Mental health consequences of immigration detention include higher rates of depression, anxiety, PTSD, schizophrenia conduct issues, hyperactivity, compared to the general population. These harmful impacts exist regardless of past traumatic experiences (e.g., near-death experiences, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, etc.), age, or nationality, or even time elapsed. Immigration detention may take place at country or state borders, in certain international jurisdiction zones, on offshore islands, boats, camps, or could even be in the form of house arrest. The use of immigration detention around the world has increased recently, leading to greater concerns about the health and wellbeing of detained migrants. A 2018 scoping review from BMC Psychiatry gathered information showing that immigration detention consistently results in negative impacts on detainees.
Overview The number of refugees globally has increased substantially since 2014. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that at the end of 2019, the number of forcibly displaced persons is at 79.5 million, including internally displaced people (IDP; 45.7 million), refugees (26 million), asylum seekers (4.2 million), and Venezuelans displaced abroad (3.6 million), compared to the 51 million of forcibly displaced persons in 2013, which was already the largest number since World War II.
Many countries detain undocumented immigrants, including asylum seekers and non-citizens. In 2017 and 2018, there were 160,504 detained immigrants in the European Union and the United Kingdom. In 2017 the number went rose to 323,591 in the United States in 2017.
Refugees and asylum seekers are already more vulnerable to mental health consequences, given the physical and mental burden of fleeing one's own country. Detention exacerbates immigrants’ psychological condition, especially depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Numerous studies have examined and pointed out acute and long-term psychological distress among detained immigrants, especially children, making them particularly vulnerable.
Immigration detainees commonly report anxiety, depression, and PTSD during and after detention. Pre-detention stressors include exposure to torture, human trafficking, and other kinds of human rights violations, already putting immigrants at risk for mental health issues. During detention, immigrants have to cope with the loss of liberty, the risk of being forced to return to their country of origin, social isolation, and possible abuse from staff, which may resemble their country of origin, triggering their traumatic experiences.
A meta-analysis examined 17 studies on 1168 participants of immigration detainees, including host countries such as the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Israel, Japan, Switzerland, and Sweden, and countries of origin ranging from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Mexico, Cuba, to other countries in Central America. The wide range of countries suggests a universality in the negative mental health impact of immigration detention. Findings suggest that detention adds additional stressors to immigrants and is associated with greater symptom severity. Additionally, detained refugees suffer from greater symptom severity than non-detained refugees. The duration of detention is linked, the severity of adverse mental health outcomes . It is stated that “the experience of detention may act as a new stressor, which adds to the cumulative effect of exposure to trauma, leading to an increased likelihood of developing mental health difficulties such as PTSD” (p. 2).
Historical context
The institutionalized use of detention centers began during the 1980s. Before this point, detention was used only in extenuating circumstances, when the state deemed it absolutely necessary. In this context, detainees were held in more improvised locations such as prisons, warehouses, or even hotel rooms. Within the United States, immigration control has been a prominent aspect of national policy since the days of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and even Ellis Island housed a detention center, showing that detention has almost always been part of the US immigration process. In fact, Ellis Island was known as "The Island of Tears" to immigrants. Under President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began to earnestly detain migrants from the Caribbean, and built numerous detention centers within the US and in Puerto Rico. A major turning point followed, with the passage of the Immigration Control and Reform Act (IRCA) in 1986. The passage of this legislation ensured that immigration control would stay a high priority in policy, and increased the funding for enforcement and detention activities.
As countries such as the United States have put increasing funding and importance towards immigration detention, private prisons have entered the fold. The first private immigration detention center in the US was also established in the mid-1980s, and many other countries in the global north followed suit. For example, the use of Guantanamo Bay as an offshore detention center served as a precedent for Australia to establish offshore immigrant detention centers in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Overall, using immigrant detention centers, border patrols, and other control measures is an established practice around the world in order to maintain political and social borders created by dominant social groups.
Australia created the Immigration Act 1901, which was passed to restrict all people especially Asians from entering the country to preserve their white citizens. In order for people to stay in the country, they were required to take the dictation test. The dictation test determined whether they could stay within the country. Majority who travelled overseas weren't able to pass the test, thus they were considered unqualified to stay and were deported to their home country by the Australian Government.
Later, Australia issued the Migration Act in 1958, which gives the right to border forces to have integrate coercive powers over people who enter the country without a visa. Under the coercive powers given to officers, they can detain people and send them to detention centers where they will stay until they have a visa or be at risk of being deported. Those who are in the detention centers are given an estimate amount of days on average 625 days in the centers. Majority of the people of all ages, entering the country are refugees from the Middle East and Asia who are seeking asylum in Australia.
Canada had passed numerous immigration acts throughout the years. Some of the legislations and acts created restricted and protected people who entered Canada. The Immigration Act, 1869 was primarily created with specific instructions to protect people who were entering Canada by ship. As the years progressed Canadian government increased its regulations towards immigrants creating the Immigration Act, 1976. It was the official document that was thoroughly detailed on the rules and regulations regarding who of the immigrants were classified as refugees seeking for help and who weren't considered as one. It was a major legislative action taken by the Canadian government.
Canada contains one of the highest rates of immigrant population, according to 2021 Canadian Census. Canada takes pride in being a humanitarian country as they were the first to pass the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, 1988. Which provided security and free of discrimination to all the different cultures and communities within the country. Although, they passed a significant act to those in Canada, there are many who try to get into Canada and if captured by immigration forces, are sent to immigration detention centers, where they too stay more than a year.
Conditions in detention centers People who are detained in the immigration detention centers often endure the hardships of countless problems such as negligence, learning a second language, overcrowded confinements, rising temperatures in the centers, with lights on the 24 hours, little to no medical care for migrants, discrimination, sickness and more.
In the United States, during President Trump's administration, members of Congress and other government officials visited the immigration detention centers run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in Texas. Many of which were shocked at what they had encountered, based on the 60 children interviewed many of whom malnourished and sanitation was not appropriate for living conditions. Numerous cases were confirmed that about 540 migrants and some staff members were infected with the mumps disease in Texas. As the number of cases increased in different ICE facilities, and exponential growth of detainees 25,000 doses of vaccines that were administered weren't enough.
There had been severe complaints filed and sent to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights (CRCL) to make a change towards ICE's abusive system within the detention centers. The complaints described the treatment individuals confront and how staff in the centers instead of sending those who are going through mental health to seek medical care, they are sent to solitary confinement. Such treatment of ICE facilities violated the 2019 National Detention Standards for Non-Dedicated Facilities
In Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) detained people as they see fit under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. In 2020 Canada detained 8,825 people of which 136 were children on the grounds of migration. Some were sent to maximum security prisons or solitary confinements with no information of how long they will be detained. Those who were African or Caribbean Black descents are brutality treated, shackled, strip-searched and have everything taken away from them.
During COVID-19 there was an increase of disease spread within the confinement's. Pregnant women had miscarriages, whenever the women needed medical care it was poor quality, they had high rates of infant mortality, pre-eclampsia, etc.
In Australia, the Refugee Council of Australia (RCOA) have people do weekly visits to detention centers most of who are confronted with several rules and regulations enforced by the Australian Border Force (ABF). Visitors are required to request a 48-hour notice of who they wish to visit. The staff is authorized to refuse the visitor if they see fit, as they limit the number of visitors in the facility. The food a visitor brings has to be eaten during the visiting period or it will be discarded. The overall treatment towards visitors isn’t welcoming, as the rules keep increasing on what visitors can and can’t use, bring, and do prior to visiting.
Common mental health outcomes The most common mental health outcomes observed in detained immigrants are post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and suicidality (including self-harm, suicidal ideations, suicide attempts, and suicide). The following sections will detail the reasons behind these higher rates, including testimony from detained migrants.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) A study from the International Journal of Public Health interviewed asylum seekers detained in Canada. The results revealed that "being treated like criminals" and being forced to wait for "indeterminate periods of time" during which they had little control was detrimental to their mental health. In addition, the study revealed that the violence and lack of control resulted in retraumatization for asylum seekers who had previously endured trauma.
Depression