State Violence: Exploring the Impact of Immigrant Detention on Central American Survivors of Domestic & Sexual Violence (WITHDRAWN)

Background and purpose: Central American migration to the US has nearly tripled since 1990, growing more quickly than other regional migration patterns from Latin America in the last decade. During 2014 and 2015, increasing numbers of Central American women and families crossed the Texas border with Mexico, prompting social service providers, immigrant rights advocates, and policymakers to take a closer look at the reasons behind these trends. Re-invigoration of immigrant family detention, in combination with recent immigration raids and the physical landscape of south Texas, present an inhospitable welcome to immigrant women fleeing domestic violence in Central America and facing further violence and exploitation during the difficult journey through Mexico in search of safety.

Methods: Grounded in feminist and transnational theories, this study used constructivist grounded theory to qualitatively explore experiences of migration and detention among migrant survivors of domestic and sexual violence. In-depth interviews were conducted with 19 adult women recently migrated to the United States from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador.

Findings: Participants cited multiple and intersecting experiences of violence as precipitating factors for migration, during border-crossings, and upon arrival in the US. Women suffered negative social and emotional impacts of being held in controlled detention environments, compounding previous violence and trauma. Testimonies described detention as a form of state violence, identifying connections between mechanisms of detention and abusers’ control tactics, further exacerbating the negative bio-psycho-social impact of detention.

Conclusion and Implications: Violence can serve as both a cause and a consequence of migration, and in turn incurs medical, emotional, legal, and financial costs for individual women, their families, and society. Improved understanding and awareness of the role of detention in the criminalization and further victimization of women are critically needed to inform contemporary debates about immigration reform and the ever-expanding practice of criminalizing and re-victimizing survivors of violence through immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation.