At a time marked by climate displacement, armed conflict, economic precarity, and transnational illicit economies, migration control increasingly functions as a mechanism through which global crises are politically reframed as problems of enforcement and exclusion. Contemporary deportation regimes operate at the intersection of immigration law, criminal justice, administrative governance, and technological surveillance, revealing deeper sociological dynamics concerning inequality, racialization, and the racialized management of populations deemed disposable, threatening, or undesirable. While the criminalization and punishment of migrants has a long global history, the modern deportation regime—particularly as developed in the United States over the past four decades—is unique in both breadth and technique. Its expansion has further intensified, reaching 675,000 deportations in 2025 and 68,200 immigrants detained as of March 2026. This expansion is evident not only in the growth of detention capacity through private prison operators and facilities such as Delaney Hall in New Jersey, but also in the proliferation of detention and enforcement infrastructures in communities across the country.
Immigration enforcement increasingly extends into everyday spaces through partnerships with local institutions, heightened enforcement across urban centers and suburban neighborhoods alike, and the deployment of new technologies, including algorithmic risk assessments, biometric identification systems, digital surveillance tools, and artificial intelligence-driven tactics designed to monitor, identify, and facilitate the apprehension and removal of migrants. Migrants are being detained and removed at immigration court hearings, and even spaces traditionally regarded as safe havens—including schools and places of worship—have increasingly become targets of immigration enforcement. Together, these developments illustrate the expanding reach of the contemporary deportation regime into the institutions and spaces that structure everyday community life.
The Critical Migration and Deportation Studies Conference brings together scholars, students, advocates, community organizers, legal practitioners, and directly impacted individuals for a day focused on migration and deportation studies, featuring firsthand accounts from those resisting enforcement and inhumane detention. Panels and discussions will explore the criminalization of migration, labor and exploitation, transnational deportation, state violence, sanctuary policies, advocacy strategies, surveillance and emerging technologies, and community resistance to the deportation regime. By fostering dialogue across disciplines and sectors, the conference seeks to deepen understanding of contemporary migration governance while highlighting pathways toward justice, solidarity, and collective action.
