and proponents of immigration detention. We asked: How have these groups responded to the pandemic crisis? Have they called for transformative change? We analyzed an original data set of primary content derived from immigrant advocates and stakeholders of the immigration detention industry. We found as the pandemic ravaged the world, it did not appear to result in significant cracks in the industry, as evidenced by the consistency of narratives dating back to pre-pandemic times. The American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) criticisms of inhumane conditions in immigration detention resembled those from its pre-pandemic advocacy. Private prison companies, including CoreCivic and GEO Group, emphasized their roles as ordinary businesses rather than detention managers during the pandemic, just as they had before the crisis. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), however, manufactured an alternative storyline, emphasizing “COVID fraud” as the real threat to the “Homeland.” Although it did not call for radical change, it radically shifted its rhetoric in response to the pandemic. We discuss how these organizations’ indifference towards structural racism contributes to racial apathy and how the obliviousness and irresponsibility of industry stakeholders resembles white ignorance. Full article

Immigration Detention is a patchwork of public and private correctional facilities overseen by ICE, a federal enforcement agency. In June 2021, ICE detained 16,460 adults in 121 facilities in 38 states, frequently alongside pretrial and sentenced inmates and U.S. Marshals Service prisoners, under varying conditions ICE established with five different sets of detention standards, all of them based on corrections case law and in effect today. Detainees have not fared well in ICE’s custody, especially during the pandemic. In CY2020, ICE processed 137,749 detainees, tested only 80,200 for COVID-19 (58%), and recorded 8622 positive cases (11%) at over 100 facilities. Most testing positive for COVID-19—7687 (89%)—contracted the virus in ICE custody, including eight detainees who died. An additional 14,728 detainees (18%) had one or more conditions placing them at high risk for severe illness due to COVID-19 of which ICE only released 5801 (39%). This paper utilizes ICE data and documents on government websites to evaluate ICE’s approach to detention management and explore its impact on conditions of detention and how it impeded its readiness and response to the pandemic. It concludes with recommendations that ICE decrease reliance on detention and decriminalize its policies and practices. Full article

While global travel largely stopped and borders closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, states continued to deport individuals who had been sentenced for committing criminal offences. In Australia and New Zealand, questions over whether and how deportation of migrants during a global pandemic should occur were raised: weighing up arguments of legality, public health, and security. This left many migrants uncertain, isolated in immigration detention waiting for an unknown departure date. The decision was made to continue the deportation process for many, and in some cases breaches of public health restrictions were the basis for deportation. Once deported, mandatory quarantine on arrival under COVID-19 restrictions highlights and exacerbates the challenges that returning offenders normally face. These include extended detention periods; surveillance through detention and monitoring; and securitised discourse by the media and public creating ongoing stigma. This snapshot enables us to understand how states prioritised the removal of ‘the crimmigrant other’, a securitised threat, while facing the material threat of COVID-19. Full article

Every year, thousands of people are detained in United States immigration detention centers. Built to prison specifications and often run by private companies, these detention centers have long been criticized by academics and advocacy groups. Problems such as overcrowding and lack of access to basic healthcare and legal representation have plagued individuals in detention centers for years. These failings have been illuminated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately impacted detained migrants. Against a human rights backdrop, this article will examine how the U.S. immigration detention system has proven even more problematic in the context of the pandemic and offer insights to help avoid similar outcomes in the future. Full article

Migration in the Mediterranean region has increased greatly during the last years. Reports and studies reveal that violence and injuries among refugees and migrants is a common occurrence in the WHO Europe Region. Available literature indicates that sexual violence incidents take place: (a) during the migratory journey to the host country, (b) while in detention centers, (c) once migrants have reached their destination, and (d) during the period in which a woman is subject of trafficking. This manuscript explores how sexual violence against refugee/immigrant women is presented in the international literature; a narrative review of the literature was conducted on the phenomenon of migration in the Mediterranean area, and specifically on sexual violence of migrant women. In order to face the challenges faced by migrant women victims of sexual violence, the following policies are suggested by international literature: (a) offer emergency medical and health care to sexual violence survivors, which is usually relatively limited, (b) offer mental health care and psychological support for sexual violence when planning services to provide clinical care, and (c) work towards the aim of transforming norms and values in order to promote gender equality and support non-violent behaviours. Full article

In managing the coronavirus pandemic, national authorities worldwide have implemented significant re-bordering measures. This has even affected regions that had dismantled bordering practices decades ago, e.g., EU areas that lifted internal borders in 1993. In some national cases, these new arrangements had unexpected consequences in the field of immigration enforcement. A number of European jurisdictions released significant percentages of their immigration detention populations in spring 2020. The Spanish administration even decreed a moratorium on immigration detention and closed down all detention facilities from mid-spring to late summer 2020. The paper scrutinises these unprecedented changes by examining the variety of migration enforcement agendas adopted by European countries and the specific forces contributing to the prominent detention decline witnessed in the first months of the pandemic. Drawing on the Spanish case, the paper reflects on the potential impact of this promising precedent on the gradual consolidation of social and racial justice-based migration policies. Full article

Given the current political climate in the U.S.—the civil unrest regarding the recognition of the Black Lives Matter movement, the calls to abolish prisons and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, and the workers’ rights movements—projects investigating moments of inter-ethnic solidarity and conflict remain essential. Because inter-ethnic conflict and solidarity in communities of color have become more visible as waves of migration over the past 50 years have complicated and enriched the sociocultural landscape of the U.S., I examine the ways that raciolinguistic ideologies are reflected in assertions of ethno-racial belonging for Afro-Dominicans and their descendants. Framing my analysis at the language, race, and identity interface, I ask what mechanisms are used to perform Blackness and/or anti-Blackness for Dominican(-American)s and in what ways does this behavior contribute to our understanding of Blackness in the U.S.? I undertake a critical discourse analysis on 10 YouTube videos that discuss what I call the African American/Dominican boundary of difference. The results show that the primary inter-ethnic conflict between Dominican(-Americans) and African Americans was posited through a categorization fallacy, in which the racial term “Black” was conceived as an ethnic term for use only with African Americans. Full article