Deportation Inc.: Investigating the Business of Migrant Detention

Thu May 07 2026 at 07:00 pm to 08:30 pm UTC-04:00

e-flux | Brooklyn

The Architectural League of New York
Publisher/HostThe Architectural League of New York
Deportation Inc.: Investigating the Business of Migrant Detention
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A screening and conversation tracing the evolution of U.S. immigration enforcement into a multi-billion-dollar industry.
About this Event

As border infrastructures are increasingly woven into the built environment at all scales across the United States, the League is organizing a series of programs and initiatives to explore design as a tool for understanding and organizing amid these changes.

Deportation Inc. is an ongoing investigative video series by SITU and Lawfare that examines how U.S. immigration enforcement has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry shaped by private profit and political power—where contracts, capital flows, and institutional incentives increasingly govern detention, deportation, and surveillance. While walls, checkpoints, and patrols remain the dominant visual shorthand, migrants are caught within increasingly complex and opaque systems of enforcement run and managed by private contractors tasked with everything from guaranteed bed quotas to speculative real estate strategies. Focusing on recent transformations in the immigration enforcement industry, this video series presents a high-yield, profit-generating business model that may be too big to fail.

The screening of Deportation Inc. will be followed by a conversation situating detention sites—from Newark to Guantánamo Bay—within longer histories of privatization, racialized incarceration, jurisdictional maneuvering, and municipal complicity. An audience Q&A will follow.

Learn more about the program and panelists here.

Banner image: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Processing Facility, Tucson, Arizona, 2021. Image courtesy SITU Research




Ticket information and policies

Current Architectural League members receive a free ticket to this and other events throughout the year. To access your fully discounted member ticket or tickets, click "Enter promo code" in the ticket window and enter your Member Number. Visit our website to join or renew.


By registering for this event, you are consenting to receive emails from the League and Urban Omnibus. You may opt-out at any time. Additionally, by attending, you grant permission for the League to capture and use photographs and/or videos of you for promotional and archival purposes, which may include but are not limited to social media, newsletters, and website content. If you wish to opt out of being photographed, please contact us prior to the event.

All confirmed attendees may claim Continuing Education Units for this event.

This event will not be livestreamed.

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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

e-flux, 172 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn, United States

Tickets

USD 20.00

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