Spiderman’s Web and the Governmentality of Electronic Immigrant Detention

Abstract

The article examines the governmentality of noncustodial forms of immigration control over immigrant bodies. It uses the Spiderman cartoon character Venom (Black Spiderman) as a metaphor for expansive and shape-shifting state sovereign power. This plenary power is a machination of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the courts. Like the venom symbiote it takes form from the state having contact with immigrants. Specifically, the article focuses on electronic detention (alternative to detention, or ATD), which limits an immigrant’s freedom, but is technically considered neither detention nor custody. This legal construction leaves almost no accountability. Thus I argue that ATD initiatives create an extra legal space of unchecked power that is deployed on immigrant bodies, and just like Black Spiderman they allow aggression to be amplified to dangerous result.