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Immigration detention and the treadmill of production: a cycle of ecological and social disorganization

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dc.contributor.authorHagan, Alexander, author
dc.contributor.authorMao, KuoRay, advisor
dc.contributor.authorMalin, Stephanie, committee member
dc.contributor.authorHausermann, Heidi, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2024-05-27T10:32:05Z
dc.date.available2024-05-27T10:32:05Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.abstractConflict and group-threat theorists consistently debate what causes threat perception towards out-groups like migrants. These back-and-forth analyses focus on economic versus cultural reasoning. However, they often ignore the environmental context and political-economic structures influencing public perception. To complicate and scale these theories, this study relies on ecological degradation, characterized by Superfund sites, to determine how it influences the local economy and public perception of immigrants. Nearly one-third of United States prisons are within 3 miles of a Superfund site. Though the existing literature has pointed to the relationship between prison siting and ecological disorganization, the proximity of the immigration detention facility (IDF) to environmental harm has not been included in the broader toxic prison scholarship. This study first finds that nearly half of IDFs are located within 10 miles of a Superfund site. Next, regressing facility proximity data on county-level economic and social conditions helps understand the likelihood of their proximity to a Superfund site. A percentage point increase in a county's unemployment rate in 2017 compared to 1990 is associated with an 8 percent decrease in distance between an IDF and Superfund NPL site. Counties with a lower percentage of White Americans tend to have IDFs situated closer to Superfund NPL sites. If IDFs are treated as locally undesirable land uses (LULUs), their development relies on establishing sites of acceptance or Please in My Backyard (PIMBY) movements towards these facilities. This study finds that PIMPY movements towards immigration detention facilities near Superfund sites are motivated more by economic precarity than perceived cultural threat. This aligns with the motivation of the citizen/worker actor in the Treadmill of Production and Law (ToP/ToL) theory. The other actors within treadmill theory include corporations and the state. To test if these actors and the relationships between them apply to immigration detention, a secondary analysis is conducted to determine the association between these corporations' annual revenue and their political campaign and lobbying expenditures. Using data from 2015 to 2020, the two largest private prison and detention corporations, CoreCivic and GEO Group annual revenue and revenue from federal contracts share strong positive correlations with their political and lobbying spending. Though treadmill theory has traditionally been reserved for environmental crime, laws, and enforcement, this study shows that incarceration and detention policies are constructed by state, corporate, and labor actors to maintain accumulation and influence threat. Immigration detention is used to reestablish the state's legitimacy through the allure of jobs in areas harmed by environmental crimes and economic precarity. These associations further reveal the cyclical relationship between ecological and social disorganization in counties harmed by environmental degradation in the United States.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediummasters theses
dc.identifierHagan_colostate_0053N_18323.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/238431
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2020-
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.titleImmigration detention and the treadmill of production: a cycle of ecological and social disorganization
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineSociology
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Arts (M.A.)

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