Discipline and Punish? Analysis of the Purposes of Immigration Detention in Europe

Pre-removal detention is usually considered an administrative measure aimed at the facilitation of the removal of irregular migrants by preventing them from absconding during removal proceedings. The administrative nature of immigration detention implies that persons subject to this measure do not have access to the fair trial guarantees that criminal detainees are entitled to. However, the assessment of pre-removal detention under European Union and Swiss legislation demonstrates the penal nature of such detention despite its formal administrative classification.

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The EU Returns Directive and the Use of Prisons for Detaining Migrants in Europe

Can immigration detainees be held in prisons? Can they be confined alongside ordinary prisoners? On 17 July 2014, in its decisions on the joint cases of Bero & Bouzalmate and the case of Pham, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered its opinion on these practices. […]

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Human Rights Violations during EU Border Surveillance and Return Operations: Frontex’ Shared Responsibility or Complicity?

As the International Law Association highlights “[power] entails accountability, that is the duty to account for its exercise.” Against this background, the article focuses on the question of accountability of the European Union (EU) border agency Frontex for potential human rights violations that may occur in the course of its operations. The article aims to […]

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There and Back Again: On the Diffusion of Immigration Detention

From Mexico to the Bahamas, Mauritania to Lebanon, Turkey to Saudi Arabia, South Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia to Thailand, immigration-related detention has become an established policy apparatus that counts on dedicated facilities and burgeoning institutional bureaucracies. Until relatively recently, however, detention appears to have been largely an ad hoc tool, employed mainly by wealthy states in exigent circumstances. This paper uses concepts from diffusion theory to detail the history of key policy events in several important immigration destination countries that led to the spreading of detention practices during the last 30 years and assesses some of the motives that appear to have encouraged this phenomenon. […]

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Michael Flynn on the Diffusion of Immigration Detention

Illegalen Barakken Immigration Detention Facility (from report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture 2014 visit to Curaçao and Caribbean parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands)

D. Illegalen Barakken Immigration Detention Facility. (read full CPT report)202. Foreign nationals held under aliens legislation in Curaçao are detained at IllegalenBarakken, an immigration detention facility located right next to SDKK. Their detention can beordered, by an inspector of the Curaçao Police Force, responsible for immigration cases. Detentionis ordered only in combination with an expulsion […]

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Simpson Bay Remand Centre

(from report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture 2014 visit to SINT MAARTEN and Caribbean parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) b. Simpson Bay Remand Centre. (Read full CPT report)244. Simpson Bay was built as an immigration detention centre and a Judicial Permission of 25November 2011 and signed by the Minister […]

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Centro Dakota Immigration Detention Facility (from report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture 2014 visit to Aruba and Caribbean parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands)

B. Centro Dakota Immigration Detention Facility (read full CPT report) 67. In the course of the 2014 visit, the delegation carried out a targeted visit to the Centro Dakota immigration detention facility. Foreign nationals held under aliens legislation have been detained at this facility since February 2013. Immigration detention on Aruba falls under the responsibility […]

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