Places to Learn More about Detention, Deportation, Asylum, and Immigrants' Rights

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 was drafted and passed just after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1996


The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 was passed several months later


The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001


Direct link to the immigration provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act


Fix 96 is a nationwide coalition of organizations dedicated to reforming the 1996 immigration laws; the link here is to the ACLU's summary of the key reforms sought by the campaign, which include a rollback of mandatory detention and restrictions on political asylum, a ban on the unconstitutional uses of secret evidence in immigration courts, and the reinstatement of judicial review over decisions like the double punishment of immigrants who have committed minor criminal offenses and are automatically placed in deportation proceedings.


The ACLU's analysis of how the immigration provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act permit indefinite detention of immigrants who are not terrorists


The National Immigration Project's analysis of pending and proposed federal legislation affecting immigrants, including CLEAR, SOLVE, AgJOBS and H.R.10.

Reports, Analyses, Statistics, Guides

Detention and deportation statistics compiled by Families for Freedom


Statistics on the ten-year impact of the IIRIRA compiled by Numbers USA


The Office of the Inspector General report on the treatment of September 11th (special interest) detainees; note that the OIG is the internal watchdog of the Department of Justice; summary here


Human Rights Watch's reports on the abuse of U.S. detainees and deportation to countries that allow torture


Worlds Apart: How Deporting Immigrants After 9/11 Tore Families Apart and Shattered Communities is a new report from the ACLU that shares the stories of 13 of the "special interest" detainees, the hundreds of Muslims arbitrarily arrested in the weeks after 9/11, and the family networks and communities that disintegrated as their wage earners continued to be imprisoned, profiled and targeted by the government; the 13 detainees profiled have filed a complaint with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.


Special Registration: Discrimination & Xenophobia as Government Policy is a 2004 report by the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund which brings together individual stories, statistics, and historical context to narrate how New York immigrants responded to and were affected by the special registration program


The Special Registrants Action Network report to the 9/11 Commission weaves individual stories into a collective testimonial


The Perfect Storm is the New York Immigration Coalition's 2002 report on the likely effects of the Department of Homeland Security's 2002 takeover of immigration administration and enforcement from the INS; their prediction was the collapse of services


In Liberty's Shadow is a 2004 report by Human Rights First that explores the U.S. detention of asylum seekers in the age of Homeland Security


The Women's Commission for Refugee Women reports document inequities and abuses in the treatment of detained asylum seekers since 1995 (scroll down page to United States section)


Amnesty International USA's 2004 report on racial profiling in the U.S. finds that it is so pervasive that it has affected nearly 32 million people, many of whom are Arab, South Asian and Muslim.


Immigrants' Rights Organizing in the United States is a six-part primer adapted from the discussion guide for the American Friends Service Committee's video documentary Echando Raiches/Taking Roots by AFSC and the New England Literacy Center

Books & Articles

American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons is a 2004 book by Mark Dow that takes readers inside the private prisons and county jails profiting from detention contracts, in order to contextualize the post-9/11 climate within the larger detention culture of secrecy and unchecked authority


Detained: Immigration Laws and the Expanding I.N.S. Jail Complex is a 2002 book by Michael Welch that analyzes how the 1996 laws came to be passed, the adverse effects that the resulting boom in prison population had on the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the human rights violations that ensued, and recommendations for reform


The Attack on Civil Liberties, archived here, is the Village Voice's ongoing series of articles tracking the state of civil liberties in the U.S. since 9/11, including an excellent series by Chisun Lee on special interest detention and special registration


Why is America at War With Its Immigrants? is a 2004 op ed by Subhash Kateel of Families for Freedom that gives a good overview of the current crisis


Don't Take Deportees Back is an article by Yolanda Gayles of the Jamaica Star about Families for Freedom's campaign to convince Caribbean countries to refuse to admit deportees


Privileged Patriots or Desperate Refugees is a 2003 article by Naeem Mohaiemen for Shobak that looks at how class status affects immigrant attitudes towards the threat of deportation


Deportation is a Life Sentence is the speech given by Maria Muentes at the Still We Rise Poor People's March during the RNC; en español tambien


Protesting While Immigrant is a 2004 article by Mohaiemen for Alternet that investigates the risks of protest and other political activities for immigrants, who can thereby jeopardize their status


Bring Back Our Husbands is the first-person story of Barbara Facey and Carol McDonald, two women whose husbands have been taken by detention and deportation, written for Colorlines and republished on Alternet in 2004


Exile in Oakdale is Frank Etheridge's story for Gambit Weekly on the McDonald and Josepth family pilgrimages from New York to the Louisiana private prison where their family members are detained


200 locked away and under the radar is Albor Ruiz's column on the August 2004 hunger strike at the privately-run Wackenhut Detention Center in Queens


Daniel Zwerdling's series of reports investigating detainee abuse at the Passaic County jails was aired on NPR in November 2004, and led to the new Homeland Security directive to federal contractees to stop using dogs on detainees; the web archive includes photos and other evidence

Media Outlets that Report Immigrant Stories

Voices that Must be Heard is a weekly edition of the best articles from New York's ethnic and community presses, compiled and translated by the Independent Press Association of New York


The NYIC News is the monthly newsletter of the New York Immigration Coalition


The War on Immigrants Report, hosted by Adem Carroll of ICNA and Subhash Kateel of Families for Freedom, airs at 10 am on the last Tuesday of every month on WBAI, 99.5 FM


New York Newsday's New New Yorkers page tracks stories and events of interest to New York immigrant communities, and maintains an advice column for immigrants with questions about citizenship and naturalization


Network News is the quarterly newsmagazine of the National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights


Colorlines is a quarterly magazine about race and politics in America


Alternet's Rights & Liberties Newslog tracks the state of civil liberties for all Americans


The Independent Media Center site links to local grassroots media outlets across the world


Deep Dish TV is a national grassroots satellite network that links independent producers


The American Friends Service Committee, Lutheran Immigrant & Refugee Services, and the ACLU all maintain listservs on immigrants' rights and detention

Other Artists' Projects On the Net

Hard Place is a net art project by Jenny Polak and Lauren Gill which reconstructs the spaces of detention centers from the drawings & stories of detainees


Beyond the Fire is an interactive documentary by Sesh Kannan which tells the stories of teenage war refugees and their journeys to the U.S.


Face to Face is an interactive documentary by Rob Mikuriya which connects the experiences of Japanese Americans interned during WWII with those of Arab Americans after 9/11


Crossing the BLVD is a book and multimedia project by Warren Lehrer & Judith Sloan of EarSay which explores the diversity of immigrant experiences in the communities around Queens Boulevard.


The Wherehouse is the web-based component of the Raqs Media Collective project that assembles everyday fragments from the notes written by asylum seekers detained at Le Petit Chateau, the EU's main holding center


Escape from Woomera is a video game developed by a team of Australian designers & artists which places the player in the position of a refugee trying to escape from four Australian detention centers


Project Threadbare is a collective based in Toronto and organized around responding to government attacks on civil liberties in general and on immigrants & refugees in particular

Films & Videos About Detention & Related Issues (a partial list)

Persons of Interest is a 2004 feature-length doc by Alison MacLean & Tobias Perse about post-9/11 detainees


Patriot Acts is a 2004 60-minute doc by Sree Nallamothou about the effects of the Special Registration program on Chicago's Pakistani residents


Life or Liberty is a feature-length (in progress) and a 2003 short doc by Konrad Aderer (also the director of Farouk Abdel-Mukhti: Political Prisoner) exploring civil liberties and race in wartime through the issue of detention and deportation


Out of Status is a 2004 short doc film and feature-in-progress by Pia Sawhney & Sanjna Singh on immigration after 9/11


Disappeared: A Patriot Story is a 2004 short doc by Naeem Mohaiemen & Ibrahim Qureishi about INS Case X: one man's two-year post-9/11 battle to stay with his American wife and children


Bangla East Side is a 2004 45-minute documentary video by Sarita Khurana & Fariba Alam with The Educational Alliance about four Bangladeshi teens navigating immigrant adolescence in the post-9/11 L.E.S.


Chasing Freedom is a 2003 movie made for Court TV about the real case of a detained Afghan asylum seeker handled by Human Rights First


Homeland Insecurity is a 2001 short video by Third World Newsreel about post-9/11 hate crimes in the historical context of American jingoism


Abandonado is a 2000 55-minute doc by David Belle & Nicholas Wraithall about the personal impact of the 1996 laws


Work in Progress is a 1990 short experimental film by Luis Valdovino exploring the effects of the 1986 Immigration Reform on illegal immigrants who could no longer file for amnesty


The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival was often the first to screen these and many other relevant works