Sweden used to be lauded for its comparatively humane treatment of asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. However, since the onset of the “refugee crisis,” the country has introduced a series of restrictive immigration control measures and the domestic political environment has become increasingly hostile. Even as the numbers of refugee applicants have steadily fallen, the […]
Immigration detention
Global Detention Project Annual Report 2017
Throughout 2018, the Global Detention Project’s researchers documented the conditions non-citizens face in detention facilities around the world to ensure that systematic information about the treatment migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers face in detention is made available to advocates and so that governments can be held accountable. […]
Immigration Detention in Denmark: Where Officials Celebrate the Deprivation of Liberty of “Rejected Asylum Seekers”
Denmark has pursued increasingly restrictive immigration and asylum policies. During the past three years, the country has adopted some 70 immigration-related amendments aimed at intensifying restrictions, dramatically cut back its asylum recognition rate, and called for detaining as many failed refugees as possible. Observers have repeatedly criticised the penitentiary-like conditions of Denmark’s main immigration detention […]
The Effectiveness of the EU Return Policy at All Costs: The Coercive Use of Administrative Pre-Removal Detention
In February 2017, the European Commission (EC) adopted a specific Recommendation to guide EU states in the interpretation of the Returns Directive, stressing that detention can be essential in enhancing the effectiveness of the return system. However, despite its administrative label, pre-removal detention as interpreted by the EC contains punitive elements. GDP Researcher Izabella Majcher […]
Critiquing Zones of Exception: Actor-Oriented Approaches Explaining the Rise of Immigration Detention
Immigration policy has catapulted to the forefront of public debate around the world as governments resort to increasingly restrictive measures to block migrants and refugees. While severe border policies are by no means new, this surge in migration control raises questions about the forces driving national policies. This chapter in the new book Immigration Policy in the Age of Punishment advances an actor-oriented analysis that views detention systems as complex organisations that rely on deeply rooted institutional structures to buttress their existence, multiple sources of financing to grow operations, and support from a broad array of social actors. […]
Immigration Detention in Luxembourg: Systematic Deprivation of Liberty
Immigration Detention in Luxembourg: Although Luxembourg has a very small immigration detention system, the number of detainees has risen in recent years. Since opening a dedicated detention facility in 2011, observers have noted a general improvement in material conditions. On the other hand, detention appears to be systematically applied as officials regularly conclude that apprehended migrants […]
Thinking Beyond Detention
The GDP’s Michael Flynn participated in the University of Oxford’s Border Criminologies 5th birthday conference—“Beyond Critique”—on 19/20 April 2018. With support from the Bonavero Human Rights Institute at the University of Oxford and the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute, the two-day conference brought together an international group of artists, scholars, policy-makers, practitioners, […]
The EU Hotspot Approach: Hotspots and Plethora of Freedom-Restricting Measures
This themed blog series organized by GDP Researcher Izabella Majcher for the Oxford University-based Border Criminologies examines the EU hotspot approach from the perspective of the right to liberty and freedom of movement, highlighting the unclear division of roles and responsibilities between EU agencies and host member states, the blurred line between detention and reception, substandard material conditions, a lack of transparency, and differential treatment based on nationality, among a host of other concerns. […]
Immigration Detention in Ireland: Will Better Detention Mean More Detention?
Immigration Detention in Ireland: Ireland does not emphasize detention in its migration and asylum policies, nor s. Nevertheless, because the country fails to separate its few immigration detainees, who are placed in prisons, from people in criminal procedures, the country has faced significant international criticism. Officials have long-standing plans to open a dedicated immigration detention facility, […]
The Migrant Workers Convention: A Legal Tool to Safeguard Migrants Against Arbitrary Detention
Adopted in 1990 and in force since 2003, the UN Migrant Workers Convention is the most comprehensive international treaty in the field of migration and human rights. In this chapter, Mariette Grange details how the convention safeguards migrants against arbitrary detention. She explains, however, that as the convention has only been ratified by 51 states—none of which are industrialised, migrant-receiving countries—the full potential of the convention remains to be tested. […]
