The Marshall Project is updating the language we use for places where people are confined for immigration enforcement. When we need a shorthand term, we recommend “immigrant camp.” If the place is a jail or prison, we suggest “immigrant jail” or “immigrant prison.” Those labels are just a starting point: Our reporting must also explain who is held there, under what authority, who runs the place and what conditions are like.
At The Marshall Project, our mission is to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice and immigration systems. The language we use in our reporting is central to that goal, as it shapes how readers view the people affected by the system. But we know that language evolves alongside laws and public understanding. Our internal discussions about our standards always consider whether our word choices are clear, accurate and fair. And we seek to choose words that describe the system clearly, without adopting its jargon and euphemisms that can obscure its effects.
For years, The Marshall Project has emphasized “people-first language,” recognizing that people are more than what the criminal justice system has accused them of doing and more than what it has done to them. We avoid reducing someone to their arrest or conviction: We choose “incarcerated people” instead of “inmates,” and describe someone’s conviction instead of labeling them a “convict” or “felon.”
That same principle informs our coverage of immigration enforcement and detention. Although this enforcement is largely governed by civil law, it has become increasingly intertwined with the criminal justice system, with the government using criminal justice infrastructure — policing, prosecution, surveillance, prisons and jails — to enforce it.
The language used by the government to describe immigration enforcement can therefore reinforce the idea that immigrants are inherently criminal. Some immigration violations, like improper entry, can be prosecuted as crimes, but being in the United States without legal status is not itself a criminal offense. For decades, government officials and politicians have used terms like “illegal aliens” or “criminal aliens” to justify punitive immigration policies. Since President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025, he and his administration have intensified this rhetoric as part of their effort to detain and deport more people.
In our immigration coverage, we use language to distinguish between civil immigration detention and confinement related to criminal charges or convictions. When referring to people who are in custody under civil immigration authority, rather than describing them by the facility where they are held, we use “people in immigrant detention,” “people held in immigrant detention,” “people detained by ICE,” “people held by ICE” or “immigrants held by ICE.” These phrases describe a person’s custody; our reporting must also explain the legal basis for holding them. We use “people without legal status” or “without proper documentation” only when that description is accurate and relevant. In later references, we may use “detainees” for shorthand.
What should we call the places where immigrants are held?
The United States has a long record of using opaque language to sanitize cruelty and other abuses by the government. During and after World War II, the government described the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans as “evacuation” or “relocation.” “Internment” later became the common term, implying the legal detention of “alien enemies” from nations hostile to the United States. In recent decades, historians have rejected that framing because most of the people imprisoned were U.S. citizens and were never charged with crimes. The Associated Press now recommends “incarceration” to describe the experience of Japanese Americans at that time.
Today, immigration enforcement agencies have confined tens of thousands of people in federal facilities, private prisons and local jails, often without criminal charges. News coverage and court records have documented overcrowding, inadequate medical care, limited access to lawyers and other abuses at some of these sites. Official names such as “processing center” and “shelter” can disguise that reality.
Terminology like “detention center” is also worth scrutiny. “Detention” tells us that people are being held, but “center” can make a jail, prison or warehouse sound like a neutral administrative facility. We’ll avoid those words except as part of a facility’s official name. Even then, we’ll strive to explain what kind of facility it is, who is confined there and under what conditions.
We arrived at “immigrant camp” after considering what the available terms convey and what they leave out. We also consulted several experts, like journalist John Washington, who recently made a case for the term over “detention center.” Although “camp” may bring tents to mind, we also use it to describe other seemingly temporary places of confinement, such as barracks and warehouses. We chose “immigrant,” rather than “immigration,” to keep the focus on the people being confined, rather than the government system confining them.
Because these labels don’t tell readers everything they need to know, we will be as specific as possible about why people are held there — for example, whether it’s under civil immigration authority or in connection to a criminal charge. We’ll also describe who operates the facility and the conditions documented there. Accordingly, we will use “detained” or “held” as verbs, or “jailed” or “incarcerated” if the facilities are jails or prisons.
Our change in terminology reflects that broader categories of people have been subjected to immigrant confinement during the second Trump administration, not simply a judgment that conditions have become harsher, or that detention has become more common.
When, if ever, is “concentration camp” appropriate?
As part of our review, we grappled with one of the toughest language questions we’ve had to consider: When, if ever, is “concentration camp” appropriate? Does the term more accurately describe the places where the United States holds immigrants today, particularly when large numbers of people are detained based on their identity, rather than a criminal conviction, and without due process? In her Marshall Project story earlier this year, reporter Katie Moore outlined those arguments in more detail.
Any use of “concentration camp” must reckon with its connection to the Holocaust and the Nazis' persecution of Jews and other groups during World War II. Some people associate the term exclusively with the killing centers of Nazi Germany and consider its use in other contexts disrespectful. It’s also often misleadingly used as a loose analogy or a rhetorical intensifier, further complicating its meaning.
Historians, such as those at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, draw important distinctions that are often lost in public discussion. The Holocaust Museum distinguishes between death camps, which were specifically designed for systematic killing, and concentration camps. The term “concentration camp” long predates the Nazi regime and has been used to describe systems or places of mass civilian detention without due process that existed in several countries and time periods, including in the United States.
For The Marshall Project, the question is not just whether the term accurately describes a facility or whether readers might misunderstand it. We must also consider whether using the phrase clarifies, rather than distracts, from the reporting. Our goal is to use terms that most accurately describe the system we’re reporting on — and to give readers the context they need to understand it.
That’s why The Marshall Project will not use “concentration camp” as a shorthand or default term to describe places that confine immigrants. It requires precision, context and thoughtful editorial judgment. However, we may identify a particular facility as a concentration camp in our own reporting, with editorial approval, when the evidence supports that conclusion. We would not call a facility a concentration camp simply because conditions there are harsh or resemble conditions at historical camps. As author Andrea Pitzer has argued, the question is less about a camp’s conditions than it is about the basis and nature of confinement: who is held, why they are held and what opportunity they have to challenge it. Inhumane conditions and deaths are important to report, but they are not required for the term to apply. If a source uses the term, that also does not mean that it is accurate. Our reporting should establish that civilians are being confined in large numbers without criminal convictions because they belong, or are perceived to belong, to a particular group. We should consult credible scholarship and provide sufficient historical context to help readers understand the term.
How we define these terms
Immigrant camp: A place where civilians are confined for immigration enforcement purposes. We say “immigrant,” rather than “immigration,” to center the people being held, even though U.S. citizens and people with legal protections might also be held there. “Camp” may refer to a tent compound, barracks or a warehouse, and it may be run by the government or a private company.
Immigrant jail/prison: A jail or prison used to confine people under civil immigration authority on behalf of the federal government, rather than because of a criminal conviction.
Concentration camp: A place where civilians are detained en masse, typically based on political, racial, ethnic or religious identity. Historically, people were detained in concentration camps without criminal charges or trial, even when a government had authorized their detention by law or decree. While inhumane conditions and deaths are common, they are not necessary for a facility to be considered a concentration camp.
Killing center / extermination camp / death camp: A facility designed for systematic mass murder. This is different from a concentration camp, in which the primary function was detention and forced labor — although historical concentration camps were also deadly: Hundreds of thousands of people died or were killed through starvation, disease, torture and executions. The categories can overlap: Auschwitz functioned as both a concentration camp and a killing center.
Examples in practice:
- At least 300 people arrested in the Chicago area during ICE’s 2025 raids passed through the immigrant jail at Indiana’s Clay County Justice Center. The county jail added a 285-bed wing to hold people for ICE.
- People arrested in Chicago last year were transferred to Camp East Montana in Texas, an immigrant camp largely made up of windowless tents in El Paso’s Fort Bliss military base.
Bottom line
No label can concisely communicate everything readers need to know about immigration enforcement. The terms The Marshall Project has decided upon are based on our reporting, and we will continue to refine them as the immigration enforcement system and the public’s understanding of it evolve. What will remain constant is our obligation to tell readers, as clearly and precisely as possible, who is being confined, where they are being held and under what conditions.