Throughline (NPR)

Episode: Who Profits from Migrant Detention?

Air Date: February 19, 2026

Hosts: Rund Abdelfatah & Ramtin Arablouei
Guest Expert: Brianna Nofil, Assistant Professor of History at William & Mary, author of "The Migrants: An American History of Mass Incarceration"

Overview

This episode explores the historical roots and present-day realities of migrant detention in the United States, focusing on how the practice has expanded, who profits from it, and what this reveals about American society. The hosts and guest Brianna Nofil trace the evolution of migrant detention from its origins in the Chinese Exclusion era to present-day systems involving local jails, private prisons, and federal facilities. They examine the financial incentives driving local sheriffs and communities, the shifting political and racial targets of detention, and the ways in which the system is connected to broader trends in mass incarceration.

Key Topics & Insights

I. The Early Roots of Migrant Detention in America

Origins in Franklin County, New York (1903)

• [00:18] A reporter, Pulteney Bigelow, discovered Chinese migrants packed into a rural jail in Malone, NY.
• After the Chinese Exclusion Act barred legal entry (1882), migrants used alternative Canadian routes, coached by community members in Montreal (00:53).
• Quoting Bigelow:

  "We put them in jail first and let them prove their innocence afterward."
  (Historical/News Voice, [02:51])

Conditions & Incentives

• Jails weren’t meant for long-term or administrative detentions—no recreation, poor repairs, and overcrowding (02:13).
• Sheriffs like Ernest Douglas operated on a "fee system": their income depended on the number of detainees.

  "Your salary as sheriff would have depended on how many sort of sheriff related tasks you did...the backbone of your income was how many people you held in the local jail."
  (Brianna Nofil, [09:19])

• Douglas personally profited—some reports say $20,000 in three years, a huge sum at the time (09:55).

Legal Challenges

• Detainees filed habeas corpus claims, often asserting U.S. citizenship. The courts lacked means to disprove these claims, so most were eventually released rather than deported ([12:04]).
• Competition arose among rural counties to secure federal detention contracts, leading some to build “Chinese jails” to market themselves and attract more migrants for detention (13:07).

"We have this, like, brand new facility just for your detention needs. Please keep sending migrants through our county and not through our neighbors. So you really see the emergence of a market."
(Brianna Nofil, [13:59])

II. Shifts in Detention Practices (1920s–1950s)

From Local to Federal Control

• Overcrowding and deaths led to public outcry; the Supreme Court ultimately expanded federal deportation powers (15:11).
• By the Cold War era (1940s), long-term detentions occurred at Ellis Island, not just for entry processing or citizenship, but for “security risks” like Ellen Knopf, whose case went to the Supreme Court ([19:43]–[22:14]).

Policy Rethink and Racial Distinctions

• President Eisenhower’s administration (1954) limited detention except in “very exceptional” cases and began paroling most Europeans, while expanding operations on the southern border, targeting Mexican migrants (22:29).
• Operation Wetback (1954) sought to deport Mexican migrants who had been invited for farm work during WWII and then criminalized overnight ([25:01]).
• The government manipulated detention stats by categorizing Mexican migrants as seasonal workers, thus skirting their own detention moratorium claims (26:27).
• Pushback occurred when the federal government sought to build its own detention camps—localities feared loss of revenue resulting from fewer federal contracts for county jails ([27:29]).

"Now apparently these counties are stuck with big jails and nobody to put in them but each other. The Immigration service and the Border Patrol prefer a concentration camp of their own."
(Newspaper quote, [28:42])

III. The Modern Detention System & Its Local Economics

Expansion in Rural Communities

• The 1980s saw the rise of federal detention centers as local economies sought new revenue after industrial decline (Oakdale, Louisiana, [38:39]).
• Local governments lobbied fiercely for the right to host these centers—praying, holding cookouts, and campaigning as the facilities promised jobs and federal funding ([38:48]–[39:39]).

Cuban Detainee Uprisings (1987)

• With the Mariel boatlift, Cubans with criminal histories faced indefinite detention as Cuba refused their return. This led to desperate conditions and riots at Oakdale and Atlanta detention centers ([37:19], [42:08]).
• The standoffs resulted in a return to decentralization—back to county jail contracts (“scatter them among as many sites as possible”—[43:50]), which reduced collective organizing and obscured detention conditions from the public.

Economic Engine for Localities

• Communities such as Evoyles Parish in Louisiana massively expanded jail capacity to profit from detention contracts, employing hundreds in towns of only tens of thousands ([45:16]).
• Even as private for-profit prison corporations entered the market, the federal government never abandoned rural county jail contracts entirely:

"Even as private prison companies are going to take on greater and greater shares of the market, the Immigration Service never seriously loses its dependence on jails...A jail gives you a footprint everywhere in the country."
(Brianna Nofil, [47:05])

Scandals & Political Maneuvering

• Detention center abuses, escapes, and riots fueled public outcry in the 1990s, but rather than curb the system, agencies shifted detainees to more dispersed sites ([47:45]–[48:53]).

IV. Broader Political and Social Implications

Not Just Economics: Race, Power, and Control

• Although initially motivated by exclusionary, openly racist policies (Chinese Exclusion Act), the legal and social infrastructure created persists—expanded and rebranded, but almost never fundamentally dismantled ([49:58]).
• The system is highly adaptable; even when not achieving stated economic or security aims, detention persists as an assertion of in-group ("whiteness") identity, political power, or simply “doing something” about crises ([51:31]).
• Both political parties have contributed to the expansion:

  "Immigration detention is a deeply bipartisan project...both parties coming to a consensus that migration is criminal and that it should be punished or administered through the same infrastructure and systems that we use to punish people who have moved through the criminal legal system."
  (Brianna Nofil, [51:31])

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On origins:

  "These people are not being held because they're accused of committing a crime...they are being held administratively by the immigration Service because they are awaiting immigration hearings and they are awaiting potential deportations."
  (Brianna Nofil, [02:23])

• On financial incentives:

  "So some reports say [the sheriff] makes like $20,000 in three years, which is a lot of money for a sheriff."
  (Brianna Nofil, [09:57])

• On commodification:

  "It is actively commoditizing people. And...the people who are making money off of this see that they are fighting for these contracts from the federal government."
  (Brianna Nofil, [14:29])

• On concealment and decentralization:

  "...it's harder for the American public to get really angry about conditions at a detention center if people are at 300 detention centers versus two."
  (Brianna Nofil, [43:50])

• On enduring motivations:

  "To me, it is a core question of sort of who is an American. Immigration detention's roots are in this moment that is so blatantly racist...But that is where we get the legal precedence that undergird this entire system today."
  (Brianna Nofil, [49:58])

Episode Structure & Timestamps

| Segment | Start | Description | |----------------------------------------|-------|-----------------------------------------------------------| | Introduction & Early Case (Malone, NY) | 00:18 | Chinese migrants in jail, sheriff's financial incentive | | Legal Strategies & County Competition | 09:55 | Financial benefits, habeas claims, inter-county market | | Policy Shifts (1940s–50s) | 19:43 | Cold War paranoia, Eisenhower's parole, Operation Wetback | | Federal vs. Local Detention | 27:29 | Rural resentment, McAllen camp, immigration raids | | Modern Era: 1980s–Present | 36:14 | Oakdale case, Cuban riots, rural economies, privatization | | Political & Social Conclusions | 49:58 | Racism, bipartisanship, power dynamics |

Conclusion

The episode traces the deep historical roots, economic motives, and evolving racial and political targets of the U.S. migrant detention system, exposing how local interests, profit, and power have continually shaped policies. Despite changing justifications and public outcry, the practice endures—less as an economic safeguard and more as a tool for enforcing social boundaries, political bargaining, and national identity.

For those new to this topic, the episode offers an illuminating, sometimes sobering journey through history, demonstrating the complexity and contingency of systems many now see as inevitable.