This submission highlights Lithuania’s treatment of migrants and asylum seekers in response to recent increases in border crossings from Belarus, which has included stranding vulnerable people–including children–in dire conditions in border regions, using ad hoc detention sites, and expanding detention powers. Testimonies provided by detainees include numerous allegations of torture and mistreatment by security officials. […]
Asylum Seekers
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 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 Norway: Fewer Asylum Seekers but More Deportees
Immigration Detention in Norway: While asylum applications are decreasing in Norway, the number of deportations is rising. Since 2012, when amendments to the Immigration Act were introduced extending the list of grounds for detention, detention has increasingly been used in order to make return policies more efficient. Between 2012 and 2016, the number of people placed […]
Immigration Detention in Lebanon: Deprivation of Liberty at the Frontiers of Global Conflict
Immigration detention in Lebanon: Although Lebanon does not consider itself a country of asylum, it has the world’s highest per-capita concentration of refugees, most of whom have fled conflict in neighbouring Syria. Refugees are increasingly treated as a security threat and economic burden, and they have found themselves under growing surveillance and restrictions. The country is […]
