In the context of heightened debate around increasingly hostile immigration policies, the detention and deportation of people with long-standing connections to the United Kingdom (UK) have, within the last few years, received public attention. Such individuals—people who were born in or came to the UK as children—make up a significant proportion of the “foreign criminal” population in detention. This article examines how those individuals with long-standing links, who also have criminal convictions, are often “erased” by the British state. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork with men currently and formerly held in immigration removal centers, I argue that institutional failings in immigration and local authority care “guide” some who grow up in the UK toward (and into) the criminal justice system. Shunning responsibility for these failings, the British state enacts a further punishment through immigration detention and attempted deportation. Despite acts that resist and problematize foreignness, detained “Brits” experience specific harms that change the way they feel about identity and belonging in Britain. These processes highlight the ways that national identity and immigration status intersect with class, gender and race to produce traumatic experiences of cultural denationalization.

中文翻译：

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成为移民？边境危害和先前在英国移民遣返中心被定罪的“英国”男子

在围绕日益敌对的移民政策展开激烈辩论的背景下，对与英国 (UK) 有长期联系的人的拘留和驱逐在过去几年中受到了公众的关注。这些人——在英国出生或作为儿童来到英国的人——在被拘留的“外国犯罪”人口中占很大比例。本文探讨了那些有长期联系但也有刑事定罪的个人如何经常被英国政府“抹杀”。通过对目前和以前被关押在移民遣返中心的男性进行的定性实地调查，我认为移民和地方当局关怀方面的制度失误“引导”了一些在英国长大的人走向（并进入）刑事司法系统。逃避对这些失败的责任，英国政府通过移民拘留和驱逐出境企图进一步惩罚。尽管有抵制和质疑外国人的行为，被拘留的“英国人”经历了具体的伤害，这些伤害改变了他们对英国身份和归属感的看法。这些过程突出了民族认同和移民身份与阶级、性别和种族相交的方式，从而产生了文化去民族化的创伤性经历。