Q&A: Rural places have always played a part in U.S. immigration and deportation

Brianna Nofil

When the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency began conducting large immigration raids outside metropolitan areas in 2025, there was not enough housing space for detainees, so U.S. Immigration Services worked to address the issue by partnering with rural law enforcement. The partnership isn't new -- USIS has long relied on rural towns to help it jail and deport illegal immigrants.

In her Q&A with Betsy Froiland of The Daily Yonder, historian and author of the 2024 book The Migrant’s Jail: An American History of Mass Incarceration, Brianna Nofil "shares her research on how immigrant detention infrastructure has impacted small towns across America." An edited version of their interview is shared below.

Q: Can you begin by sharing how rural places initially became involved in the conversation of immigrant detention?
A: Almost from its inception, the U.S. Immigration Service relied on rural communities to help it arrest and deport illegal migrants. When USIS stepped up its deportation efforts in the early 1900s, its leadership discovered that USIS lacked enough housing for all its detainees. Nofil explains, "So they began talking to sheriffs. They say to these local sheriffs, ‘listen,' immigration law enforcement isn’t your job, but if you are willing to rent us some beds in your local jail, we will pay you for that.'"

At that time, many rural sheriffs didn't have strong feelings about immigration; however, they did "see an opportunity to make some money," Nofil adds. "So some rural communities start renting jail beds to the Immigration Service. This gives the Immigration Service flexibility. Migrant routes are constantly changing. . . .Control of local rural jails allows them to pivot infrastructure as the movement of people changes."

Q: Does immigrant detention change in rural places by the end of the 20th century?
Yes. In the 1980s, USIS "decided to build the first immigration prisons, co-run by the Immigration Service and the Bureau of Prisons, from the ground up. So they’re no longer just borrowing infrastructure: they’re actually building permanent deportation infrastructure," Nofil told the Yonder. "There are massive internal battles about where they should put the first site because it’s going to set the tone for what this new detention system is going to look like."

In the end, USIS decides on rural Oakdale, Louisiana. Nofil explains, "They figure their work would be more distant from legal aid, even more out of the limelight. They’re quite explicit about the value they see rural space having in terms of limiting both public attention and migrants’ access to assistance."

Q: How have different rural communities been impacted by these detention sites economically?
At least in the beginning, when ICE really needs a location, some towns do reap some economic benefits, but the benefits don't always last. Nofil adds, "This is not something that any community can reliably bank on because they’re basically being asked to predict future federal behavior and future global migration flows, which is impossible. That makes it a particularly treacherous industry to link a community’s financial future to."

Read the entire interview here.