Construction of and Resistance to the Detention Regime, 1981–1991

Chapter 4 explains how the government’s blanket detention policy came about and why the Haitian-only detention policy was subsequently expanded to include all inadmissible aliens. This chapter charts the growth of the new detention system in its first decade, including the introduction and use of the first private, for-profit prisons in the United States. In addition, chapter 4 illustrates the wide-ranging resistance movement that developed alongside the growing detention system, documenting the role played by detainees as well as their allies in the streets, courtrooms, and halls of Congress. The campaign of legal resistance is a particular focus of this fourth chapter because many of the most important legal challenges to the burgeoning immigration detention system came from Haitians.