Promoting and Challenging Immigration Detention in Canada: Understanding the Role of Advocacy Coalition Groups in Canada’s Immigration Detention Policy Subsystem

Advocacy coalition groups such as closed border supporters and open border advocates play a role in Canada’s immigration detention policy subsystem. Using political mobilization, they exploit pathways of policy change to promote policy objectives which favour or limit policy changes relating to the detention of asylum seekers and irregular migrants for immigration purposes in Canada. This paper investigates the role of actors from opposing advocacy coalition groups in promoting or challenging immigration detention in Canada. The paper adopts the theoretical underpinnings of “Advocacy Coalition Framework” as a lens of analysis to trace the role of advocacy coalition groups in recent history of Canada’s immigration detention policy subsystem. This paper assumes an actor-centric approach with an aim to contribute to current body of knowledge on Canada’s immigration detention policy subsystem. Keywords: immigration detention; open border advocates; closed border supporters; advocacy coalition groups; advocacy coalition framework; Canada; policy subsystem