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

该项目审查了移民拘留制度在世界各地的扩大和扩散，尽管有证据表明，这些制度没有实现既定的政策目标，并造成伤害。移民拘留不能起到威慑作用，与移民控制目标不相称，基于种族、性别和阶级的歧视，往往包括不人道和有辱人格的待遇。学者们强调指出，拘留往往会导致本已脆弱的成年人和儿童遭到监禁，造成更多的脆弱性，并伤害被拘留者及其家人，造成高昂的经济和人力成本。尽管存在这些缺陷，但移民拘留系统正在世界各地扩大。为什么？为什么？该项目有两个目标。首先，它试图了解为什么移民拘留政策继续推行，以及它们如何在全球范围内传播（目标1）。什么是国家和非国家的传播代理人，他们在传播这一政策中的作用是什么，他们在移民拘留中有什么利益？移民拘留在既定政策目标之外发挥了哪些功能？第二，该项目严格评估对移民拘留的抵制（目标2）。为什么学者和活动家无法说服政策制定者关于拘留的基本事实，例如它不能阻止？他们在哪里有效地抵制了拘留的扩大，我们如何从他们的成功中吸取教训？最后，新冠肺炎疫情如何影响拘留做法和非政府组织的行动？在这里，我采用了一种参与式的研究方法，非政府组织作为研究设计，执行和传播的主要合作者。该项目通过比较三个案例研究实现其目标：澳大利亚，英国和美国。这些国家是移民拘留的早期采用者，并且仍然是跨国政策领域的创新者和领导者。它们维持着世界上最大的拘留制度，与大多数其他国家不同，它们实行强制性和/或无限期拘留。它们是强有力的行动者，其政策选择较少受到强制性外生因素的影响，从而使我们能够探索为什么国家采取和维持未能产生明确政策目标的政策。最后，他们代表了自由民主国家，这些国家表面上对人权和法治的承诺是其民族主义项目的基础，与拘留的做法背道而驰。研究使用了一系列方法，包括（1）对政策和档案材料的文献分析;（2）对媒体报道的话语分析;（3）对人权和法治的承诺。（2）访谈和（3）与国家和非国家传播机构（政策制定者、跨国公司、国际组织）以及参与抵制拘留的行为者（非政府组织、被拘留者、他们的朋友/家人、拘留所工作人员）的焦点小组。在每个国家，主要的非政府组织将作为研究合作者参加。分析将首先集中在每个案例中，包括话语和主题分析，以及对政策传播的谱系分析。然后对案例进行系统的比较分析，以了解全球和地方如何交叉，有缺陷的政策如何跨国传播，并在地方、国家和国际各级找到阻力。该项目参与并撰写了一些学术文献，包括（1）政策传播/转移;（2）社会运动;（3）种族和殖民主义。系统的，比较的方法在拘留的研究中开辟了新的天地，因为现有的奖学金主要是从单一国家的案例研究理论化，并假设美国是该领域的主要创新者。公众和政策参与也是该项目的核心。倡导组织、政策制定者和其他利益攸关方参与了整个研究过程，以确保研究取得成功，帮助宣传研究结果，并确定改变公众对拘留问题的讨论和促进危害较小的政策的机会。

This project examines the expansion and diffusion of immigration detention systems around the world, despite evidence that they do not deliver stated policy objectives and cause harm. Immigration detention fails to deter, is disproportionate to immigration control objectives, discriminates on the basis of race, gender and class, and often includes inhuman and degrading treatment. Scholars have highlighted the high financial and human costs of detention that regularly involves the incarceration of already vulnerable adults and children, produces additional vulnerabilities, and harms detained individuals and their families. 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.The project delivers its aims through the comparison of three case studies: Australia, the UK, and the US. These countries are early adopters of immigration detention and remain innovators and leaders in the transnational policy field. They maintain the largest detention systems in the world and, in contrast to most other countries, enforce mandatory and/or indefinite detention. They are powerful actors whose policy choices are less affected by coercive exogenous factors, thus allowing us to probe why states adopt and sustain policies that fail to produce explicit policy goals. Finally, they represent liberal democracies whose ostensible commitments to human rights and the rule of law are fundamental to their nationalist projects and run counter to the practice of detention.A range of methods are used, including (1) documentary analysis of policies and archival material; (2) discourse analysis of media coverage; (2) interviews and (3) focus groups with state and non-state agents of diffusion (policymakers, multinational companies, international orgs), and actors involved in resisting detention (NGOs, detainees, their friends/family, detention staff). In each country, key NGOs will participate as research collaborators. Analysis will focus first within each case and include discourse and thematic analysis, alongside a genealogical analysis to policy diffusion. A systematic comparative analysis between cases then follows to capture how the global and local intersect, how flawed policies travel transnationally and find resistance at the local, national and international levels.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. The systematic, comparative approach breaks new ground in the study of detention, as existing scholarship largely theorizes from single country case studies and assumes the US to be the primary innovator in the field. Public and policy engagement are also central to the project. Advocacy organizations, policymakers and other stakeholders are integrated throughout the research to ensure the study's success, help publicize findings, and identify opportunities to change public discourse on detention and promote less harmful policies.