Forever Prisoners: How The United States Made The World’s Largest Immigration Detention System

Sonali Kolhatkar speaks with Elliott Young about how the United States developed the world's largest immigration detention system.

The Trump administration’s immigrant family separation brought to light the horrors of the U.S.’s imprisonment of immigrants. But most Americans might be unaware that immigrant detention has a long and sordid history in the United States going back as far as the late nineteenth century. Many have challenged the application of the U.S. Constitution to non-citizens, thereby greatly limiting the ability of those incarcerated to advocate for themselves and have any recourse for justice or freedom.

Elliott Young, 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 Tepoztlan Institute for Transnational History of the Americas. He has also provided expert witness testimony for over 200 asylum cases. His new book is called Forever Prisoners: How the United States Made the World’s Largest Immigration Detention System.

Rising Up with Sonali is a radio and television show that brings progressive news coverage rooted in gender and racial justice to a wide audience. Rising Up With Sonali was built on the foundation of Sonali Kolhatkar's earlier show, Uprising, which became the longest-running drive-time radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles hosted by a woman. RUS airs on Free Speech TV every weekday.

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Elliott Young Family Separation Free Speech TV Immigrant Detention Rising Up with Sonali Sonali Kolhatkar Trump administration United States