From Minnesota’s Fort Snelling to Japanese internment camps and more recent detention centers, this article reveals how “concentration camps” reflect a longstanding American tradition that continues to evolve.

Internal records depict a makeshift immigration facility known as “Alligator Alcatraz” as an instrument of “psychological warfare.” After a month there, detainee Daniel Ortiz Piñeda had to decide: keep fighting for asylum or walk away to end his confinement.