Le territoire de l'expulsion

Immigration detention centres are key devices in current immigration control. But they remain problematic institutions in a democracy. They are first a remote heritage of past internment camps, and allow the non-judicial detention, on an executive decision, of immigrants who are not locked up to be punished, but only to remain under control as their forced removal is prepared. They were, however, created in states that comply with the "Rule of law", and as such they immediately had to include guarantees to protect fundamental rights, and to hire Human Rights organizers who act as staff members dedicated to making these guarantees effective.

Drawing on a 5-month ethnographic survey inside a centre, this volume describes the multiple paradoxes created by this unusual situation. How are legal provisions used in detention, with what effects on the enforcement of deportations? What can be said of the critical activity performed by organizers who are both independent lawyers and part of the detention staff? These questions concern sociologists focused on the study of law and the state, but also citizens interested in a description of the actual enforcement of immigration control.