“El país de la libertad se ha convertido en el país de las deportaciones.”

“The land of liberty has become the land of deportations.”


Francisco, former detainee
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ABOUT THIS PROJECT
DETENTION NATION is a multi-year, multimedia installation produced by The Sin Huellas Artist Collective. Existing in both physical and virtual space, the project consists of video, audio, detainee letters, cyanotype body-prints, and body casts enveloped in Mylar blankets. It is based on materials gathered from immigrant detainees and the organizers who worked with them as they sought freedom from deportation.

Please note we have elected to call immigrant detention centers prisons because they are experientially, functionally, and, at times, even financially indistinguishable from adult and juvenile prisons.

DetentionNation.com exists as the virtual component of the multimedia installation. In addition to photos, text, and video content, the website includes looping, animated images or GIFs created by an ensemble of performers in response to the physical installation site.


SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE
In recent years, immigrant rights organizing has moved from assimilationist frameworks that seek mere inclusion in the United States legal and political system to frameworks that call for more expansive forms of social justice for both citizens and non-citizens. Not content with claiming innocence in exchange for rights, many of today’s migrant power movements seek alliances across social movements, including those that seek to build a world where borders, walls, and prisons are no longer necessary, a world created through alternative abolitionist geographies.

However, we understand that many people need support now. For that reason, we have created the following resource list for people who have a friend or family member that is currently detained in an immigrant prison. The list also includes organizations who are developing or have developed anti-racist, pro-Black, and abolitionist frameworks.
We have compiled a regularly-updated resource document available in both English and Spanish.
For those who may be searching, you can find a list of immigrant rights organizations here.


View Our Virtual Panel Discussions From April 2021
Alter-Realities: Intervening in the Politics of
Immigrant Incarceration and Migration Control

Recorded April 22 2021
Watch Now: ENGLISH | ESPAÑOL

From Migrant Struggle to Mass Resistance:
Emergent Practices in Uncertain Times

Recorded April 24 2021
Watch Now: ENGLISH | ESPAÑOL