Digitized at Georgetown University Law Library

xiii, 413 pages ; 24 cm

"American Gulag takes us inside prisons such as the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, the Corrections Corporation of America's Houston Processing Center, and county jails around the country that profit from contracts to hold INS - now Department of Homeland Security - prisoners. It contains in-depth profiles of detainees, including Emmy Kutesa, a defector from the Ugandan army who was tortured and then escaped to the United States, where he was imprisoned in Queens and then undertook a hunger strike in protest. To provide a framework for understanding stories like these, Dow gives a brief history of immigration laws and practices in the United States - including the repercussions of September 11 and present-day policies. His book reveals that current immigration detentions are best understood not as a well-intentioned response to terrorism, but rather as part of the larger context of INS secrecy and excessive authority."--Jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages 373-381) and index

Invisibility, intimidation, and the INS -- September 11: secrecy, disruption, and continuity -- Another world, another nation: Miami's Krome Detention Center -- "Enforcement means you're brutal" -- The world's first private prison -- "Keeping quiet means deny" : a hunger strike in Queens -- The art of jailing -- "Criminal aliens" and criminal agents -- Siege, shackles, climate, design -- "Speak to every media" : resistance, repression, and the making of a prisoner -- Good and evil in New England -- Out West: philosophy and despair -- Dead time

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