Nancy Hiemstra

Scrutinizes economic gain as the driving force behind the United States’ massive detention system. Draws on a decade of research to investigate the huge range of companies and local governments that benefit financially and become dependent on locking up more and more
migrants. Details how, in this process, migrants are dehumanized, detention becomes accepted, and society’s moral compass is greatly impacted.

Delves into the relationship between immigration detention, local government, and detention contracts and interrogates the fiscal ties and financial dependencies that detention generates with a focus on three county governments in the state of New Jersey.

Pairs investigation of enforcement practices in the United States with an exploration into conditions migrants face in one country of origin: Ecuador. Reveals how the U.S. immigration enforcement system's chaotic organization and operation distracts from the mismatch between assumptions and actual outcomes. Draws on the experiences of detained and deported migrants, as well as their families and communities in Ecuador, to show convincingly that instead of deterring migrants and improving national security, detention and deportation generate insecurities and forge lasting connections across territorial borders. 

Identifies several components critical to transnational policing. Argues that as the United States extends its border policing activities through time and space, it conceals its direct role in migration policing activities that violate human rights and fuel illicit activities, distracts from policy failures, and evades international obligations.

Examines contributions to detention by geographers who argue that detention is a form of spatial control. Discusses themes including im/mobilities, scaled analyses, and bordering with empirical examples and attention to their usefulness in critical engagement and activism. 

Draws on research in Ecuador with families of migrants detained in the United States and deportees. Shows that the impacts of detention and deportation policies extend spatially and temporally beyond U.S. borders, and into local, personal spaces and places in Ecuador. Suggests that the detention and deportation do not meet U.S. policymakers' stated objective of deterring future migration. 

Scrutinizes the behavior of detention personnel and the experiences of detainees through research conducted in Ecuador with detained migrants' families and deported migrants. Argues that the detention system works performatively to bolster contemporary imaginaries of homeland security.

Considers why alarmist discourses of chaos and crisis emerge frequently in policymaking and scholarship on migration. Argues that states mobilize constructions of chaos and crisis to create exceptional moments in which sovereign reach and geopolitical influence are expanded. 

Draws on a study of immigration detention in Essex County, New Jersey, with a focus on the contractual arrangements delineating detention between public and private entities and actors. Posits processes of bureaucratization as central to the growth in immigration detention.

Provides crucial new insights into immigration detention recounting at close range how detention's effects ricochet from personal and everyday experiences to broader political-economic, social and cultural spheres. Draws on original research in the United States, Australia, Europe, and beyond to scrutinize the increasingly tangled relations associated with detention operation and migration management.

Argues that tracing the political and economic geography of money inside detention facilities is critical for understanding detention expansion and its consequences.