In February and March, I spent almost one month traveling throughout Oklahoma documenting the expanding use of immigration detention across the state and how the assault on immigrants by the Trump administration and local law enforcement in Oklahoma is impacting and traumatizing communities.
Much of the country has come to see ICE and immigration enforcement through the tragic events in more liberal spaces like Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. However, an equal (if not greater) form of excessive state-supported violence and terror is happening every day in Republican/Trump-dominated states that most people never see.
In 2026, I have the privilege of having received a 2026 Bertha Challenge Fellowship from the Bertha Foundation. With this fellowship, the spaces I’ve chosen to work in are those places that have eluded the headlines, where everyday, local law enforcement is doing to heavy lifting for DHS/ICE. Where families are being separated on a daily basis. Where hundreds of millions of $$ are being made in a ‘giant wealth transfer’ machine.
THANK YOU to @motherjonesmag for publishing my first major piece from this new work. Thank you @ickibod (Mark Murrmann) for believing in this work. Thank you the Bertha Foundation for this opportunity to work slowly, patiently and immersively. And to so many others. Link in bio!
@immigrationdetention
CCSFPHOTO welcomes Greg Constantine @grconstantine as part of our « Photographers and Their Images” lecture series for Spring 2026.
Free and open to the public.
*Moderated by Prof. Mark Murrmann as part of his class PHOT40 "Social Activism"
*Date: Monday, March 23, 6:30pm PST
*Zoom: https://ccsf-edu.zoom.us/my/markmurrmann
The lecture will be recorded and hosted on vimeo.com/ccsfphoto
Greg Constantine, PhD is an American/Canadian documentary photographer.
He has dedicated his career to long-term, independent projects about underreported or neglected global stories. His work explores the intersection of human rights, inequality, injustice, identity, belonging and the power of the state. He spent over a decade working on the project "Nowhere People," which documented the lives and struggles of stateless communities in nineteen countries around the world.
From 2016 to early 2023, Constantine worked on the project SEVEN DOORS, investigating and exposing the impact of immigration detention on migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia, the US, UK, Mexico and several countries in Europe. The project produced the seven-part, Seven Doors Print Journal.
Expanding on that project, Constantine's current focus is on US immigration detention systems: private prisons, county jails and warehouse facilities. Detainees disappear into this opaque system, designed to strip individuals of their personhood, as well as access to family and legal assistance.
He is the author of three books including: Kenya’s Nubians: Then & Now (2011) and the award winning books: Exiled To Nowhere: Burma’s Rohingya (2012) and the book Nowhere People (2015).
#photography #classes #california #sanfrancisco #publiclecture
7 Doors | Photographs by Greg Constantine
@grconstantine@immigrationdetention
For several decades, immigration detention has been a central component of immigration and asylum policy in the United States.
Today, over 65,000 immigrants are detained each day in the US in an expanding web of prison-like detention centers, state prisons, county jails or other facilities.
My work in the US titled, An American Gulag, presents a multi-layered ‘photographic atlas’ of the US detention system.
🔗 Read the full feature at the link in bio.
So grateful to contribute to: Passages: Artists In Solidarity With Immigrants, Refugees and Asylum Seekers.
Music, poetry, visual arts and documentary photography come together with collective purpose during these turbulent times.
Introduction by National Book Award Winner, Jason De León.
Released Today!!
Huge thanks to producers @erex and @ralverson for bringing us all together!
All proceeds support the work of @americangateways and @casamarianella
Order here:
/album/passages-artists-in-solidarity-with-immigrants-refugees-and-asylum-seekers
PASSAGES is out in the world today. Artists donated all work and labor and fundraised production costs separately to ensure ALL RECORD PROCEEDS support American Gateways and Casa Marianella’s essential work in solidarity with immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. The link to donate in exchange for this beautiful record is in our bio.
Human rights advocates and attorneys founded American Gateways and Casa Marianella in the mid-eighties to support refugees from Central America fleeing war and conflict fueled in part by U.S. interests, arms, military, and taxpayer dollars.
The record insert features this photo from Greg Constantine’s series Seven Doors documenting immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers’ experiences navigating the cruelty of the U.S. detention system. “When I turned myself in at the border I told them I was pregnant. The people at immigration claimed that everything I told them was a lie. I told them about my brother being killed and I was afraid for my life because I was being threatened,” says the 22-year-old from El Salvador, pictured here anonymously to protect her identity. “They started laughing at me and said that everyone comes to them with the same story. I started feeling sick and I told them that I needed help, and they did nothing…The next day I was transported to Otay Mesa Detention Center and they didn’t provide me any medical assistance. Nine days later, they told me that I had just lost my baby.”
PASSAGES artists are welcoming us into their homes to celebrate our human right to seek out that same comfort and safety for ourselves and our families. The songs are also an invitation to reject the racism, fear, and false narratives peddled by a system that stands to profit on division. These songs are dedicated to the staff at American Gateways, Casa Marianella, and all of the organizations in every city and town in this country—to all of you—laboring on behalf of human dignity and defending our collective human right to safe passage and home.
Thank you. Let’s keep going. ⚡️🩵
The deluxe edition is ready to ship! The booklet features writing from National Book Award Winner Jason De León (@roberto_horry ), poetry from National Book Critics Circle Award Winner Ross Gay, photography from Greg Constantine’s (@grconstantine ) essential work documenting immigrants’ experiences navigating U.S. detention, and all song lyrics.
The incredible Mark Strandquist (@mark_aloysious ) designed and printed the booklet at @studiotwothree .
All proceeds from the $50 deluxe edition of the record support American Gateways (@americangateways ) and Casa Marianella’s (@casamarianella ) ability to provide no-to-low cost legal services, food, shelter, access to heath care, and other essential services to immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Link in bio.
Congratulations to Gregory Constantine (@grconstantine ) for being selected for CENTER’s Multimedia Award recognizing the project, Seven Doors: An American Gulag (@centersantafe ).
“Today, immigration detention is a central component of immigration and asylum policy for governments around the world. In the United States, over 46,000 immigrants are detained each day in a web of prison-like detention centers while they wait for their asylum claims to be heard.”
The Multimedia Award recognizes outstanding storytellers using lens-based media to create narrative-driven projects. A huge thank you to our juror, Sam Wolson, Interactives Visual Features Editor, The New Yorker.
Learn more at centersantafe.org/multimediaaward.
An inspiring two weeks in Chiang Mai, Thailand for the first exhibition of Ek Khaale. Lectures. Presentations. Roundtable discussions. And over 10 private small group walkthroughs of the exhibition along with great media coverage. Thank you to @afchiangmai@rcsd.cmu , to all the people who came to the exhibition and to so many others who helped make this exhibition such a success! Next stop…Dhaka!! @ekkhaale
✨ Come Meet Greg✨
💫For nearly two decades, Greg has used photography to amplify the stories of stateless communities.
✊He spent 11 years on Nowhere People, a global project on statelessness, and has been documenting the Rohingya community for 19 years.
💥His latest project, Ek Khaale, breaks new ground in visual storytelling and collaboration with Rohingya worldwide.
📸Through his lens, forgotten voices become impossible to ignore.
🔗 Join us — link in bio.
#GregConstantine #NowherePeople #EkKhaale #StatelessNotVoiceless #VisualJustice
