Emerging Research on Canada's Detention System

A report by Olamide Olaniyan, titled "An Immigration Detention System That Makes No Sense," and appearing in The Tyee, features Efrat Arbel and Molly Joeck discussing why Canada’s treatment of migrants needs reform.

In the article, Professor Arbel describes an important new research project:

“The goal of this project is really to highlight those experiences that too often are left unknown and unexamined, because they take place in the so-called black box,” she said. “To bring these stories out of the darkness and into the light in order to demonstrate what I view to be fundamental problems with the legal regime as it is structured.”

The movement against immigration detention got a major win in July 2022 when the B.C. government announced it would be ending its arrangement with the Canada Border Services Agency that allowed immigration detainees to be kept in provincial jails. Arbel called the announcement “a moment of real hope in a regime that does not create many opportunities for hope.”

IE