May 7 at e-flux | Screening & Conversation | Deportation Inc.: Investigating the Business of Migrant Detention

Thursday, May 7 | 7:00pm (EST)

This is an in-person event at e-flux Screening Room located 172 Classon Ave, Brooklyn, New York City, 11205

Presented in partnership with e-flux, SITU Research, Lawfare, and The Architectural League of New York. Tickets are free for League members; $20 general admission. Tickets available here.

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 the transformations to the immigration enforcement industry powered by legislation like Trump’s so-called “One, Big Beautiful Bill,” 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 situating detention sites—from Newark to Guantánamo Bay—within longer histories of privatization, racialized incarceration, jurisdictional maneuvering, and municipal complicity. The program will feature an introduction by Brad Samuels, Director of SITU Research, with a post-screening conversation moderated by Tyler McBrien, Managing Editor at Lawfare, with Eileen Grench, journalist at Documented NY, Elora Mukherjee, Director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, Gauri Bahuguna, Deputy Director at SITU Research, and filmmaker Jon Nealon.

For more information about the program and accessibility at e-flux, please visit their website here.

Speakers:

Gauri Bahuguna is a computational designer and researcher based in New York. As Deputy Director at SITU Research, Gauri 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, ISIL’s crimes against humanity in Iraq, and Deportation Inc., which examines the border-industrial complex. Additionally, Gauri 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. Eileen 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. Eileen 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 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, she 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 US immigration system. His ongoing collaborations with SITU Research includes Deportation Inc., examining immigration enforcement networks. He is completing a Masters 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.

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, The 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 an MA in international relations from the University of Chicago.

This program launches an ongoing event series organized by SITU and Lawfare as part of Deportation Inc.: The Rise of the Immigration Enforcement Economy, featuring screenings and public conversations in New York City, Washington, D.C., and at the University of Chicago’s Global Human Rights Clinic. Future episodes and events on deportation and surveillance will follow in 2026.