The year 2019 marked the final year of the GDP’s first Strategic Plan. In this Annual Report, we discuss in detail how our strategy has shaped our activities and led us to become more engaged with activists, practitioners, policy-makers, scholars, and—critically—detainees and their families. […]
United States
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. […]
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. […]
NEWSLETTER: Immigration Detention: “Never in the Best Interests of Children”
This past summer, people across the globe watched in outrage as children were forcibly separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border and placed in hastily set up camps and cages. Overlooked in much of the criticism, however, was the fact that children are locked behind bars for immigration-related reasons in dozens of other counties across the globe, all of whom—with the notable exception of the United States—have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. […]
International Women’s Day: Exposing the Plight of Women in Immigration Detention
This International Women’s Day, dozens of women are on hunger strike at the Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in the UK. As they protest against the government’s “offensive” immigration practices, like the detention of people who came to the UK as children and the detention of survivors of torture, these women—some of whom are themselves victims of sexual abuse and trafficking—are being held indefinitely at a privately operated facility that has a long history of accusations of sexual abuse by its staff. […]
Immigration Detention of Children: Coming to a Close?
Immigration Detention of Children: Coming to a Close? The GDPs Michael Flynn participated in this two-day conference co-hosted by the Council of Europe and the Czech Ministry of Justice (25-26 September 2017). “Are There ‘Alternatives’ for Children?” By Michael Flynn Summary: Is it possible to develop “alternatives to detention” in a way that does not […]
Putting Immigration Detention in Interdisciplinary Perspective
What can we learn from the interdisciplinary study of immigration detention regimes? Michael Flynn explains in this essay for Oxford University’s “Border Criminologies” research network. […]
Statement to the Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries Panel on “PMSCs in places of deprivation of liberty and their impact on human rights”
Statement to the Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries Panel on “PMSCs in places of deprivation of liberty and their impact on human rights” Michael Flynn, Global Detention Project 27 April 2017 I am the Director of the Global Detention Project, a research center based in Geneva that documents the use of detention […]
Immigration Detention, the Right to Liberty, and Constitutional Law: Global Detention Project Working Paper No. 22
The right to personal liberty is one of the oldest recognized rights in liberal democracies, which raises fundamental constitutional questions about the use of detention as an immigration measure. However, as this GDP Working Paper highlights, in common law countries, lengthy immigration detention on a large scale has become the norm and is largely regarded as constitutional. […]
Obstacles to Reforming Family Detention in the United States: Global Detention Project Working Paper No. 20
The prospect of ending the detention of immigrant families in the US appears more remote than ever as the new president begins implementing his restrictive immigration agenda. This paper, authored by the former director of ICE’s Office of Detention Policy and Planning, provides an inside look at the failure of the Obama administration to roll back family detention and urges renewed calls for reforms in the face of President Trump’s promised crackdown. […]
