*3.1. Research Design*

To answer these questions, we analyzed an original data set of primary content of over 700 documents released in 2020 by ACLU, the private prison industry (including CoreCivic and GEO Group), and ICE.<sup>3</sup> We selected these groups because they represent a diverse network of organizations with varying connections to and interests in immigration control, allowing us to examine criticisms and responses to those criticisms in relation to one another. We selected ACLU based on our investigation of news media coverage of immigration detention between 1995 and 2018 (see Ebert et al. 2020; Estrada et al. 2020). Among all of the quotes from representatives of advocacy organizations, ACLU was the most frequently quoted. The ACLU is a well-known civil rights organization with a long history of advocacy related to immigration detention. Because of this history, the ACLU holds a political "insider" status and maintains a degree of institutional authority on par with ICE and private prison companies. The ACLU is opposed to immigration detention that violates the rights of immigrants. Even though it has not historically been opposed to immigration detention, per se, we included the ACLU in this study because we were curious if the pandemic prompted it to fundamentally shift its position regarding immigration detention.

Because private prison companies have physical custody of over 70% of immigrants detained in the U.S. (Freedom for Immigrants 2018), which generates a substantial portion of their revenue (Gilman and Romero 2018), they also have a vested interest in maintaining the legitimacy of immigration detention. Thus, the way they frame immigrant detention during the pandemic is central to addressing our research questions. We selected CoreCivic and GEO Group<sup>4</sup> specifically because they are the two largest publicly traded prison companies and constitute more than 50% of the market share in private immigration detention (Juárez et al. 2018; Oliver 2018). Finally, ICE is the federal agency empowered to enforce and regulate immigration policies, and, as such, holds a degree of power, status, and resources beyond what is available to other groups. ICE has a vested interest in promoting dominant ideologies that legitimate immigration control, a system from which it benefits (Jackman 1994; Lamont et al. 2014). Thus, the way ICE frames immigration detention in the midst of the pandemic provides insight into how powerful groups legitimate and reproduce inequality in the context of a crisis.

We based our analysis on documents available to the public because they provide insight into the "front stage" image a group is trying to project (Goffman 1959). Press releases, in particular, represent an official view on a topic, designed to project a carefully crafted and negotiated public image or argument. In order to maintain legitimacy, organizations will often engage in " ... elaborate displays of confidence, satisfaction, and good faith ... " (Meyer and Rowan 1977, p. 358) to demonstrate to the public that their goals have merit and their methods in achieving these goals are reputable. Furthermore, press releases serve as a source of other media, such as the news media (Majstorovi´c 2007), and are important for the dissemination of seemingly convincing messages (Bail 2012). Thus, discussions of the pandemic within these documents provide a measure of how groups used the "opportunity" of the crisis to reframe their positions in relation to the immigrant detention industry.
