Seven Doors

Exposing the impact of immigration detention on stateless people as well as migrants, refugees and asylum seekers around the world.

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Eloy Detention Center located in the desert in Eloy, Arizona. Capacity: 1550. 2017 Average Daily Populatioin: 1378. 2017 Average Stay: 75 days. 2017 Total Bookings: 6,873 Operated by Private Prison Company: CoreCivic (CCA)
Late at night, a group of people walk up from the underground garage of the US Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles. All were brought to Los Angeles from detention centers in Orange County, CA after being recently released from ICE custody.
This 31-yr-old woman fled gang violence in El Salvador. "You are either with us, or you are against us," she says of a gang member telling her. She spent two years traveling from El Salvador through Mexico, where she also faced violence. She worked small jobs along the way to earn enough money for the trip and to make it into the US to claim asylum. One month pregnant when she turned herself in at the Tijuana/San Ysidro point of entry. She spent just over one month at the Otay Mesa Detention Center outside of San Diego.
A mother with her three children, along with volunteers from a faith-based vistation program out of Los Angeles, pray together in the parking lot of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Adelanto, CA. The father and husband has been in immigration detention for almost three years.
This 20-year-old from El Salvador watched gang members murder his sister. He spent one year traveling from El Salvador to the US where he wished to claim asylum. He was turned away by Customs & Border Patrol officers in San Ysidro, CA on three separate occasions. After finally being permitted to enter the US, he was put in immigration detention for 10 months. "As soon as I was detained, my hands and my feel were in handcuffs, and I had a chain around my waist. I spent several days in Otay Mesa, then I was transported to Arizona for five days, then I was returned back to California. I was handcuffed the entire time. When I was in detention, there were people there from the United States who had actually committed crimes and we were put in with them. They treated us all the same, as if we had committed crimes ourselves. It made me feel like I was a criminal too. "At times I still feel like I'm in detention. When I was there, they controlled everything I did, where I went and now they still control what I do and they are still on top of me as I still have to report to them."
Immigrant and reproductive rights activist Alejandra Pablos embraces family, friends and supporters upon her release from the Eloy Immigration Detention Center in southern Arizona. Alejandra spent almost two years in immigration detention from 2011 to 2013. She was detained again by ICE on March 7, 2018.
This 22-yr-old was born in Honduras but spent most of her life in El Salvador. She fled to the US after her brother was killed and when members of the same gang found her in Mexico. During the summer of 2017, she turned herself to US Immigration and claimed asylum. She was several months pregnant when ICE put her in the Otay Mesa Detention Center. While in detention she lost her baby. After 7 months in detention she was released and has since had to wear a GPS ankle monitor. "I've had the monitor on for five months. I worry about the battery getting low and people calling to say it needs to be changed. I worry there might be problems and this can lead to me being deported. I can’t wear certain clothes. I told my ICE officer that it bothered me, but they told me that it had to touch my skin. It hurts when I wear it. It still feels like I am detained. I can’t work. I can’t help my family. I have to worry about it all the time. When they take it off, I will still feel like I have it on."
An immigration bus drives down the highway from the Karnes County Residential Center to San Antonio.
A bus driver waits outside a bus where over 30 men have been unchained and escorted to Mexican officials during their deportation.
Almost 100 men and women recently deported to Mexico by ICE in one morning gather at the Comedor in Nogales, Sonora. Run by the KINO Border Initiative, the center provides assistance to those recently released from detention and deported.
Having recently fled death threats and violence from gangs in their hometowns, 16-yr-old Pedrito and 17-yr-old Marco left Guatemala and arrived at the US border in Nogales, AZ as unaccompanied minors. "I want to claim asylum in the US and join some family in Florida, but I have no idea what will happen," says Pedrito.
Families mostly from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras spend days and often weeks waiting on the sidewalk at the Nogales, Arizona port of entry before Customs and Border Patrol permit them to enter and claim asylum.
A 37-yr-old mother holds her 2-yr-old daughter while sitting on the sidewalk with other family members at the US port of entry in Nogales, Arizona. Over the course of 2-years, two attempts were made to kill her husband. The family waits to claim aslyum. "We have a big fear of being separated. And we think my husband will be separated from us. The lawyers said it might happen," she says. "But we are willing to take the risk."
Parishioners follow a group of clergy as they performed the Stations of the Cross in the desert outside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center on Good Friday 2018.
SAN LUIS REGIONAL DETENTION CENTER Capacity: 400 2017 Average Daily Pop: 162 2017 Average Stay: 8 days 2017 Bookings: 7,074 Men & Women Company: Lasalle Corrections
T. DON HUTTO RESIDENTIAL CENTER Capacity: 512 Guaranteed Beds: 461 2017 Average Daily Pop: 493 2017 Average Stay: 48 2017 Bookings: 3,554 Women Company: CoreCivic (CCA)
OTAY MESA DETENTION CENTER Capacity: 896 Guaranteed Beds: 600 2017 Average Daily Pop: 1028 2017 Average Stay: 36 2017 Bookings: 9,569 Men & Women Company: CoreCivic (CCA)
NORTHWEST DETENTION CENTER Capacity: 1575 Guaranteed Beds: 1181 2017 Average Daily Pop: 1423 2017 Average Stay: 87 days 2017 Bookings: 5,961 Men & Women Company: GEO Group

Greg Constantine

American/Canadian documentary photographer Greg Constantine has been drawn to stories that focus on those who have been neglected, f…

Topics
Social Justice
Sub Topics
Refugee
Regions
Asia Europe Latin America Mexico United States
Immigration detention

About Seven Doors

After spending the past twelve years working on the project Nowhere People, this next phase of the project expands the work to use photography, multimedia and other forms of visual storytelling to expose the impact of immigration detention on stateless people as well as migrants, refugees and asylum seekers around the world.

Much of the public image depicting immigration detention has presented a limited view: bars, barbed wire and menacing detention facilities. With the human impact of immigration detention still in the dark, this expansion of my work aims to construct an alternative, humanized visual representation of this issue. Statelessness denies individuals documents and protection from their home governments, often resulting in years of detention in immigration facilities. The project will consist primarily of visual and multimedia stories created outside the walls of detention centers. This includes stories of the formerly detained that express the trauma experienced in detention, the fear of being returned to detention and the residual effects of detention on their lives. Through short multimedia pieces, the project will profile families in limbo as loved ones linger in detention.

When assembled together, the visual and multimedia stories will expose the darker, more private, psychological cost detention has on men, women, children, families and communities. I believe the project will provide a unique window into the lived experiences of those stateless people, refugees and asylum seekers who are actually in detention yet inaccessible and shut off from the world. More importantly, I believe it will act as a bridge toward understanding how the policies of immigration detention deprive individuals from the positive contributions they can make to society. Significant work for the project has already been conducted in Malaysia, the UK and the United States. In 2019 and 2020, work will expand in the US, Mexico, through areas of Europe, Central America and Thailand.