From Mexico to the Bahamas, Mauritania to Lebanon, Turkey to Saudi Arabia, South Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia to Thailand, immigration-related detention has become an established policy apparatus that counts on dedicated facilities and burgeoning institutional bureaucracies. Until relatively recently, however, detention appears to have been largely an ad hoc tool, employed mainly by wealthy states in exigent circumstances. This paper uses concepts from diffusion theory to detail the history of key policy events in several important immigration destination countries that led to the spreading of detention practices during the last 30 years and assesses some of the motives that appear to have encouraged this phenomenon. […]
Other publications
Dec 2025
Detention BlogUzbekistan: Cooperation with EU and US Raises Questions about Human Rights Obligations
Nov 2025
Detention BlogExternalisation: ACHPR Calls on African States to Protect Migrants Amid Rising Deals
Oct 2025
Detention BlogOct 2025
Detention BlogGhana: Detention and Secret Expulsions Raise Alarm Over Role in U.S Deportation Scheme
Sep 2025
Detention BlogBelarus: Using the Separation of Mothers from Their Children as a Migration Enforcement Strategy
Sep 2025
Detention BlogUN Special Rapporteur Calls on Mauritania to End Abuses Against Migrants and Refugees
Sep 2025
Detention BlogSri Lanka: Detainees Decry Poor Conditions and Indefinite Detention in Welisara Detention Centre
