Esclavitud en la frontera : immigrant detention as successive systemic slavery

Slavery is commonly conceptualized as a limited form of chattel slavery that existed in the pre-Emancipation antebellum South. However, the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery also includes a clause that permits enslavement as "an appropriate punishment for a crime." It is through this lens that I examine the disproportionate rise of racialized incarceration, and the subsequent privatization and profiteering that has exploded in recent years, as a form of con- temporary slavery. Using an analysis of immigrant detention on the U.S.-Mexico border, I argue that our immigration system acts as a form of racial control and neoslavery, and that such a conclusion necessitates a radical restructuring of our national dependence on criminalization and enslavement.