NEWSLETTER: July/August 2019

OUR LATEST PUBLICATIONS

Immigration Detention in Cyprus: Reception Challenges in Europe’s New Gateway

Although the Republic of Cyprus is one of only a small number of EU member states that have yet to join the Schengen visa-free zone, the country is quickly becoming an important gateway for migrants and refugees as other routes into the EU have been blocked. With a small population of less than a million inhabitants, the country now has the highest number of asylum applications per capita in the region. The situation is leading to increasing tensions with Turkish-administered Northern Cyprus, as well as growing concerns about a possible reception “crisis” and the use of detention measures in asylum cases. Read the full report.

Immigration Detention in Ireland: Can You Detain “Better” Without Detaining More?

Compared to other EU countries, Ireland does not detain large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers—typically less than a dozen people at any given moment. However, the country’s use of prisons and police stations for immigration purposes has spurred widespread criticism for years. Human rights watchdogs, including from the Council of Europe and the United Nations, have repeatedly urged Ireland to fix this problem by establishing a specialised detention facility. However, opening such a facility, which after years of delays is slated to open in 2019, raises questions about whether this may lead to more people being detained. Read the full report.

The Contours of Crimmigration Control in India: GDP Working Paper No.25 – by Sujata Ramachandran

The criminalisation of irregular migration through escalated enforcement of toughened immigration laws is often referred to as crimmigration or immcarceration. Detention and deportation are important aspects of such enforcement across the globe. While these processes have received much scrutiny in the Global North, far less attention has been given to them in the context of South-South migration. This Global Detention Project Working Paper, by Sujata Ramachandran, helps address this gap by identifying distinctive aspects of crimmigration control in India and its connections with the governance of migration in wealthier countries. Read the full Working Paper.

NEWS AND ACTIVITIES

Au Revoir Mariette Grange!

At the end of June, Mariette Grange, the GDP’s long-time advisor and senior researcher, retired after a distinguished decades-long career as a Geneva-based human rights advocate specialising in the rights of migrants and refugees. Mariette has been a part of the GDP team since its inception: first as an advisor to and then member of a research team at the Graduate Institute of International Studies that founded the GDP as a student-led academic research project in 2005; later as senior researcher after the GDP became an independent non-profit research centre in 2014.

Among her many achievements at the GDP, Mariette was responsible for developing and growing the GDP’s engagement with the UN human rights system, spearheading our submissions project and helping ensure that immigration detention remained on the agenda during relevant debates, meetings, hearings, and sessions of UN treaty bodies and special mechanisms. Among her final activities with the GDP was Mariette’s co-authorship, with GDP colleagues Michael Flynn and Izabella Majcher, of the book Immigration Detention in the European Union: In the Shadow of the “Crisis”(Springer, forthcoming).

Mariette’s achievements before joining the GDP included co-establishing the Amnesty International office to the UN in Geneva and providing leadership to Human Rights Watch during the institution-building years of the UN Human Rights Council. She also worked on migrant and refugee operations at the World Council of Churches and the International Catholic Migration Commission and on emerging issues at the International Council on Human Rights Policy.

Anyone who has had the pleasure of working with Mariette will immediately recognise the patent impossibility of filling her shoes. She will be greatly missed—though we are delighted that she has agreed to continue on as an informal external advisor. We still have so much to learn from Mariette! The GDP team wishes her all the best in the adventures ahead.

Working Group on Arbitrary Detention 

On 13 August, the GDP participated in a WGAD meeting with civil society partners held at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The meeting was intended to give NGOs the opportunity to comment on the Working Group’s recent work, discuss its upcoming agenda, and urge action in critical areas of concern to the Working Group, including with respect to immigration detention, which has been at the centre of several recent opinions (on cases in Canada and Australia) adopted by the WGAD. More information is available here. 

Committee on Migrant Workers

On 2-11 September the UN Committee on Migrant Workers will hold its 31^st session in Geneva, during which it will consider reports on Argentina, Colombia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The GDP participated in a CMW-organised meeting with NGOs and civil society on 2 September and will be attending the meeting with governments on 4 September. More information about the session is available here.

Internazionale a Ferrara: Debate on Immigration Detention

On 5 October, the GDP’s Executive Director Michael Flynn will participate in a public debate organised by Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF) concerning immigration detention policies around the world. The debate, part of the Italian news weekly Internazionale’s annual arts and social affairs festival in the city of Ferrara, will include a representative from MSF and a member of the Italian parliament. More information about the festival is available here.

GDP ON THE RECORD

Europe

• “Using Drones to Watch Refugees Drown Exposes the Inhumanity of Border Enforcement,” P. McDuff, The Guardian, August 2019.
• “Submission by Human Rights Watch to the Committee on the Rights of the Child on Switzerland,” Human Rights Watch, July 2019.
• “Greek Land Borders and Migration Fatalities: Humanitarian Disaster Described from the Standpoint of Evros,” P. Pavlidis and M. Karakasi, Forensic Science International, July 2019.
• “Homogenous and Extra-Territorial Border Regime? Migrations and Control Efforts Across the Eastern EU External Border,” B. Bruns, Journal of Borderlands Studies, 34, 2019.
• “Border Management and Migration Controls – Hungary Report,” D. Gyollai and U. Korkut,Respond, 2019.
• “Introduction: Citizenship as Inhabitance? Migrant Housing Squats versus Institutional Accommodation,” D. Dadusc, M. Grazioli, and M. Martinez, Citizenship Studies, 2019.
• “Bordering in Europe: Differential Inclusion,” P. O’Brien, Bordering Europe, 9 (1), 2019.
• “Human Rights in a Hostile Environment: Can International Human Rights Law Effectively Constrain Immigration Detention in the United Kingdom?” S. Crowe, United Kingdom Law and Society Association, 7(2), 2019.
• “Blurred Lines: Detaining Asylum Seekers in Britain and France,” M. Bosworth and M. Vannier, Journal of Sociology (Special Issue on Asylum Seekers), 2019.

Americas

• “Draft General Comment No. 5 on Migrants’ Rights to Liberty and Freedom from Arbitrary Detention – Response from Grupo Impulso Contra la Detención Migratoria y la Tortura,”Grupo Impulso Contra la Detención Migratoria y la Tortura, 2019.
• “Canada’s Detention of Children in Immigration Holding Centres,” T.D. Ward and D. Raphael, International Journal of Children’s Rights, August 2019.
• “Detention Camps are Concentration Camps,” T. Miller, Verso Books, August 2019.
•  “Empire of Borders,” T. Miller, Tuscon Weekly, August 2019.
• “Constitutionalized Human Rights Law in Mexico: Hope for Central American Refugees?”S. Meili, Harvard Human Rights Journal, 32, 2019.
• “Detained without Relief,” J. Solis, Alabama Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Law Review, 2019.

Middle-East and Africa

• “Ethiopians Face Beatings and Bullets as Saudi ‘Deportation Machine’ Cranks Up,” T. Gardner, The Guardian, August 2019.
• “Ethiopians Tortured in a Detention Home in Saudi Arabia,” The African Exponent, August 2019.
• “The Distance Between Human Rights and the EU: The Libyan Migration Crisis,” A. Mudukuti, Opinio Juris, July 2019.
• “EU-Egypt Migration Cooperation: At the Expense of Human Rights,” EuroMed Rights,July 2019.
• “Lebanon’s Border Regime: Fluid Rigidity, Foreign Interference, and Hybrid Security Assemblages,” A. Jagarnathsingh, Respond, 2019.
• “Returns of Failure: Involuntary Return Migration and Social Change in Ghana,” L. Kandilige and G. Adiku, in R. Anghel et al (eds.), Transnational Return and Social Change: Hierachies, Identities and Ideas, Anthem Press: London, 2019.

Asia and the Pacific

• “Draft General Comment No. 5 on Migrants’ Rights to Liberty and Freedom from Arbitrary Detention – Response from Ushiku Shuyojo Mondaiwo Kangaeru Kai,” Ushiku Shuyojo Mondaiwo Kangaeru Kai, 2019.
• “Un español, recluido seis días en un CIE de Malasia por un problema con el visado [A Spaniard, Held for Six Days in a CIE in Malaysia for a Visa Problem],” C. Segura, El Pais,July 2019.
• “Children Seeking Asylum: Mental Health and Human Rights,” L. Newman, in C. Hoven et al, (eds.), An International Perspective on Disasters and Children’s Mental Health, Springer, July 2019.
• “Outsourcing, Responsibility and Refugee Claim-Making in Australia’s Offshore Detention Regime,” S. Dehm, in S. McGuirk and A. Pine (eds.), Profit and Protest in the Asylum Industry, PM Press, Forthcoming.
• “Institutionalization of Precarious Legal Status: The Case of Ghanaian Refugee Applicants in Korea,” R. Udor, Journal of Asian Sociology, 48(2), June 2019.

General

• “Draft General Comment No. 5 on Migrants’ Rights to Liberty and Freedom from Arbitrary Detention – Response from the University of Virginia,” University of Virginia – School of Law, 2019.
• “Everyone’s Prey: Kidnapping and Extortionate Detention in Mixed Migration,” C. Horwood and R. Forin, Mixed Migration Centre, July 2019.
• “Detention, Disappearance, and the Politics of Family,” A. Zarrugh and L.A. Romero,Contexts, July 2019.
• “Locked Up and Kicked Out: Detention and Deportation in the United States and United Kingdom,” C. Bohmer and A. Shuman, in S. Berthold and J. Kibal (eds.), Refugees and Asylum Seekers: Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives, ABC Clio: Santa Barbara, 2019.
• “Territorial Manifestations in Times of Globalization: Implications for State-Centrism in International Relations,” B. Aleksandrova, Interdisciplinary Political and Cultural Journal,23(1), 2019.
• “Social Work Co-Option and Colonial Borders,” L. Briskman, in T. Kleibl et al (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Postcolonial Social Work, Routledge: Oxon, 2020.
• “Public Health in the Context of Migration: Ethics Issues Related to Immigrants and Refugees,” R. Fabi, in A. Mastoianni et al (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
• “Crimmigration Realities and Possibilities,” C. Hernández, Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 16(1), 2019.
• “Time as Waste and Tactic,” T. Eule et al, in Migrants Before the Law: Contested Migration Control in Europe, Springer, 2018.