As a second wave of COVID-19 has swept across India, infection and death rates have skyrocketed across the country. On 1 May, some 392,488 new cases were reported–the largest one-day increase on record for any country–as well as 3,689 deaths, although observers suggest that real figures may be significantly higher. Despite COVID rates surging since […]
Save the Date: Webinars – Detention and Returns
On 11 May, the GDP’s executive director will be joining a panel of speakers at a Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) webinar exploring detention and returns. […]
Cape Verde: Covid-19 and Detention
The Republic of Cabo Verde is an island country in the central Atlantic Ocean with a population of approximately 550,000 people. Following the confirmation of the first COVID-19 case in the country on 20 March 2020, a state of emergency was declared and a series of measures were implemented including the suspension of all incoming […]
Immigration Detention in Canada: Progressive Reforms and Missed Opportunities
In recent years, Canada has adopted both progressive refugee policies and restrictive border control measures, including agreeing to accept more refugees than other countries while at the same time adopting policies that restrict asylum eligibility. Canada’s immigration detention system has also continued to attract criticism, particularly because of its persistent use of prisons for immigration purposes, the carceral environments of its dedicated immigration detention centres, and its failure to adopt a maximum time limit for immigration detention, leaving some detainees facing indefinite detention. […]
Canada: Covid-19 and Detention
[From the GDP’s April 2021 Canada Report] As previously reported on this platform, calls for releasing people in prisons and other Canadian detention settings began soon after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-March, immigration detainees submitted an open letter to Canada’s Public Safety Minister demanding their release—pointing to the close quarters where they […]
United Kingdom: Covid-19 and Detention
Cross-party parliamentarians have urged UK Home Secretary Priti Patel to cease the use of former military barracks for confining asylum seekers. In a letter to the Home Secretary, members of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Immigration Detention wrote: “We do not believe such sites provide the safe, stable accommodation that people seeking asylum […]
GDP Participates in Informal Meeting Held by the UN Committee on the Rights of Migrant Workers
On 14 April, the UN Committee on the Rights of Migrant Workers (CMW) held an informal meeting with states and other stakeholders, in which participants discussed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrants and ratification of the Convention, among other topics. During the meeting, committee members emphasised the pandemic’s disproportionate impact upon migrant workers […]
Burundi: Covid-19 and Detention
Since 2015, when deadly clashes were witnessed surrounding Burundi’s presidential election, large numbers of Burundians have fled the country. Today, some 150,000 are estimated to be living in neighbouring Tanzania. Burundian authorities have repeatedly spoken of the need for refugees to return from exile, and in recent years reports have emerged highlighting instances in which […]
Tanzania: Covid-19 and Detention
In a statement released on 13 April, UN experts–including members of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on Torture–called on the Tanzanian and Burundian governments to respect the rights of Burundian refugees and asylum seekers in Tanzania. Tanzania currently hosts an estimated 150,000 Burundian refugees, the majority of whom fled the […]
2020 Annual Report
As we look back at 2020, the dramatic impact of COVID-19 on the lives of migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, and other vulnerable non-citizens across the globe appears to overshadow all else. But this Annual Report reveals that even as we sought to steady the GDP ship through this storm, we managed to make important advancements in our core objectives and outputs. […]
