Global Detention Project Newsletter
July 2012
NEW PUBLICATIONS
Who Must Be Detained? Proportionality as a Tool for Critiquing Immigration Detention Policy
By Michael Flynn
In July 2012, Refugee Survey Quarterly released an advanced-access online version of this forthcoming article by the GDP’s coordinator. The article endeavours to use the legal principle of proportionality as a tool to critique immigration detention practices and policies. To this end, the article proposes a methodology for assessing operations at detention centres that opens the phenomenon up to empirical study and allows for comparative research of detention practices across a multiplicity of cases. It then highlights a discrete set of dimensions that can be used to measure the degree to which states’ employment of detention is proportional to the limited ends established in law for this type of deprivation of liberty. The article can be accessed here.
Rethinking Pre-removal Immigration Detention in the United States: Lessons from Europe and Proposals for Reform
By Christina Fialho
In July 2012, Refugee Survey Quarterly released an advanced-access online version of this forthcoming article by Christina Fialho, a former research intern at the Global Detention Project and founder of the California-based Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), a national network of immigration detention visitation programmes in the United States. The article examines the legality of lengthy detention of non-citizens held in pre-removal immigration detention in the United States, while presenting a comparative analysis of the European Union and four of its Member States. The article is available here .
ADDITIONAL GDP NEWS
• During 2-13 July, Izabella Majcher, GDP’s research assistant, served as a coordinator of the 2012 edition of the Brussels-based “European Summer School: European Union Law and Policy on Immigration and Asylum,” organized by the Academic Network for Legal Studies on Immigration and Asylum in Europe.
• On 29-30 June, the Global Detention Project and the Programme for the Study of Global Migration co-hosted a refugee rights leadership training workshop organized by Asylum Access and supported by the German Marshall Fund. The GDP’s Michael Flynn and Izabella Majcher attended the event and presented on the project’s efforts to develop strategies for constructing rigorous data and information on detention regimes around the globe.
• At the invitation of Polish Humanitarian Action, Michael Flynn gave a series of presentations in Poland on 20-23 June. The presentations, on the subject of “Immigration Detention and Children,” were given at the University of Warsaw, the University of Bialystok, and John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin.
• On 18 June 2012, the Polish magazine Przekrój published an interview with Michael Flynn. Journalist Klementyna Suchanow talked with Flynn on global trends in immigration detention and national policies related to the treatment of irregular migrants. The article can be accessed here.
• During Summer 2012, the Global Detention Project has hosted two research interns from North America, Noah Schwartz, an undergraduate at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and Samantha Moog, an undergraduate at Middlebury College in Vermont. Among his work for the GDP, Noah has helped developed data on privatization in the U.S. immigration detention estate and undertaken independent research on EU policies related to the detention of victims of trafficking. Sam has focused her research on mapping out available Arabic-language documentation regarding immigration detention in Persian Gulf countries.
• On 29 May, Mariette Grange, GDP’s senior researcher, took part in Dispelling Myths about Migration, a panel discussion aimed at challenging common misperceptions on migrants and migration, which was organized jointly by the International Organizations for Migration and the British Council. See this British Council website for more information.
