Imagine an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. Is "detention center" the accurate way to describe it?
Political scientists and legal scholars have been asking whether we're using the right language to talk about immigration enforcement. Some argue that calling them "immigrant jails," "immigration camps," or even "concentration camps" is more accurate.
But others say using the term "concentration camp" diminishes the horrors of the Holocaust — the Nazi genocide of Jewish people.
The debate around the language we use to describe immigration is not new. Experts have also considered how to describe the incarceration of Japanese Americans on U.S. soil during World War II.
On KPBS Midday Edition, we sit down with three experts to help us unpack this debate and help us understand the weight of our language.
Guests:
- Tom Wong, associate professor of political science, UC San Diego; director of U.S. Immigration Policy Center
- Raquel Aldana, professor of law, UC Davis
- Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien, professor of political science, San Diego State University; editor of Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics
Keep reading:
- When do ‘detention centers’ become ‘concentration camps’? Experts look to history
- When immigration detention becomes a system of concentration: Lessons from research on 150 historical cases
- This Isn't The 1st Time Americans Have Debated What To Call Detention Centers
- Concentration Camps Are Older Than World War II
- One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps
- Amid escalating medical concerns, Otay Mesa Detention Center faces a question of oversight