Immigration, Borders & Human Dignity: Borders, Detention, and Human Rights


Apr 08
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM
University of Richmond, Zoom gathering

At a time when more than 100 million people worldwide are forcibly displaced, the highest number ever recorded, questions about borders, detention, and human rights are not abstract policy debates, but urgent realities shaping human lives across the globe. In the United States, these questions are reflected in ongoing debates over asylum access, border enforcement, and the use of immigration detention, highlighting the complex balance between national policy, legal frameworks, and human dignity. As part of Intersections' April theme, Immigration, Borders & Human Dignity, this session builds on last week’s focus on lived experience by examining the broader systems that define and determine who can cross borders, who is detained, and how dignity is upheld, or challenged, within those processes. Please join us for a conversation on: Borders, Detention, and Human Rights.

Meeting Details

What Will Be Explored

  • The role of borders as political, social, and symbolic boundaries that shape belonging and exclusion
  • The purpose, realities, and debates surrounding immigration detention systems
  • The principles of human rights and how they apply to migration, asylum, and state responsibility
  • The tensions between national sovereignty, enforcement, and human dignity

What Attendees Will Gain

  • A broader understanding of the systems that shape immigration experiences beyond individual policy impacts
  • Insight into differing perspectives on borders, detention, and enforcement
  • A deeper awareness of how human rights frameworks intersect with immigration systems
  • Opportunities to reflect on complex ethical questions related to dignity, belonging, and responsibility

Reflection Questions

We invite you to sit with one or more of these questions before Wednesday, or simply bring them to the conversation:

  1. What does a border represent to you?
  2. What responsibilities, if any, do countries have to people seeking refuge?
  3. How do we define a “humane” border? Is there a version of detention that respects human dignity, or is the concept itself inherently dehumanizing?
  4. How should a society balance its “duty of care” to vulnerable arrivals with its “duty of security” to its current citizens?
  5. If you were responsible for border policy, what “red lines” would you draw regarding the treatment of individuals or families? Why?
  6. How does the use of indefinite detention challenge principles like due process and fairness?
  7. To what extent does a person’s legal status shape how their rights—or their humanity—are recognized?

Please email Dr. Keith W. McIntosh at cio@richmond.edu, for more information about Intersections and to receive the pre-discussion materials for this session.