Recent Country Updates
GDP News & Publications
- PUBLIC FORUM: On 28 March 2012, Michael Flynn, coordinator of the Global Detention Project, participated in a round table discussion organized by the Open Society Foundations' International Migration Initiative titled "Holding Patterns: Can Advocacy Efforts to Reform Migration Detention Inadvertently Lead to the Growth of Detention Regimes?" A recording of the forum is available here. The discussion paper Flynn produced for the meeting, “On the Unintended Consequences of Human Rights Advocacy on Immigration Detention,” is available here.
- NEW DOCUMENTARY: On 6 March 2012, Mariette Grange, a research associate at the Global Detention Project, was an invited speaker for the showing of the documentary film En attente... by Nael Khleifi at the 10th annual International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva.
- PUBLIC SEMINAR: On 8 March 2012, Daniel Wilsher, a senior lecturer at the University of London's City Law School and author of the 2011 book Immigration Detention: Law, History, Politics (Cambridge), will give a presentation at the Graduate Institute on the increasing use of deprivation of liberty to enforce immigration policy and the punitive character of this form of immigration control.
- NEW PUBLICATION: In January 2012, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime released its report, "International Framework for Action to Implement the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol." The report listed the GDP's Michael Flynn as a contributing expert and cited the GDP working paper "Migration and Detention: Mapping the International Legal Terrain."
- IN THE PRESS: In November 2011, L'Hebdo, a popular weekly magazine of Suisse Romande, and the daily Le Courrier both published articles discussing the findings of the Global Detention Project's October 2011 special report on immigration detention practices in Switzerland. This press coverage follows previous media reports by Le Temps, World Radio Switzerland, and the Graduate Institute.
Apropos
“[Immigration] detention is the opposite of criminalization in the sense that it is putting people in prison without using the criminal process. ... The present system we have is one of administrative discretion that allows a vast amount of detention to go on without any proper rules of law and oversight. If there is going to be detention it should be criminal rather than administrative. That would make it much harder to detain. Governments would have to rethink because the criminal process is just a lot more difficult, and more costly, and more demanding.”
Dan Wilsher, Presentation at the Graduate Institute, 8 March 2012.
“The modern prison is assigned the task of administering its inmates’ lives to foster ‘docile and useful bodies.’ … The immigration detention center, by contrast, is a pre-modern prison--nothing more than a site for the punishment and permanent removal of ‘wasted’ bodies.”
Shahran Khasravi, 'Illegal Traveller: An Ethnography of Border (Palgrave 2010)
"Allowing the private sector to run immigration detention will mean ... an ever increasing number of people coming into the system and staying there longer ... as companies seek to maintain and expand their markets."
Stephen Nathan, Presentation at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, 2 March 2010
"Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor’s opinion in the [2009 U.S. Supreme Court] case, Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter, No. 08-678, marked the first use of the term 'undocumented immigrant,' according to a legal database. The term 'illegal immigrant' has appeared in a dozen decisions."
New York Times, 8 December 2009
Featured Countries
Canada
The Canadian Parliament is currently considering controversial “anti-smuggling” legislation which, if adopted, will “put a lot of emphasis on putting people behind bars before they get due process,” in the words of one member of Parliament. The legislation is part of a larger public debate in Canada regarding its social attitudes and legal responses to immigrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. This GDP special report aims to focus attention on one aspect of its immigration policy—detention—which could be significantly impacted by this debate. The report offers a comprehensive review of Canada’s immigration detention regime and attempts to situate its policies and practices in an international context to enable observers, policy makers, and engaged individuals—both in and outside Canada—to better observe how the country stacks up to its peers and the potential ramifications of its political decision-making.
View the report
Switzerland
From its 2005 adoption of a controversial asylum measure—“one of the strictest pieces of legislation in Europe,” according to UNHCR—to its 2009 referendum banning the construction of minarets on mosques, Switzerland’s reaction to immigration has become increasingly antagonistic in recent years. Swiss detention and deporation practices have been duly impacted by this situation. This Global Detention Project special report provides a first-of-its-kind view of the Swiss immigration detention estate. When compared to detention facilities elsewhere in Europe, some Swiss detention sites—like its Frambois facility, located just outside Geneva—have decidedly good reputations for their humane conditions. On the other hand, many Swiss detention practices and policies have been heavily criticized. These include imposing detention regimes on administrative detainees that can be more punitive than those for criminal detainees; the excessive use of force during deportation proceedings, which has led to several deaths in the past decade; and the routine imposition of criminal sanctions for violations of the federal law on foreigners.
Bahamas
Located to the east of the straights separating Cuba and the U.S. state of Florida, the numerous islands that make up the British Commonwealth of the Bahamas have become an important transit area for migrants from Cuba and Haiti, as well as increasingly from African countries. The country's strict immigration laws provide criminal sanctions for status-related violations. Although a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the country has yet to approve legislation providing for asylum. Watchdog groups have reported appalling conditions at the country’s sole dedicated migrant detention facility—the Carmichael Road Detention Centre—and there have been numerous reports of abuse at the facility. Undocumented children are detained pending their removal from the country, as are asylum seekers while their claims are being processed.
United Kingdom
In December 2010, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced that the United Kingdom was eliminating its policy of long-term immigration detention of children, claiming that there had a been "a big culture shift within our immigration system," one which places "values above paranoia over our borders.” Many observers in the UK, however, contest this claim, arguing that much remains to be done to reform the UK immigration detention estate, which has grown exponentially in the last two decades. In 1993, the country had an immigration detention capacity of some 250. By 2003, it was operating seven immigration removal centres with a capacity of approximately 1,600. By 2011, the estate had grown to 15 dedicated facilities with a total estimated capacity of 3,500.
Egypt
Long a lightening rod for criticism because of its treatment of migrants, Egypt is undergoing historic political change, the ramifications of which with respect to the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers remains unclear. Egypt’s policy during the last few decades has been to charge unauthorized migrants with criminal violations stemming from their irregular status and then detain them in prisons alongside hardened criminals and in poor and overcrowded conditions. Among the issues that have spurred international condemnation of the country have been its “shoot-to-stop” policy targeting migrants crossing from Egypt to Israel; denying detained migrants access to appeal; mass forced returns of Eritreans, who face persecution in their country; preventing UNHCR and other rights bodies access to detainees; and the indefinite detention of stateless persons and unregistered asylum seekers.
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