On the first day of detention, the system assigns each immigrant a unique nine-digit Alien Registration Number, or “A-Number.” In immigration court, each time the immigration judge calls a case, he—and it is almost always a he—reads out the last three digits of the A-Number, instead of the immigrant’s name. Stripping them of their name is one of the earliest, most visible ways in which immigrants are denied their personhood when they arrive in this country. The person becomes a registered alien, and the alien becomes a number.
