COMPLEX surveys the vast system of privately operated prisons which incarcerate migrants and refugees under contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The project compiles both still imagery and 4K video of detention centers across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas.

In 2019 the average daily population in ICE custody reached 50000 with upwards of 70% incarcerated in for-profit facilities. In this landscape, migration and displacement are monetized reducing those seeking refuge to commodity status.

Symbolically, the work of securing the U.S./Mexico border can be read as a culminating act of nation building. Border wall, surveillance infrastructure and detention facilities are the recent, built legacy of that enterprise. Ultimately the project suggests the pervasiveness of the border security industrial complex in the American geography.