Immigration Detention, the Patriarchal State and the Politics of Disgust in the Hands of Street-level Bureaucrats

Abstract

This article presents the results of ethnographic research conducted in the southern border of Mexico from 2017 to 2019, specifically at the Estación Migratoria Siglo XXI [XXI Century Immigration Station], which is one of the biggest and most important detention centres in the country. It analyses the functioning of an immigration detention centre as a ‘total institution’ where street-level bureaucrats enforce practices of biopolitics through daily deprivation of access to vital resources and the protection of the law. The article depicts how women are treated within a detention centre and provides an explanation focusing on observing gendered power relations and practices of disgust and contempt by the Instituto Nacional de Migración, a State-organised institution in the hands of street-level local bureaucrats who work in precarious conditions. Finally, the article demonstrates the dehumanisation practices in immigration detention that are deployed as a deterrence policy through operational strategies in Estación Migratoria Siglo XXI, located in Tapachula, Chiapas.