Facing deportation in the UK: processes, trajectories, and experiences of carceral control

People facing deportation as ‘Foreign National Offenders’ (FNOs) are demonised as dangerous ‘foreign criminals’, and subject to overlapping supervision and control through the criminal justice and immigration systems. This thesis investigates how people come to face deportation as FNOs; and trajectories and experiences of deportation proceedings and carceral control. Through a qualitatively focussed, empirical study of deportation and incarceration for FNOs, this research extends understanding of the operation and experiences of crimmigration and bordered penality in the UK. First, I unpack the processes by which the criminal justice and immigration systems work together to render racialised non-nationals criminalised and deportable, contributing to literature positioning race as central to analysis of these systems. Second, I demonstrate that the implementation of deportation is patchy and uneven, examining the role of xeno-racism in the overrepresentation of European nationals in deportation figures. Third, I investigate the specificities in experiences of incarceration for FNOs, proposing that constructions of ‘criminality’ result in this group being subject to particularly restrictive forms of carceral control and providing new insights into the probation service’s role in UK crimmigration. Fourth, I contribute to emergent critical literature on the community-based supervision of migrants through ‘Alternatives to Detention’ (ATDs) in the UK. Drawing on insights from carceral geography, I analyse ATDs both as a specific form of incarceration which extends control deep into everyday life, and a form of penality exclusively imposed upon nonnationals. Finally, I develop a typology of resistance which recognises that much resistance amongst people facing deportation seeks to challenge their own deportation or incarceration, and often involves costs and trade-offs - extending understandings of resistance in contexts of oppression.

This research is based on qualitative data from 24 participants who have faced deportation in the UK; a review of Home Office guidance and external inspection reports; and analysis of Home Office and Freedom of Information request statistical data. It is undertaken in collaboration with the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group.