The Conversation: When immigration detention becomes a system of concentration: Lessons from research on 150 historical cases

Kevin R. Johnson

01 May 2026

Photo of art on exhibit at museum in Los Angeles in fall 2025

In its mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration has aggressively relied on immigrant detention. Alex Braithwaite and Rachel D. Van Norstrand for The Conversation consider whether U.S immigration detention centers qualify as "concentration camps." Their conclusion: "Scholars have defined the elements of what qualifies as a concentration camp system. Based on those, ICE detention facilities meet the definition of concentration camps."

Austin Kocher: Getting Our Bearings in an Age of Mass Deportation

The Baseline, a new monthly column on Documented by ImmigrationProf blogger Austin Kocher, explores the impact of rising immigration enforcement. The first installment begins "We are living through one of the most intense periods of immigration enforcement in American history. "

A Reckoning in Springfield: A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become

A Reckoning in Springfield: A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become by Stephanie McCrummen in the Atlantic Monthly (subscription required) tells a disturbing story of the real life impacts on U.S. citizens of the end of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians.

Immigration Article of the Day: Affidavits Are Forever: Public Charge, Domestic Violence, and the Enforceability of Immigration Law's Affidavit of Support by Veronica Thronson

Affidavits Are Forever: Public Charge, Domestic Violence, and the Enforceability of Immigration Law's Affidavit of Support by Veronica Thronson, 41 Yale Law & Policy Review 69 (2022) Abstract Part I of this Article provides a brief background on the central role that family relationships play in the immigration

ICE Put Protester Photos Into a Palantir Database

In a class action lawsuit related to the DHS action "Operation Catch of the Day" in Maine, newly released documents reveal that ICE agents took photos of immigration protestors and fed them into a Palantir surveillance database. (See, e.g., Yahoo! News; Wired Magazine). I became aware of

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Austin Kocher: Getting Our Bearings in an Age of Mass Deportation

A Reckoning in Springfield: A truck driver out on his route confronts what the country has become

Immigration Article of the Day: Affidavits Are Forever: Public Charge, Domestic Violence, and the Enforceability of Immigration Law's Affidavit of Support by Veronica Thronson

ICE Put Protester Photos Into a Palantir Database