Francisco Cantú

DETAINED: Voices from the Migrant Incarceration System is a collaboration between the University of Arizona, Arizona State University, the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), Salvavision, and previously detained individuals to collect and publicly archive the stories of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants incarcerated by immigration authorities in Arizona. FIRRP is the only organization dedicated to providing free legal services to immigrant detainees in Arizona and is therefore a key partner for the creation and dissemination of the DETAINED archive. FIRRP and university staff and graduate students work collaboratively with former detainees to document their experience in detention through a combination of multilingual written, visual, and audio forms. Detainee testimonials are archived alongside correspondence, art, and digital storytelling that contextualizes the growth of the migrant detention industry, presenting a synthesis of the personal and political repercussions of modern-day internment. Ultimately, we aim to broaden the national and international understanding of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands through the digital publication of DETAINED. The archive is a counter-memorial and tangible record of the vast emergent landscape of for-profit immigrant detention that will resonate far beyond academic and scholarly audiences, fostering public engagement with the marginalized voices at the center of the immigrant detention industry.