Sign-In
Cart
Legal Care: Advocacy and Friction in Family Detention
Paperback
General LawImmigration & RefugeesSocial Movements
ISBN13: 9780816555734
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: Sep 8 2026
Pages: 292
Weight: 1.01
Height: 0.79 Width: 6.08 Depth: 8.99
Language: English
Family detention garnered much public attention when it expanded dramatically in 2014 as significantly increased numbers of migrant groups began arriving and requesting asylum at the Mexico-U.S. border. During this period, the Obama administration designated three detention facilities, two in South Texas, to hold such families while they underwent part of the asylum legal process. One became the largest immigrant detention facility in the country.
In Legal Care anthropologist Erin Routon explores the operations of these facilities through the unique perspectives of volunteer legal advocates. Routon offers a compelling ethnographic account of the hidden labor and emotional resilience of those advocates. Through the lens of legal care, Routon reframes legal aid as a form of caregiving, revealing how these advocates resist the structural and legal violence of family detention while supporting asylum-seeking parents and children. Drawing on immersive fieldwork and firsthand narratives, the book exposes the human cost of administrative incarceration and the quiet power of care in spaces designed to exclude.
Timely, urgent, and deeply humane, this work speaks to scholars and practitioners across anthropology, law and society, migration studies, and carceral justice. Routon's accessible and evocative writing invites readers to reconsider activism and advocacy, offering new language for understanding resistance and solidarity in the face of institutional violence. This book is essential reading for anyone committed to justice, care, and the future of immigration policy in the United States.
Also from
Routon, Erin
Also in
Social Movements
Urban Revolutions: Urbanisation and (Neo-)Colonialism in Transatlantic Context
Kipfer, Stefan
Paperback
In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Iton, Richard
Paperback
By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution
Talbot, David
Talbot, Margaret
Hardcover
Revolution and Its Alternatives: Other Marxisms, Other Empowerments, Other Priorities
Brass, Tom
Paperback
Turning the Tide: U.S. Intervention in Central America and the Struggle for Peace
Chomsky, Noam
Paperback
With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful
Greenwald, Glenn
Hardcover
Doing History from the Bottom Up: On E.P. Thompson, Howard Zinn, and Rebuilding the Labor Movement from Below
Lynd, Staughton
Paperback
They Stole a City: Wilmington's White Supremacist Coup and the Families Who Live with Its Legacy
Collins, Lauren
Hardcover
How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington
Chatelain, Marcia
Hardcover
Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home
Grant, Stephen Starring
Paperback
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement
Davis, Angela Y.
Paperback
Exceptional Hatred: Antisemitism and the Fight Over Free Speech in Modern America
Loeffler, James
Hardcover
Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care
Hayes, Kelly
Kaba, Mariame
Paperback
Socialism: The Real History from Plato to the Present: How the Deep State Capitalizes on Crises to Consolidate Control [With Paperback Book]
Federer, William J.
Paperback
America in 25 Revolutions: The Story of Our Imperfect Nation's 250-Year Quest to Become a More Perfect Union
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth
Fowler, Jermaine
Paperback
Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea's Personality Cult
Cheng, Jonathan
Hardcover
Killed to Order: China's Organ Harvesting Industry and the True Nature of America's Biggest Adversary
Jekielek, Jan
Hardcover
I Won't Pretend These Missiles Are Stars: Life in Iran During the 12-Day War
Collective, The Cartoonist
Paperback
Searching for Jane Crow: Black Women and Mass Incarceration in America from the Auction Block to the Cell Block
Leflouria, Talitha L.
Hardcover
Handbook for the Revolution: Building a More Perfect Union for the Twenty-First Century
Palmer, Derrick
Hardcover
In Sickness and in Health: Love Stories from the Front Lines of America's Caregiving Crisis
Mauldin, Laura
Hardcover
A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children
Gilliland, Haley Cohen
Paperback
Irresistible Revolution: Marxism's Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military
Lohmeier, Matthew
Hardcover
The Death of Trotsky: The True Story of the Plot to Kill Stalin's Greatest Enemy
Ireland, Josh
Hardcover
Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town
Hayden, Michael Edison
Hardcover
Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home
Grant, Stephen Starring
Hardcover
The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America
Rosen, Jeffrey
Hardcover
Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence
Ghodsee, Kristen R.
Paperback
This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible
Cobb, Charles E., Jr.
Paperback
College Girl, Missing: The True Story of How a Young Woman Disappeared in Plain Sight
Cohen, Shawn
Paperback
How We Get Free (Updated 2nd Edition): Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta
Paperback
We've Been Here Before: How Rebellion and Activism Have Always Sustained America
Days, Michael I.
Dodson, Angela P.
Hardcover
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (20th Anniversary Edition)
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Nonviolent Techniques to Galvanize Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply
Miller, Matthew
Popovic, Srdja
Paperback
We Are Heirs of the World's Revolutions: Speeches from the Burkina Faso Revolution 1983-87
Sankara, Thomas
Paperback
Black Marxism, Revised and Updated Third Edition: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
Robinson, Cedric J.
Paperback
The Myth of Red Texas: Cowboys, Populism, and Class War in the Radical South
Griscom, David
Paperback
Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism - A Popular Outline: Unabridged with original tables and footnotes (Aziloth Books)
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich
Paperback
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Paperback
Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do
Terkel, Studs
Paperback
Against the State: Anarchists and Comrades at War in Spain, Myanmar, and Rojava
Stout, James
Paperback
As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake
Paperback
Moon U.S. Civil Rights Trail: A Traveler's Guide to the People, Places, and Events That Made the Movement
Moon Travel Guides
Douglas, Deborah D.
Paperback
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)
Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O.
Paperback
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
Incite!, Incite! Women of Color Against
Paperback
Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too
Oluo, Ijeoma
Paperback
Trade Up: Why the Future Belongs to Skilled Trades and How Career Education is Transforming the Workforce
Burr, Riley
Altmire, Jason
Paperback
The Dark Side of France: A History of the French Far Right from the 1890s to the Present
O'Doherty, Enda
Hardcover
Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better
Pahlka, Jennifer
Paperback
The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America
Witt, John Fabian
Hardcover