Carceral maneuvers, carceral distractions: Analyzing the retraction and expansion of Canada's power to detain non-citizens

This article traces the Canada Border Services Agency's (CBSA) turn to federal prisons in response to all 10 Canadian provinces ending their immigration detention arrangements with the CBSA by 2025. We analyze the CBSA's insistence that additional carceral spaces are needed to manage a small but persistent population of “high risk detainees” deemed unsuitable for confinement in one of its immigration holding centers. We situate this current turn to federal prisons within the broader context of Canadian immigration detention reform and the productive power of racialized risk thinking to justify carceral solutions to unwanted non-citizens, arguing that moments of reform “victory,” while important and often necessary, may offer distraction from the carceral state's power to ensure its capacity to detain. Drawing on Gurusami et al.'s conceptualization of “carceral distractions,” we bring an abolition feminist analysis to these reform efforts.