ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the conditions of confinement for both immigrants, who are increasingly incarcerated in Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) prisons, and immigrants who are locked up in detention facilities. These conditions include emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, limited access to programming, medical neglect, overcrowding, being housed at facilities that are located excessive distances from family and loved ones, and overuse of isolation or segregation. The chapter highlights the abuses that occur inside CAR prisons and immigrant detention centers within a larger climate of punishment and criminalization in the US Because immigration holds a unique place in history in forging the values that make society unique among the nations of the world, it deals with some reflections on what the conditions of confinement mean for society. The cruelty and indignity with which immigrants—and all prisoners—are treated, arguably, pose a threat to the very integrity of nation.
