Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts The Concentration Camp Next Door
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Feb 14, 2026 
Andrea Pitzer, journalist and author who studies concentration camps, warns about the ‘warehousification’ of detention. Linus Chan, clinical law professor who represents people held by ICE, explains how habeas has been hollowed out. They discuss sprawling warehouse detention, legal mechanisms enabling mass imprisonment, and grassroots tactics to resist and delay these projects.
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Detention As A Tool, Not Just Process
- Immigration detention now functions as a weapon to push people to self-deport through fear and rapid transfers.
- Linus Chan shows that collapsing norms and expedited removals magnify harm and strip procedural safeguards.
Protect Immediate Attorney Access
- Ensure detained people can contact attorneys quickly and impose time limits on transfers to preserve counsel access.
- Judge Nancy Brasel's TRO requiring 72-hour access exemplifies how procedural fixes can matter on the ground.
Clients Vanish During Rapid Transfers
- Linus Chan recounts clients processed and flown across the country within hours, with family unable to locate them.
- He describes calling ICE numbers that go unanswered while detainees vanish into distant facilities.
