Nancy Hiemstra, an associate professor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University, has released a new book examining the economic drivers behind the U.S. immigration detention system. The book, Immigration Detention Inc.: The Big Business of Locking up Migrants (Pluto Press, 2025), was co-authored with Dierdre Conlon of the University of Leeds.
Hiemstra began her research on immigration detention in 2012. She noted that although recent news cycles have brought attention to the issue, the problems she studies have existed for decades. “I’ve studied detention for years,” said Hiemstra. “Initially I had this assumption that detention would decrease, but instead it’s only grown over the last three decades, and now it’s just picking up steam.”
She and Conlon decided to write their book after realizing that immigration detention was not likely to end soon and that they wanted to reach a broader audience beyond academic circles. “We began with the realization that detention wasn’t going anywhere, and we wanted to reach a wider audience than we were reaching in academic venues,” Hiemstra said.
Hiemstra reflected on how current political developments have made their work especially relevant: “We didn’t envision the scope of what the current Trump administration is doing right now, which is a worst-case scenario in terms of growth of the detention system in the US,” she said. “Because of that this book is very timely. Unfortunately, the reason for it being timely is very distressing.”
Public opinion polls show resistance among many voters to aggressive immigration enforcement policies. However, anti-immigrant narratives and local economic incentives continue to drive expansion of detention facilities across communities.
Hiemstra became interested in U.S. immigration enforcement during her dissertation research in Ecuador in 2008. She found that once people were detained by authorities, families often lost contact with them for extended periods—a situation she described as “a black hole.” This experience led her to examine how financial interests shape immigration enforcement practices.
The researchers argue that immigrant detention has become an industry linked to other sectors such as food services, medical care, commissary operations, and transportation companies—making it part of what Hiemstra calls an extension of the prison industrial complex.
According to Hiemstra, U.S. immigration laws have long been used as tools for shaping national identity along racial lines: “A lot of those have to do with maintaining race-based ideas of the white national identity that has been present throughout US history,” she said.
She explained that changes in law during periods like the 1980s contributed both to demographic shifts and increased scapegoating of immigrants during economic downturns: “After a period of not a lot of immigration in the 1960s, we changed immigration laws in ways that led to changing demographics... That combined with economic downturn... gave the country even more incentive to scapegoat immigrants.”
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have supported policies expanding immigrant detention infrastructure over time. “You see that logic being used by Ronald Reagan, and then later by Bill Clinton... It was during the Clinton administration that some key laws... took root,” Hiemstra said.
The book also addresses how entire communities can become economically dependent on detaining migrants: “Look at Ron DeSantis with ‘Alligator Alcatraz,’ with the promise from the Trump administration that they will be reimbursed,” she said.
Hiemstra hopes her work will challenge assumptions about both necessity and effectiveness of immigrant detention: “There are certainly other shameful parts in our history... But detaining people is not necessary... It just furthers the narrative that all immigrants are criminals. But statistics actually show the opposite.”
She believes reducing profit incentives could help shift policy approaches: “If people were not making money... we wouldn’t be doing it.” Among her proposed solutions are requiring minimum wage payments for detainee labor or higher standards for food and medical care at facilities—measures she says would reduce profits significantly.
Finally, Hiemstra warns about potential future consequences if current trends continue: “The risk is that once you get these detention infrastructures in place... we’re eventually going to run out of people who are undocumented... What other legal residents and even citizens can be thrown into detention? That seems dystopian... We’re creating this very hungry machine for bodies to be put through... as revenue generators.”