We should be shocked that so many countries fail to provide even basic details about their immigration detention practices. And yet, for those who have worked on this issue over the last two decades, the absence of public accountability about detention comes as no surprise.
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Based on a two-year investigation seeking basic details and statistics about immigration detention practices in 33 countries across Europe and North America, this joint report by the GDP and Access Info Europe reveals that in many countries it is impossible to obtain an accurate picture of the number of migrants and asylum seekers being held […]
In its ruling in the Skerdjan Celaj case (C-290/14), rendered on 1st October 2015, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) addressed once again the relation between immigration and criminal law and in particular the compatibility of national penal measures imposed as a punishment for irregular migration with the EU Returns Directive.
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Mariette Grange gave a presentation on immigration detention practices in Europe at this Jesuit-organized initiative aimed at improving cross-border dialogue, which was held in Madrid on 28 May. More information about this initiative is available here. […]
With the recent tragic surge in the number of deaths at sea of asylum seekers and other migrants attempting to reach Europe, enormous public attention is being focused on the treatment of these people across the Mediterranean. An important migration policy employed throughout the region is detention, including widespread deprivation of liberty of asylum seekers […]
On 20 March Izabella Majcher presented a paper titled “Immigration Detention under EU Law and International Obligations of Member States” at the conference “Regulating ‘irregular’ migration: International obligations and international responsibility,” held at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. […]
On 6 February 2015, Mariette Grange chaired the session “Introducing the notion of alternatives to detention in the EU policy-making” at the final conference of the Odysseus Network’s “Made Real” Project, “Alternatives to Immigration Detention in The EU: The Time For Implementation,” which was held at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. […]
Pre-removal detention is usually considered an administrative measure aimed at the facilitation of the removal of irregular migrants by preventing them from absconding during removal proceedings. The administrative nature of immigration detention implies that persons subject to this measure do not have access to the fair trial guarantees that criminal detainees are entitled to. However, the assessment of pre-removal detention under European Union and Swiss legislation demonstrates the penal nature of such detention despite its formal administrative classification.
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