“It’s Dehumanizing on Purpose”: Educators’ Experiences at an Immigration Detention Center

Abstract

This work highlights the experience of eight education students from a public university in the American Southeast in their trip to Stewart Immigration Detention Center. A pre-interview and two post-interviews were conducted to understand students’ perceptions toward the topic, what they learned from their experience, and how the experience affected their views on immigration with a particular concern for the intersection of immigration and education. Some of the themes that emerged were the broader injustices of the profit driven immigration detention industry, the difficulties of structural change, the idea of American (industrialized world) privilege, the ease by which individuals are detained, and the dehumanizing treatment. In regard to education, participants highlighted the need for curriculum to focus on the topic of immigration including the integration of immigrant stories, a global education that counters xenophobic narratives, and the need for a more critical approach overall in the social studies classroom. This research is relevant to the larger intersection of immigration policy and education and the need for educators to become advocates for social change not only in their classroom but in regard to the larger injustices in the society.