The United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other nation — numbers now swelled by waves of immigrant detentions.
Immigrants and incarcerated individuals often are held in the same facilities, managed by the same corporations, and policed by the same personnel, according to Amnesty International — and both sets of detainees are overwhelmingly black and brown. Yet there is little understanding of the connection between the issues.
On February 2 – 3, the Humanities Action Lab at Hunter College will host a two-day convening, “States of Incarceration: Connecting Stories Across Borders and Bars.”
The event will bring faculty members, students, advocates, and justice-impacted individuals from states and localities — including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. — to share first-hand accounts of the explosion of incarceration in their communities and envision how to create public narratives to contest immigration detention and civil incarceration together.
“We are so grateful to be able to bring together this extraordinary group of advocates and educators at such a critical moment, to join our communities’ distinctive historical experience and wisdom together into a national vision for teaching and talking about overincarceration,” said the co-director of HAL, Liz Sevcenko.
Co-Director Regina Campbell said HAL hopes to foster new understandings in classrooms and communities.
“We hope to do that based on truths about what is happening on the ground, the lived expertise and scholarship of local leaders, and the pedagogical experience of educators. These shared narratives will ground a collective response to the assault on both immigrants and those in the criminal legal system,” Campbell said.
The discussions mark the first step in reimaging States of Incarceration, a participatory public-memory project created by more than 1,000 students and justice-impacted people from 28 states. States of Incarceration, a website and traveling exhibition, is now on view at the Leon and Toby Cooperman Library at Hunter’s 68th Street campus.
On February 2, associate professor of sociology at Hunter Calvin Smiley and teams of scholars and community partners from Newark and North Carolina will gather for a panel at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. The panel will reframe the pedagogies that separate immigration and incarceration studies and propose new ways to understand and address the nation’s “carceral excess.”
“Abolition advocates for the elimination of state violence in communities; abolition advocates for investment in both individuals and communities,” Smiley wrote in his book Purgatory Citizenship: Reentry, Race, and Abolition.
On February 3, an East Harlem Community Gathering will take place at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. Presented in collaboration with CENTRO, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, the session focuses on community-led strategies and follows “Building Bridges,” a convening organized by Silberman School of Social Work, CENTRO, and the Humanities Action Lab last April. Visiting national scholars and community leaders from around the country will exchange experiences with East Harlem leaders on the criminalization of Black and Brown communities, and ideas for working together on narratives and pedagogies that refute it.
“Advocates and scholars at the forefront of these issues have been meeting over the past year to think about new approaches to storytelling and ways to center the voices of directly impacted people,” Campbell said. “We see this convening as an opportunity to build solidarity across movements.”
An invitation-only working group for faculty and students will also take place on February 2 from 3 pm to 5 pm.
The “States of Incarceration” public panel at Roosevelt House is the latest installment of Hunter’s Civil Discourse & Intellectual Dialogue series. The series seeks to foster a campus environment of understanding and empathy, provide a platform for thoughtful engagement and bridge-building, and serve as a resource for students and faculty. Recognizing the community's multiple perspectives, the lectures and events delve into critical topics of conflict, identity, and the search for common ground.
SCHEDULE OF PUBLIC EVENTS
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2026
- The Public Panel: "States of Incarceration: Connecting and Contesting Immigrant Detention and Mass Incarceration"
- Time: 6 pm–7:30 pm
- Location: Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College (47-49 E 65th St, New York, NY)
- Details: A high-level panel framed by Hunter faculty featuring teams from across the HAL national network. See speakers here.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2026
- East Harlem Community Gathering: "Building Bridges: States of Incarceration: Connecting and Contesting Immigrant Detention and Mass Incarceration"
- Time: 6 pm–8 pm
- Location: The Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College (2180 Third Ave., at 119th Street)
- Details: Presented in collaboration with CENTRO and following up on April’s “Building Bridges” event, this session focuses on community-led strategies.
- Visiting national scholars and community leaders from around the country will exchange experiences with East Harlem leaders on the criminalization of Black and Brown communities, and ideas for working together on narratives and pedagogies that refute it.
An invitation-only working group for faculty and students, “Teaching and Talking about Immigration Detention and Mass Incarceration,” will also take place on February 2 from 3 pm to 5 pm. RSVP for one or all of the events here.
About the Humanities Action Lab at Hunter College
The Humanities Action Lab is a coalition of universities, issue organizations, and public spaces in 40 cities, led by Hunter College, that collaborates to produce community-curated public humanities projects on urgent social issues.
