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Elizabeth Detention Center

A Social History of Immigration Detention in New Jersey and the United States

Edited by Ulla D. Berg and Carolina Sánchez Boe

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$29.95 S

Hardback

$120.00 SS

eBook (ePub)

$29.95 S

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Price:: $29.95
ISBN:: 9781978845831
Published:: Jul 14, 2026

Release Date:: 14th July 2026
Contributors:: Nina Bernstein (Foreword), Silky Shah (Afterword), Amy Gottlieb, Elizabeth Llorente, Penny Venetis, Fauziya Kassindja, Layli Miller Bashir, Will Coley, Sarah Tosh, Abdulai Bah, Marguerite É Marty, William Westerman, Carolina Sánchez Boe, Seth Kaper-Dale, Edafe Okporo, Kristyn Scorsone, Pina N. Cirillo, Kathy O'Leary, Katherine M. Sastre, Deirdre Conlon, Nancy Hiemstra, Julio Oseguera, Ulla D. Berg, K. Sebastian León, Xiomara Flores, Mary Rizzo, Whitney Strub, Jessica Rofé, Gloria d'Alessio, and Gabriela Viera
Publisher:: Rutgers University Press
Imprint:: Rutgers University Press
Pages:: 290
Illustrations:: 6 color and 35 B-W images

Description
Praise
Contents
Authors

The United States detains and deports several hundred thousand migrants every year. Many spend significant amounts of time in immigration detention as they await adjudication of their immigration cases. The Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey is located in a converted warehouse, managed by a private, for-profit prison company. Over three decades, migrants and asylum seekers have been brought to EDC directly from Newark Airport or have been transferred to the site from elsewhere in the United States, including from the US-Mexico border region.

Through a longitudinal, site-specific study unique in its kind, this volume unites the voices and perspectives of formerly detained migrants, scholars, journalists, lawyers, and social and faith movement leaders, who share their experiences of Elizabeth Detention Center and reconstruct its social history and its location in New Jersey's political economy and in the changing legal landscapes of immigration detention in the United States.

“The range of authorial voices, which offer multiple different understandings of detention from legal, social, economic, and first-person perspectives, create a robust and informative scholarship. Through two dozen brief chapters written by journalists, academics, lawyers, activists, and former detainees, this book offers readers remarkable insights into the U.S. detention system today.”
- Ruth Gomberg, author of Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network

“Where immigration scholarship often focuses on legal frameworks and systems, this collection of essays and reflections reminds us of the people caught in the machinery and those working collectively to stop the system from running as intended. The intimate focus brings us into the New Jersey immigrant rights ecosystem, and we feel in community with lawyers, faith leaders, teachers, visitors, students, and immigrants. There is so much to learn from them.”
- Elissa C. Steglich, coauthor of The Unending Floods: Disaster Recovery and Immigration Policy

Abbreviations
Foreword by Nina Bernstein
Introduction
ULLA D. BERG AND CAROLINA SÁNCHEZ BOE

Part I The Early Years: From Esmor to CCA, 1993–1998
1 Abraham Zuma’s Preventable Death, or Why Immigration Detention Must Be Abolished
AMY GOTTLIEB

2 Shackled in the Land of Hope: Asylum Seekers Held for Months
ELIZABETH LLORENTE

3 The First Lawsuit Using International Human Rights Law to Protect Detained Immigrants in the United States
PENNY M. VENETIS

4 Riot!
FAUZIYA KASSINDJA WITH LAYLI MILLER BASHIR

5 “You’re Giving Them Too Much Hope”
WILL COLEY

Part II Mandatory Detention, Crimmigration, and the National Security State
6 How a Good Immigrant / Bad Immigrant Binary Fuels the Modern Deportation Regime
SARAH TOSH

7 A Journey to Freedom: My First Steps in the United States
ABDULAI BAH

8 “It’s Not like You’re Ever Going to See This Guy After He Gets Released Today . . .”
MARGUERITE É. MARTY

9 We Are IRATE! Seven People in a New Jersey Diner and the Power of Accompaniment
WILLIAM WESTERMAN

10 A New Jersey Teenager Caught in the War on Terror and Detained at EDC
BILAL WITH CAROLINA SÁNCHEZ BOE

Part III Structures of Support, Advocacy, and Accompaniment
11 A Permanent Executive Order from God: The Reformed Church of Highland Park’s Ongoing Response to EDC’s Systemic Sin
REV. SETH KAPER-DALE

12 Bed 26: Becoming a Refugee and Claiming Asylum
EDAFE OKPORO

13 Touring the Elizabeth Detention Center: A Diary Comic
KRISTYN SCORSONE

14 Due Process Army at the Elizabeth Immigration Court
PINA N. CIRILLO

15 Know Where You Stand and Stand There
KATHY O’LEARY

Part IV Economies of Detention
16 Antidetention Laws, the EDC, and How New Jersey Became a Private Detention-Only State
KATHERINE M. SASTRE

17 Big Business and Bad Care: The Sick Economics Behind the Elizabeth Detention Center
DEIRDRE CONLON AND NANCY HIEMSTRA

18 From EDC to e-Carceration and Digital Surveillance: My Experience with Libre by Nexus
JULIO OSEGUERA WITH ULLA D. BERG

19 Who Are the Criminals? The Licit and Illicit Monetary Flows and State-Corporate
Interests Fueling Migrant Detention in New Jersey and Beyond
KENNETH SEBASTIAN LEÓN

20 Do You Want to Come Back? A Transgender Woman’s Story Between Honduras and the EDC
XIOMARA FLORES WITH ULLA D. BERG

Part V The End of Immigration Detention in New Jersey?
21 Toward Abolition: Fighting Detention in Trump-Era New Jersey
MARY RIZZO AND WHITNEY STRUB

22 “Daddy, This China?”: Ibrahim’s Experience in EDC During COVID-19
IBRAHIM WITH ULLA D. BERG

23 The EDC Class Action and the Fight to End For-Profit Detention in New Jersey
JESSICA ROFÉ

24 Asylum Granted, Peace Denied: Fearing a New Era in January 2025
IVO AND GABRIEL WITH GLORIA D’ALESSIO

25 The Detention Ban Ripple Effect: Defending Community Wins and Sustaining National Momentum
GABRIELA VIERA

Afterword by Silky Shah
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
Index

ULLA D. BERG is an associate professor of anthropology and Latino and Caribbean studies at Rutgers University. She is a socio-cultural and visual anthropologist by training, and her research focuses on migration, (im)mobility, detention, and deportation in Latin America and among US Latinx populations. She is the author of Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S. (2015).

CAROLINA SÁNCHEZ BOE is an adjunct lecturer at Brown University in Paris. She is a sociologist and anthropologist, and her research focuses on confinement, deportation, and illegalization in the United States and France. She has worked in the nonprofit sector for over a decade. She has directed the documentary Digital Detention (2025).