Compounded Vulnerability: The Consequences of Immigration Detention for Institutional Attachment and System Avoidance in Mixed-Immigration-Status Families

While an extensive body of literature has analyzed the spillover and intergenerational consequences of mass incarceration, fewer studies explore the consequences of a parallel system: mass immigration detention. Every year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement imprisons hundreds of thousands of noncitizens as they await adjudication on their deportation proceedings, sometimes for months or years at a time. Many detained individuals have lived in the United States for decades and have spouses and/or dependent children that rely on them. This analysis brings together research on immigrant families, mass incarceration, and system avoidance to examine the spillover consequences of immigration detention. Using a multigenerational and multi-perspective research design, we analyze 104 interviews conducted in California with detained parents, nondetained spouses/partners, and their school-age children, during and after detention. Findings suggest that members of these mixed-status families exhibit renewed or increased system avoidance and extensive distrust in U.S. law enforcement after the detention of a family member. These experiences are rooted in what we call compounded vulnerability—that is, both in the experience of parental/spousal confinement but also in their positionality as members of mixedimmigration-status families facing the possibility of deportation.