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Immigration detention

Immigration

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Canada

In Canada, immigration detainees are held in Immigration Holding Centres (IHCs), known as Le centre de surveillance de l'immigration (CSI) in French, under the auspices of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), who are granted such authority through the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA). Immigration detainees may also be kept in provincial jails, either because the IHCs are full, there is no centres in their region, or the detainee's file has a link to criminality.

As of 2020, Canada has three IHCs, each facility with different ownership and operations:

  • Laval IHC (Laval, Quebec): Opened in 1999, the Laval IHC operates under a Memorandum of Understanding between CBSA and the Correctional Services of Canada, the latter of whom owns the facility. The facility, known as Le centre de surveillance de l'immigration de Laval in French, is located approximately 30 km (19 mi) from the Montréal-Trudeau International Airport, and includes three buildings and a capacity of holding up to 109 detainees.
  • Greater Toronto Area IHC (Toronto, Ontario): Opened in 2003, GTA IHC is provided to the CBSA under a third-party service contract with a vendor. The facility is located around 8 km (5.0 mi) from Pearson International Airport, containing three stories, with an accommodation capacity of up to 183 detainees.
  • British Columbia IHC (Surrey, British Columbia): Opened in 2020, BC IHC facility is owned by the CBSA. The facility is located about 30 km (19 mi) from Vancouver International Airport, and able to accommodate up to 70 detainees.

There is no maximum limit to the length of detention, and children may be "housed" in IHCs to prevent the separation of families. Detainees can include: asylum seekers without sufficient amount of necessary identification papers, foreign workers whose visas had expired, and people awaiting deportation. In 2017, Canada received the highest number of asylum claims in its history; between 2017 and 2018, 6609 people were detained in holding centres, compared to 4,248 a year prior.

Between April 2019 and March 2020, CBSA detained 8,825 people, including 138 minors (mostly with a detained parent)—almost 2,000 of these detainees were kept in provincial jails. However, as of November 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were only 94 immigration detainees in provincial jails, 12 in Laval IHC, 18 in Greater Toronto IHC, and 11 in British Columbia IHC.

United States

In the United States, a similar practice began in the early 1980s with Haitians and Cubans detained at Guantanamo Bay, and other groups such as Chinese in jails and detention centres on the mainland. The practice was made mandatory by legislation passed in 1996 in response to the Oklahoma City bombing, and has come under criticism from organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, all of whom have released major studies of the subject, and the American Civil Liberties Union. As of 2010, about 31,000 non-citizens were held in immigration detention on any given day, including children, in over 200 detention centres, jails, and prisons nationwide.

The T. Don Hutto Residential Center opened in 2006 specifically to house non-criminal families. There are other significant facilities in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Oakdale, Louisiana, Florence, Arizona, Miami, Florida, Seattle, York, Pennsylvania, Batavia, New York, Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and all along the Texas–Mexico border.

During the five years between 2003 and 2008, about 104 mostly young individuals died in detention of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or shortly afterwards, and medical neglect may have contributed to 30 of those deaths. For example, on 6 August 2008, 34-year-old New Yorker Hiu Lui Ng died in the detention of ICE. Editors at The New York Times condemned the death and urged that the system must be fixed. ICE has stated that the number of deaths per capita in detention is dramatically lower for ICE detainees than for US prison and jail populations, that they provide "the best possible healthcare" and that the nation as a whole is "experiencing severe shortages of qualified health professionals." In May 2008 Congress began considering a bill to set new standards for immigrant detainee healthcare.

In 2009, the Obama Administration pledged to overhaul the current immigration detention system and transform it into one that is less punitive and subject to greater federal oversight. Immigrants' rights advocates expressed concern over Obama's reform efforts. Immigrants' rights advocates believe the all current immigration policies "have been undermined by the Immigration agency's continued overreliance on penal incarceration practices and by the pervasive anti-reform culture at local ICE field offices."

President Donald Trump and his administration have pursued a deportation policy characterized as "hardline". Reuters reported that thousands of federal court petitions were filed challenging detention, with more than 20,200 Habeas corpus cases since 2025. From October 2025 to February 2026, 400 federal judges had ruled that ICE had illegally detained people a total of 4,421 times.

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