Author of Book on American Immigration Prisons to Speak at UB Feb. 9
January 31, 2006
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
Journalist Mark Dow, author of American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons, will speak on the growing issue of immigration detention in a special event on Thursday, Feb. 9 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Langsdale Library Auditorium, 1420 Maryland Ave. in Baltimore. The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Immigrant Rights Project.
Dow, a freelance reporter and poet, has written for the Miami Herald, The Progressive, Boston Review, Index on Censorship, Prison Legal News and several literary publications. He served as co-editor of Machinery of Death: The Reality of America's Death Penalty Regime.
American Gulag looks at the decades-long history of a prison system run by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service with little accountability, but sweeping authority. Since the start of the war on terror, new information has come to light about the system, including documented cases of psychological torture, inhumane conditions and irreparable harm done to detainees. The author interviewed prisoners, jailers and whistle-blowing federal officials to describe facilities such as the Krome North Service Processing Center in Miami, the Corrections Corporation of America’s Houston Processing Center and county jails around the country that profit from contracts to hold INS prisoners. American Gulag also contains in-depth profiles of detainees and provides a brief history of the nation’s immigration laws and practices – and how things have changed since Sept. 11.
The book has received critical acclaim across the country, with Newsday calling it “a stunning indictment of a system that has until now largely avoided public scrutiny,” and The New Yorker declaring it “a jarring account of a dangerously arbitrary system.”
Questions about this event may be directed to Helen Harnett, UB School of Law clinical fellow, at 410.837.5732.
The University of Baltimore is an upper-division, graduate and professional university. UB—the state’s career-minded university—is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the School of Law, the Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts and the Merrick School of Business.