NEWSLETTER: International Women’s Day – Focusing Attention on the Abuses Women Suffer in Immigration Detention

Last week, reports emerged concerning a 24-year-old Honduran woman’s premature labour and subsequent delivery of a stillborn baby while in custody at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre in Texas. While officials were quick to offer the awkward qualification that “for investigative and reporting purposes, a stillbirth is not considered an in-custody death,” the incident nevertheless added fuel to the growing criticism of the Trump administration’s treatment of vulnerable individuals in detention. […]

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Immigration Detention in Slovenia: Where They Call Detention a “Limitation of Movement”

Immigration Detention in Slovenia (2019 Report): A key transit country for refugees and migrants travelling the “Balkan Route,” Slovenia witnessed a significant increase in the number of border crossings during the “refugee crisis.” Citing fears of a “humanitarian catastrophe,” the country tightened immigration controls, erected wire fencing along its border with Croatia, and introduced stringent new […]

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The Global Governance of Migration: Spotlight on the International Organization for Migration

On 2 February 2019, the GDP’s Senior Researcher, Mariette Grange, was invited to participate in an Expert Workshop on the International Organization for Migration (IOM) at the Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford. Her presentation, “IOM and Detention Practices,” unpacked the consequences of the IOM’s use of euphemistic language and what she described as “norm-setting by stealth.” By […]

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“Red Line”: The Rise in Detention of Asylum Seekers at the External Borders of the EU

Led by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC), the “Red Line” project is working to reduce unnecessary and unlawful use of detention as a deterrence measure for asylum-seekers and irregular migrants in Europe, with a particular focus upon four key irregular migrant entry states: Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy. In many such countries, “reception” has morphed […]

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Immigration Detention in Slovakia: Punitive Conditions Paid for by the Detainees

Immigration Detention in Slovakia (2019 Report): Since the onset of the “refugee crisis,” Slovakia has pursued restrictive immigration policies and employed anti-migrant rhetoric, despite the fact that the country has not faced the same migratory pressures as its European neighbours. Rarely granting alternatives to detention due to strict eligibility criteria, non-citizens are held in facilities that […]

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Immigration Detention in Slovakia

Global Detention Project Annual Report 2018

What conditions do asylum seekers, migrants, and refugees face in detention around the world? What countries have reformed their migration policies and what countries are still using unnecessary immigration detention? What progress has been made and what still needs to be done? The GDP’s 2018 Annual Report takes a look. […]

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Immigration Detention in the Czech Republic: “We Will Not Accept Even One More Refugee”

The Czech Republic (Czechia) became an important transit country for asylum seekers attempting to reach Europe during the height of the “refugee crisis.” Like in its Visegrad neighbours, this new-found status spurred a sharp public backlash in the country, which was fed by anti-migrant political rhetoric. The government significantly ramped up the country’s detention capacity […]

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