ยฉ Farhad Sethna, Attorney, 2025
Much has been written about โCivil Immigration Detentionโ over the last few months, especially in the context of Trumpโs draconian deportation actions.
However, immigration detention is anything but โcivilโ.
While immigration enforcement hawks might like to paint immigration detention as some sort of benign residence for would-be deportees, a sort of genteel federal โcountry clubโ minimum security facility for the non-violent and well connected offender, that is far from the truth. Erase from your mind some type of Martha Stewart-worthy detention facility and substitute instead the โShawshank Redemptionโ.
In practicing immigration law and deportation defense over the last three decades, I have visited many a โCivil Immigration Detentionโ facility and can speak to what I have seen.
Most facilities which detain individuals either in removal proceedings or slated for removal are in city or county facilities where ICE leases bed space from the local law enforcement authorities (LEA). LEA facilities house ALL detainees from that jurisdiction, as well as those who are sent there by ICE. Inmates are therefore violent and non-violent offenders, citizens and aliens jumbled in together. The LEA operates the facility and imposes the same rules on all inmates, whether the non-citizen โcivilโ guests of ICE or the individuals arrested for criminal offenses and violent crimes.
In a LEA facility, non-violent restaurant workers or landscapers or a college student sleep in cots next to a drug abuser or a thrice-convicted felon, or a murderer or drug trafficker. They are issued prison garb and fed the slop that the prison calls โfoodโ. And yes, in that dehumanizing term used by the prison industry, they are issued meals during โfeedingโ times. Regulated as if they are animals in a pen. Arguably, some animals may be even less regulated. They have to endure the harsh conditions and often-times illogical rules imposed by their jailors. And keep in mind, most of them have not been convicted.
In the facilities exclusively built to house non-citizens slated for deportation, matters are not much better. Private prison companies squeeze every dollar out of their federal contracts to enhance โshareholder valueโ โ corporate-speak for cutting every corner possible to make a buck. CoreCivic and Geo Group are two of the leading private prison operators who are eagerly waiting to grab large chunks of the Big Ugly Billโs forty-five billion dollars allocated for ICE detention facilities โ up to 100,000 beds per night.
Our own president touted the horrific nature of these facilities in a recent photo op to the infamous โAlligator Alcatrazโ in the Florida Everglades. A facility lacking even the basic promise of safe shelter from the Category 4 and 5 hurricanes which regularly plow through the area. Just a day after the presidentโs visit, the facility flooded in a rainstorm. This is where detainees will await either the tenuous โdue processโ promised by the Constitution and recently eviscerated by the Supreme Court, or a one way flight repatriating them to some God-forsaken country desperate for US dollars.
Civil Immigration Detention? Looks more like Criminal Incarceration aka Prison Time โ to me. Doubly dubious for those who are not hardened criminals, certainly not the โworst of the worstโ as the president and his cronies would like us to believe.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. If it has walls and barbed wire and holds inmates in squalid, dangerous and inhumane conditions, it must be a prison. But whatever you do, please donโt call it โcivilโ.
ยฉ Farhad Sethna, Attorney, 2025
Farhad Sethna has practiced law for over 30 years. He was awarded his JD in 1990 and his MBA in 1991, both from the University of Akron. Since 1996, he has also been an adjunct professor of Immigration Law at the University of Akron, School of Law, in Akron, Ohio, where he wrote and continues to use his own immigration textbook. Attorney Sethna is a frequent speaker at Continuing Legal Education and professional development seminars on various immigration-related topics. His practice is limited to immigration and small business. He has won awards for excellence in teaching and for pro-bono service. With offices in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Attorney Sethna represents clients in all types of immigration cases before federal agencies and the immigration courts nationwide. A private pilot, it is Farhadโs goal to fly to each of Ohioโs 88 county airports. Our number is: (330) 384-8000. Please send your general immigration questions to farhad@sethnalaw.com. We will try to answer as many questions as possible.