Deportation Inc. is an ongoing investigative video series by SITU and Lawfare that examines how U.S. immigration enforcement has evolved into a multi-billion-dollar industry shaped by private profit and political power—where contracts, capital flows, and institutional incentives increasingly govern detention, deportation, and surveillance. While walls, checkpoints, and patrols remain the dominant visual shorthand, migrants are caught within increasingly complex and opaque systems of enforcement run and managed by private contractors tasked with everything from guaranteed bed quotas to speculative real estate strategies. Focusing on recent transformations in the immigration enforcement industry, this video series presents a high-yield, profit-generating business model that may be too big to fail. 

The screening will be followed by a conversation between Deportation Inc. producers and immigration experts situating detention sites—from Newark to Guantánamo Bay—within longer histories of privatization, racialized incarceration, jurisdictional maneuvering, and municipal complicity. An audience Q&A will follow.

Panelists

Gauri Bahuguna is a computational designer and researcher based in New York. As Deputy Director at SITU Research, Bahuguna makes complex human rights cases accessible to wider audiences by wrangling large and diverse datasets into visually compelling interactive web platforms or videos. Projects she has led include an investigation on human rights violations against protesters in Sudan and ISIL’s crimes against humanity in Iraq, and Deportation Inc., which examines the border industrial complex. Additionally, Bahuguna has taught at The Cooper Union School of Art and has given lectures at Carnegie Mellon, NYU, and The New School.

Eileen Grench writes about immigration enforcement for Documented. Previously, she covered the impact of the criminal justice and immigration systems on communities in New York City, Houston, and beyond. Grench also worked as an investigative reporting fellow at the Global Migration Project, where she reported for outlets such as The New Yorker, The Intercept, The Nation, and Documented. She was a 2021 Livingston Award finalist for her coverage of inequities in child welfare, and won the Newswomen’s Club of New York Front Page Award in Local Investigative Reporting. Grench graduated from Columbia University School of Journalism and is also an Olympic fencer representing Panamá.

Elora Mukherjee is a globally recognized advocate for immigrants, asylum seekers, and unaccompanied children, and the director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. Since founding the clinic in 2014, she has led efforts on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, including representing detained mothers and children in Texas. For over a decade, she has worked to enforce the Flores Settlement protections for migrant children. Her 2019 reports on inhumane detention conditions drew national outrage and led to congressional testimony. A former ACLU attorney, Mukherjee continues to advance immigrants’ rights through litigation, advocacy, and public engagement.

Jon Nealon is a documentary practitioner combining geospatial analysis and visual storytelling to investigate state violence, migration, and human rights. For over 30 years, he has produced Emmy- and Peabody-nominated work for FRONTLINE/PBS, Al Jazeera, and Human Rights Watch, with geospatial investigations spanning Ukraine, Iraq, and the U.S. immigration system. Nealon’s ongoing collaborations with SITU Research include Deportation Inc. He is completing a master’s degree in GIS at the University of Albany, where his research on spatial journalism methodology and migrant body commodification informs both his academic and investigative practice.

This event will be introduced by Brad Samuels, and the post-screening conversation will be moderated by Tyler McBrien.

Brad Samuels is the founding director of SITU Research, a visual investigations practice merging data and design to create new pathways for justice. His work is focused on the intersection of design, human rights, and technology. Samuels has overseen SITU’s investigations for the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, Human Rights Watch, Associated Press, and many other advocacy and journalism organizations. SITU’s work has received broad recognition, including awards from Scripps Howard, AIANY, and nominations for Emmy and Peabody awards. Samuels has served on the Technology Advisory Board of the ICC and currently serves on the board of The Architectural League of New York. He teaches in the thesis studio at The Cooper Union School of Architecture.

Tyler McBrien is managing editor of Lawfare and the editorial publishing partner for the Deportation Inc. project. He previously worked as an editor at the Council on Foreign Relations and served as a Princeton in Africa Fellow with Equal Education in South Africa. He holds a master’s of arts in international relations from the University of Chicago.

Support

This program is made possible by the members and supporters of The Architectural League of New York. Additional support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The event is co-organized with SITU Research and Lawfare. It is co-presented by e-flux.