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• Winner of A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title.
• Winner of A hoice Outstanding Academic Title.

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9780190085957

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By centering the stories of foreign-born people subjected to imprisonment, Elliott Young's Forever Prisoners demonstrates how this particular detention regime has not only escalated in the past several decades but, more important, grows out of deep roots reaching back to the nineteenth century origins of immigration restriction. Young widens our view of what counts as immigrant detention over time and how the United States has ensnared differently outcast groups into its varied cages - including offshore islands, mental institutions, martial detention camps, and refugee camps, as well detention centers, jails, and prisons. Forever Prisoners is crucial book for anyone interested in the convergence of prison and immigration regimes. * A. Naomi Paik, author of Bans, Walls, Raids, Sanctuary * Tightly organized around five compelling case studies, Young explores the broader carceral landscape of prisons, insane asylums, war camps, and detention centers that have caged non-citizens in the United States since the late nineteenth century.Full of surprising historical details and offering important insights drawing from immigration and prison studies, the book makes visible the full human and racial dimensions of this country's immigration policies, and speaks with an urgent voice to contemporary debates surrounding US immigration policy and the carceral state. * Julian Lim, author of Porous Borders: Multiracial Migrations and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands * We have long needed a history of immigrant detention, and Forever Prisoners delivers. Drawing on archival documents as well as his own experience as an expert witness in recent asylum cases, Young brilliantly continues the dismantling of America's 'nation of immigrants' myth and instead shows how our long history of criminalizing migration has led us to build the world's largest system for imprisoning immigrants, a nation of immigrant prisons. This is an essential read for anyone invested in building a more just society. * Erika Lee, author of America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States *

"""We have long needed a history of immigrant detention, and Forever Prisoners delivers. Drawing on archival documents as well as his own experience as an expert witness in recent asylum cases, Young brilliantly continues the dismantling of America's 'nation of immigrants' myth and instead shows how our long history of criminalizing migration has led us to build the world's largest system for imprisoning immigrants, a nation of immigrant prisons. This is an essential read for anyone invested in building a more just society."" -- Erika Lee, author of America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States ""Tightly organized around five compelling case studies, Young explores the broader carceral landscape of prisons, insane asylums, war camps, and detention centers that have caged non-citizens in the United States since the late nineteenth century. Full of surprising historical details and offering important insights drawing from immigration and prison studies, the book makes visible the full human and racial dimensions of this country's immigration policies, and speaks with an urgent voice to contemporary debates surrounding US immigration policy and the carceral state."" -- Julian Lim, author of Porous Borders: Multiracial Migrations and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands ""By centering the stories of foreign-born people subjected to imprisonment, Elliott Young's Forever Prisoners demonstrates how this particular detention regime has not only escalated in the past several decades but, more important, grows out of deep roots reaching back to the nineteenth century origins of immigration restriction. Young widens our view of what counts as immigrant detention over time and how the United States has ensnared differently outcast groups into its varied cages DL including offshore islands, mental institutions, martial detention camps, and refugee camps, as well detention centers, jails, and prisons. Forever Prisoners is crucial book for anyone interested in the convergence of prison and immigration regimes."" -- A. Naomi Paik, author of Bans, Walls, Raids, Sanctuary ""An altogether sobering look at a system of punishment founded on racial injustice and going strong."" -- Kirkus"

Author Information

Elliott Young is Professor in the History Department at Lewis and Clark College. He is the author of Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through WWII and Catarino Garza's Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border and co-editor of Continental Crossroads: Remapping US-Mexico Borderlands History. He is co-founder of the Tepoztlán Institute for Transnational History of the Americas. He has also provided expert witness testimony for over 200 asylum cases and has written for the Huffington Post, the Oregonian, and the Utne Reader. Mayra Machado is a mother of three children and currently lives and works for a non-profit in San Salvador, El Salvador.

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