What does the world’s largest immigration detention system actually look like? How vast is it?
How does it impact and traumatize people and communities?
What’s really driving the detention of immigrants in the United States?
Who’s profiting from it?
An American Gulag
ABOUT ME: My name is Greg Constantine. I’m a documentary photojournalist and I’ve dedicated my career to award-winning, long-term projects about human rights, inequality, social justice, genocide and the power of the state. These projects include: Nowhere People, Exiled To Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya, Kenya’s Nubians, Ek Khaale and the project Seven Doors, which explores the use of immigration detention in several countries around the world.
I appreciate you taking the time to learn more about my work and especially my plans for next year as I develop this small community of exclusive patrons who help support this project.
ABOUT IMMIGRATION DETENTION: The United States has the largest immigration detention system in the world. Currently, almost 65,000 immigrants are detained per day. Seventy-five percent have no criminal record. Ninety percent of those in immigration detention are held in private prison facilities, owned and operated by for-profit corporations.
During Trump’s 1st term, I spent three years, criss-crossing the US on ten different road trips in an attempt to visualize what this system looks like and tell the stories of people traumatized by the system. Today, immigration is a huge story and already commands significant media coverage. However, important gaps continue to be left behind or abandoned by the mainstream press. It’s in this space where I have always worked best. Throughout 2026, I will build upon this previous work, immerse myself in this story and use photography and visual storytelling to share perspectives of this story that few have the time to ability to commit to.
THE FELLOWSHIP: I have just received a 1-year Fellowship from the Bertha Foundation in the UK. The fellowship starts on January 1, 2026. As many people know, a significant amount of my work over the past 15 years has been supported through securing grants and funding from large and small foundations and institutions. Securing this fellowship is a significant accomplishment as it provides me with a salary for the year. With this personal support secured, I can direct my time and energy toward being in the field, documenting and producing work at a crucially important time.
As part of this fellowship, I also receive a $10K Project Fund. This project funding helps support some costs related to creating the work but much of it will be dedicated to the production of a culminating product such as: an exhibition, development of dedicated website, etc.
THE PROJECT: During my fellowship year, I will build upon the work I created from 2017-2022. I’ll expand the ‘photographic atlas’ I’ve already started, which exposes the geography and architecture of this vast immigration detention system. In 2026, I will also investigate and visualize how businesses, large corporations & local governments profit from immigration detention, and how big tech facilitates in creating a climate of fear, racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. More importantly, through personal stories of trauma, resilience, courage, love and resistance, the work will share the impact detention has on individuals, families and entire communities.
THE WORK: Over the course of 2026, I will make several long reporting trips to various regions/states in the US. These trips will produce photographs of large detention centers and county jails that currently detain immigrants for ICE/DHS. Environmental audio and video will be collected, and I’ll conduct more interviews with individuals, families, lawyers and those working on the front lines to assist people in detention. A series of photo essays will humanize the impact of detention. To accomplish this, I will use a large network of new and existing contacts I have throughout the country.
WHAT’S NEEDED: I am trying to secure an additional $25K of funding. At least $10K of this funding I hope to secure through the support of a very small community of between ten to fifteen exclusive patrons, like you!
Your support will specifically be used to cover the additional Direct Costs needed to carry out this work throughout 2026. This includes travel expenses such as: hotels/motels, flights, car rental and gas. It will also contribute toward purchasing film, development, lab costs for scanning and translations.
BUILDING A SMALL COMMUNITY: Over the course of 2026, I’d like to share the progress of the work with you and this small community of supporters, as well as my experiences, challenges and observations working in the field. This will be done through a series of personal and/or group video ‘Dispatches’ throughout the year. I’ll organize these ‘Dispatches’ during these reporting trips, while I’m editing work, working on website design, curating an exhibition or exploring other initiatives for the work to engage with a wider audience. I will also share exclusive materials with you and the others and provide a behind-the-scenes look into the development of this project.
JOIN AND SUPPORT:
Become one of these exclusive patrons! Or for someone you know who would be interested in this project, you can ‘Gift’ them your donation so they are the one who joins this small community of supporters.
Your support/donation will be made through my fiscal sponsorship with the US non-profit organization, CENTER Santa Fe, a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the US supporting lens-based projects through education, public platforms, funding, and partnerships.
For US citizens and US residents, your donation is fully tax-deductible.
Donations can be made using Credit or Debit Cards or through a PayPal account.
Ambitious work like this requires bold supporters who believe in the project’s potential to have impact today and in the future. If you would like to become a supporter of and contribute to this work, please … If you have any questions, please feel free to email me directly at: grconstantine@gmail.com. Thank you again and I greatly appreciate your time, interest and support of my work.
Benefit albums, awards, podcasts, lectures, print initiatives, pop-up exhibitions and creative collaborations! Below shares some examples of how my work on immigration detention has engaged with audiences in the US and beyond.
PASSAGES:
Artists in Solidarity with Immigrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers
PASSAGES is a benefit album in solidarity with immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers in the United States. Music, visual arts, photography, poetry and writing come together with collective purpose. Photographs of immigration detention from the project Seven Doors are used throughout and in the Limited Edition booklet. All proceeds support the work of American Gateways and Casa Marianella.
RELEASED DECEMBER 5, 2025
2025 Multimedia Award
Juror’s Statement:
In honoring Greg Constantine’s project Seven Doors with the Multimedia Award, I recognize not only its ambitious use of storytelling tools—including photography, video, audio interviews, statistics, mapping, and a uniquely conceived truck-based traveling exhibition—but also its rigorous reporting and deep commitment to its mission.
When paired with the voices of those directly impacted, the understated images of detention centers gain both emotional and political weight. Lived experience brings the vastness of these systems—structural and ideological—into alarming focus.
Seven Doors rises to meet the challenges of our time, when issues of migration, human rights, and detention demand thoughtful, unflinching engagement.
Juror
Sam Wolson, Interactives Visual Features Editor, The New Yorker
Austin Kocher Podcast
Behind the Lens: A Conversation with Greg Constantine
DECEMBER 18, 2024
VISA POUR L’IMAGE
International Festival of Photojournalism
Evening Screening Program
Perpignan, France
SEPTEMBER 5, 2024
GRESHAM COLLEGE
THE HUMAN COST OF IMMIGRATION DETENTION
GRESHAM COLLEGE VISITING LECTURE SERIES
MARCH 2024
WATCH THE FULL LECTURE BELOW
SEVEN DOORS JOURNAL
SEVEN DOORS Journal is an independently published initiative of the project released as a way to inform and encourage discussion and debate for the public, human rights organizations, the legal community, activists, educators and students
From 2018 - 2023, over 2,600 free copies were provided to readers, activists, lawyers, universities and those working or volunteering at non-profit organizations in over ten countries.
POP-UP EXHIBITIONS
In 2022, a series of five pop-up exhibitions...utilizing a 26ft-long truck...were held in Portland (OR), Tacoma (WA), Seattle (WA) and El Paso (TX). These pop-up exhibitions provided a new visual translation of the immigration detention system in the US.
The inside walls of the truck were transformed into a gallery space, including a 24ft-long visual atlas of photographs and data of nearly 60 detention centers across the US. Audio points in the map shared the voices of individuals talking about immigration detention in the US. The outside of the truck was used to display photographs and show a projection of images in the evening.
IMMIGRANT MASS
By composer: Carlos Jaquez Gonzalez
Greg Constantine - Visuals & Interviews
Online premier: MAY 21, 2021
Live Premier: NOVEMBER 4, 2021, Ganz Hall, Chicago
The six movement Immigrant Mass is a fusion of the mass ordinary by Chicago-based composer Carlos Jaquez Gonzalez. The composition includes immigrant experiences and photography collected by documentary photographer Greg Constantine from the project Seven Doors and the photo-testimonial essay American Gulag. Immigrant Mass was first released as an online multimedia film. It is a mixed-media performance reflecting the lives and struggles of those who have sought better lives in America and the impact of immigration detention. Soloists incorporate parts of testimonials gathered from the project Seven Doors.
Carlos Jaquez Gonzalez premiered his Immigrant Mass multimedia film online on May 22, 2021. The film was performed by the Chicago Composers Orchestra, Roosevelt University Conservatory Choir, led by Dr. Cheryl Frazes-Hill and soloists.
On November 4, 2021, Immigrant Mass was performed to a live audience of over 200 people in Ganz Hall at Roosevelt University in Chicago. The live performance was the final program of Roosevelt University’s the American Dream Reconsidered Conference. The performance was conducted by Dr. Cheryl Frazes-Hill and performed by the Roosevelt University Conservatory Choir and Orchestra.
‘How a Haunting exhibit on immigration led a Roosevelt University student to create a multimedia ‘Mass’ on the horrors of ICE Detention.’
Hannah Edgar,
Chicago Tribune,
May 12, 2021
TRUMP REVOLUTION
BRONX DOCUMENTARY CENTER
GROUP EXHIBITION
CINTHYA SANTOS-BRIONES, GREG CONSTANTINE, KHOLOOD EID, JIM GOLDBERG, JOHN MOORE, LUIS ANTONIO ROJAS,
GRISELDA SAN MARTIN, LAURA SAUNDERS & MAGNUM PHOTOS
FEBRUARY 15 - MARCH 29, 2020
Trump Revolution: Immigration, examines the current president’s role in overturning decades of immigration policy in the United States—and the profound effects of that upheaval on American society and the lives of millions of immigrants.
…Ultimately, this exhibition seeks neither to comfort nor explain, but instead offers a tapestry of impressions so that visitors may bear witness to this administration’s actions and ask each other what it means to call America home.
Bronx Documentary Center
“Greg Constantine produced Seven Doors: American Gulag… A photo series on migrants’ detention centers. In a raw, realistic monochrome, he captures these spaces, lost in isolated territories – the facilities are built there to be out of sight from the American public, thus making difficult any contact with a family or a lawyer – and captures the dehumanization of inmates. A brave project, raising awareness.”
Lou Tsatsas, Fisheye Magazine
DETAINED
STORIES OF IMMIGRATION DETENTION
GAGE GALLERY
ROOSEVELT UNIVERSITY, CHICAGO
OCTOBER 17, 2019 - MARCH 29, 2020
The exhibition DETAINED: Stories of Immigration Detention include large scale panoramas of detention centers around the country, as well as audio accounts taken from interviews recorded by the photographer from individuals who were detained and/or deported. The transcribed interviews are read by Roosevelt University students, and are playing on a loop in the gallery during the exhibition.
