Deeper Histories of Immigration – #️2 Detention Centers

Since the 1980s, all major Western states practice what they call civil or administrative confinement of unauthorized immigrants and non-citizens. In the second post of this series, I want to dig a little deeper into the history of detaining immigrants.

The received wisdom says that the first dedicated immigration detention facility in the world was set up in 1892 on Ellis Island 🗽.

In 1893 US Congress 🏛 passed the first law in the world to initially place anyone not authorized to enter the country in detention.

Then, in 1896, a US court case held that that immigration detention is valid as “administrative” confinement for the purpose of deportation.

➡ All this is true, and provides the basic principle detention: physical confinement of unauthorized arrivals with no criminal record for the purpose of non-entry and deportation.

❗ But I’d like to make a case that this principle dates back to 1777, when Louis XVI instated “depots” at 8 French ports as part of a comprehensive legislation called “Police des Noirs.”

The depots have been called proto-concentration camps – no argument there.

One early draft of the Police des Noirs reveals the purpose: “In the end, the race of negroes will be extinguished in the kingdom.”

❗ ❗ But the depots are also the first example of detaining immigrants and non-citizens in a way that resembles today’s practices.

How? The depots, much like today’s immigration detention facilities:

▶ Were considered “administrative” confinement (since the people held in them had committed no crime).

▶ Were “extraterritorial” (see below to find out why).

▶ Imprisoned people without “authorization” to enter the country and people who were in the country “illegally” to deport them.

▶ Imprisoned people who today would easily obtain international protection as they suffered torture, inhuman conditions, and persecution on account of their race.

The point of the depots was to circumvent a 50-year-long tradition of “freedom trials,” where Enlightenment lawyers and the powerful Paris parliament (a court) successfully argued that France is a kingdom of freedom, and that anyone setting foot on French soil is thereby free, including people enslaved in French colonies.

To circumvent the freedom-on-French-soil principle, Louis XVI “creatively” ensured blacks and people of color weren’t technically on French judicial soil by making the depots “extra-territorial.”

🔎 This history, much like that of the passport that I addressed in my first post, urges us to seriously re-examine the beginnings of immigration laws and policies in light of the Enlightenment and early-modern colonialism, racism, slavery, and politics.
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Do you think that histories like these are good to know about? If so, let me know why!