**6. Conclusions**

We argue that the narratives concerning immigration detention in the U.S. during the pandemic crisis represent a form of racial apathy in that they play upon deeply embedded broader discourses that racialize migrants as either threatening or vulnerable, all the while assuming the legal and economic systems through which they are racial and exploited as racially innocent (Murakawa and Beckett 2010). In the context of the pandemic and of the broader movements that have effectively highlighted racial oppression and challenged the foundation of the criminal justice system, the doggedness of industry stakeholders in remaining apathetic and their resistance against acknowledging reality also reinforces white ignorance.

The implications and significance of our findings should be understood within the history of the U.S. immigration system and its deep connections to racial formation in this country. Prior studies have established that race and racism are both the basis and products of immigration managemen<sup>t</sup> in the U.S., an institution initially designed with the explicit goal to maintain white supremacy, which it continues to do so albeit more subtly (for a review, see Sáenz and Douglas 2015). As such, it not only constitutes the ideological boundaries of racial categories but also has material implications for which races can be physically present on U.S. soil and the consequences of this presence (Lopez 2006). Therefore, the complete absence of a racial perspective from all three groups is curious and significant in understanding the contemporary ideological terrain of immigration politics. This absence or amnesia needs to be situated in the context of post-Civil Rights color blindness. Since the Civil Rights movement, as explicit racism became publicly less

acceptable, "crime" and "law and order" emerged as racially coded language, adopted by many politicians in order to appeal to white voters (Campbell and Schoenfeld 2013). White racial backlash against civil disobedience during the Civil Rights movement and the war on drugs are prime examples of this tactic (Beckett 1997; Weaver 2007). The consequence of this shift is the expansion of racialized social control in the form of hyper-policing and mass incarceration of people of color, which increasingly includes migrants, and the contraction of language we can use to talk about racism (Murakawa and Beckett 2010). Critical race theorists and sociologists have named this contradiction "racism without racists" or color-blind racism (Bonilla-Silva 2017; Lopez 2006).

ICE's story surrounding its "Operation Stolen Promise" appears to be an extension of the racist "law and order" tactic wherein Latinx migrants are increasingly criminalized (e.g., see Armenta 2017). In contrast, the frames used by the private companies reveal another key aspect of immigration control in contemporary U.S.—its neoliberal transformation (Silva 2016). The "racial neutrality" in their story appears to stem not from the legal system but from the market. The divergence between ICE and the private prison companies in their presentation of the pandemic might lead one to think that their logics are parallel alternatives. Yet, considering how closely they must work with one another to enable immigration detention, we should see these stories as complementary and as a clear illustration of how, under a neoliberal paradigm, governmentality becomes infused with market logic (Peters 2006). Therefore, the campaign for "law and order" is not only a racial project but also a capitalist enterprise, constituting the contemporary chapter of the long history of interdependence between capitalism and racism (Alexander 2012). In short, through examining how racial apathy and white ignorance manifest in frames around immigration detention during a pandemic, our research threaded together the two pillars of racialized immigration enforcement—white supremacy and capitalism—and exemplified how violence against migrants is tolerated, justified, and normalized in these intersecting systems of oppression.

Although our results imply that the pandemic did not lead to significant cracks in the system, the cracks may ye<sup>t</sup> arrive and cracks may exist in other arenas. The ACLU did not meaningfully change in response to the pandemic in terms of its arguments concerning immigration detention, at least during our study's time frame. Although the organization has not ye<sup>t</sup> recommended (that we are aware of) abolishing ICE, ending immigration detention, or closing the more than 200 ICE facilities nationwide, in an April 2021 press release, it recommended the closure of 39 ICE detention facilities (ACLU Staff 2021a). ACLU reiterated and expanded upon this press release in a May 2021 report, recommending that the DHS "close detention facilities located in remote areas, opened without clear justification, and those with established records of abuse" and replace them with "community-based case management," run by nonprofit organizations (ACLU Staff 2021b). Additionally, in 2021, ACLU called for transformative change in other arenas, and it linked racism and immigration detention. Through avenues outside of press releases and blogs, the ACLU publicized its support for reparations and for abolishing the police (ACLU Staff 2021c; Fernandez 2021), and it connected ICE and law enforcement in documents other than press releases (Mukpo 2020). Future research could analyze if ACLU continues to recommend more radical change and to target structural racism as the root cause of the violations of immigrant rights.

We chose to focus on the ACLU as a major critic of immigration detention practices due to the organization's large scale of coverage of such practices and the frequency with which media outlets reference the organization. Yet ACLU's politics are also limited by these characteristics: It is outwardly opposed to detention practices that violate immigrants' rights, not the practice of immigration detention itself. While this might be a strategic choice not fully reflective of the intentions of the actors within the organization, it is nonetheless the outward facade of the organization and it contributes to public discourses about migrants and immigration control. Other organizations and movements grounded in intellectual traditions that are more explicit in their systemic critique of the root causes of migration

and migrant suffering exist. For example, the Detention Watch Network has published several reports explicitly calling for the abolishment of the U.S. immigrant detention system, many of which have recently connected this call for action to the pandemic by pointing to the inhumane and unsafe treatment migrants have experienced in detention during the pandemic. Likewise, the Occupy ICE protest movement, which began in Portland, Oregon, in 2018, placed the dissolution of ICE at the forefront of their demands. The initial protest in Portland generated similar "occupations" of immigrant detention centers across the nation. A systematic, longitudinal examination of more radical organizations and collective action was beyond the scope of the current investigation, but it is, nonetheless, important and worthy of study. As we have witnessed in recent years, at least some ideas from radical movements are being introduced to mainstream audiences. A glimpse of this change can indeed be found in the ACLU's response to policing and reparations. A study of this process could very well demonstrate that the pandemic and additional contextual factors loosened the foundation of immigration control as well.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, K.E., W.L., J.R.H. and E.P.E.; Methodology, K.E., W.L., J.R.H. and E.P.E.; Software, K.E., W.L., J.R.H. and E.P.E.; Validation, J.R.H.; Formal Analysis, K.E., W.L., J.R.H. and E.P.E.; Investigation K.E., W.L., J.R.H. and E.P.E.; Data Curation, J.R.H.; Writing— Original Draft Preparation, K.E., W.L., J.R.H. and E.P.E.; Writing—Review & Editing, K.E., W.L., J.R.H. and E.P.E.; Supervision, K.E.; Project Administration, J.R.H.; Funding Acquisition, K.E., W.L. and E.P.E. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the National Science Foundation gran<sup>t</sup> number #SES-1850712, 2019–2021.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of North Carolina State University (protocol code 15450 and date of approval 20 July 2020).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not Applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available through a repository because all sources are publicly available directly from the data sources.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
