In recent years, scholars have drawn attention to the myriad ways in which the lines between criminal enforcement and immigration control have blurred in law and public discourse.  Some commentators even resist the very term "detention" as misplaced, masking circumstances approximating criminal "incarceration" or "imprisonment."  In response, the Obama Administration has pledged reforms to reconstruct this regime as a "truly civil detention system."  This Essay considers the possibilities and limits of these proposals, situating detention within the broader convergence of immigration control and criminal enforcement.  Notwithstanding the proposed reforms, the expansion of enforcement means that DHS will continue to detain noncitizens, in the words of a senior official, "on a grand scale"—which will significantly constrain its ability to dismantle the more quasi-punitive features of the detention regime.  While excessive detention conditions may well be tempered for many individuals, large-scale immcarceration seems here to stay for the foreseeable future.  

In recent years, scholars have drawn attention to the myriad ways in which the lines between criminal enforcement and immigration control have blurred in law and public discourse.  Some commentators even resist the very term "detention" as misplaced, masking circumstances approximating criminal "incarceration" or "imprisonment."  In response, the Obama Administration has pledged reforms to reconstruct this regime as a "truly civil detention system."  This Essay considers the possibilities and limits of these proposals, situating detention within the broader convergence of immigration control and criminal enforcement.  Notwithstanding the proposed reforms, the expansion of enforcement means that DHS will continue to detain noncitizens, in the words of a senior official, "on a grand scale"—which will significantly constrain its ability to dismantle the more quasi-punitive features of the detention regime.  While excessive detention conditions may well be tempered for many individuals, large-scale immcarceration seems here to stay for the foreseeable future.