On Labor and Economics

#ImmigrationDetentionSyllabus

Image Credit: Lucy Knowles and Foothill Dragon Press

The **#ImmigrationDetentionSyllabus** is a sixteen-part series of readings and tools to support education, research, and action to dissect and dismantle the U.S. immigration detention system. The syllabus is organized by theme and curated by historian [Tina Shull](https://medium.com/u/6e34ba3479d9) at [Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC)](http://endisolation.org).

Part Eight, “On Labor and Economics” provides readings and resources for understanding the economic and political foundations of cycles of migrant labor flows to the United States and immigration enforcement, and tools for exposing the costs of the immigration detention system.

Readings

Golden Gulag by Ruth Wilson Gilmore, UC Press

- Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. [*Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California*](http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520242012)*.* University of California Press, 2007. - Hahamovitch, Cindy. [*No Man’s Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America and the Global History of Deportable Labor*](https://books.google.com/books?id=mW1olX4Yo3kC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false). Princeton University Press, 2011. - Harcourt, Bernard E. [*The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order*](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674066168&content=reviews). Harvard University Press, 2011. - Golash-Boza, Tanya. [*Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism*](https://books.google.com/books?id=oe8WCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false)*. *New York University Press, 2015. - Greene, Judith A. “Entrepreneurial Connections: Incarceration as a Business Opportunity.” In [*Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment*](http://thenewpress.com/books/invisible-punishment). The New Press, 2002. - Herivel, Tara and Paul Wright. [*Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America’s Poor*](https://books.google.com/books/about/Prison_Nation.html?id=P3o1RdcJlmYC)*.* New York: Routledge, 2003; [*Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration*](http://thenewpress.com/books/prison-profiteers). The New Press, 2007. - Klein, Naomi. [*The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism*](http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine). Metropolitan Books, 2006.

“Refugee,” by Angel Boligan

### Reports

Milked: Immigrant Dairy Farmworkers in New York State, Workers’ Center of Central New York, 2017.

The Cost of U.S. Immigration Enforcement and Border Security, American Immigration Council, January 2017.

The Economic Impacts of Long-Term Immigration Detention in Southern California, IRLE at UCLA, 2016.

Banking on Detention 2016 Update, Detention Watch Network and Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), June 2016; Banking on Detention: Local Lockup Quotas & the Immigrant Dragnet, Detention Watch Network, June 2015.

Detention Costs Still Don’t Add Up to Good Detention Policy.” National Immigration Forum, 2014.

Prisoners of Profit: Immigrants and Detention in Georgia), ACLU, 2012.

Costly and Unfair: Flaws in US Immigration Detention Policy, Human Rights Watch, May 2010.

In the News

“How a Private Prison Company used Detained Immigrants for Free Labor,” Mother Jones, April 2017.

“Thousands of immigrant detainees sue private prison firm over forced labor,” Los Angeles Times, March 2017.

Trump’s immigration proposals will cost the country billions,” ThinkProgress, January 2017.

“American Slavery, Reinvented,” *The Atlantic, *2015.

Farm workers sculpture, Anza-Borrego Desert. Photo Credit: Tina Shull

### More Resources

Undocumented Immigrants’ State and Local Tax Contributions, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

Texas Prison Bid’Ness: The Business of Detention, Grassroots Leadership and Justice Strategies:

http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/

Math of Immigration Detention, National Immigration Forum

Weekly Chart: The Cost of U.S. Immigration Detention Centers

[Weekly Chart: The Cost of U.S. Immigration Detention Centers](http://www.as-coa.org/articles/weekly-chart-cost-us-immigrant-detention-centers), Americas Society / Council on the Americas

Immigration Detention: How Can the Government Cut Costs? Human Rights First.

5 Easy Facts About the Price of Immigrant Detention, California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance

How much it costs ICE to deport an undocumented immigrant, CNN Money.

After Attica: Found Poems on Prison Labor:

http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/