Detention is a widespread and often arbitrary practice used within various asylum regimes, serving both as an attempt to stop people moving and as a coercive tool in other forms of administrative violence – like forcing people to claim asylum. Detention might be legal in some cases, but the way it is used in many countries’ asylum reception systems frequently violates international human rights standards. In border contexts, detention is often used punitively, without due process, and in conditions that exacerbate the vulnerability and suffering of those detained.
Despite clear legal guidelines around detention, like necessity, individual assessment (so never used systematically), the right to appeal and due process, and measures to ensure minimum conditions, detention on European borders often operates outside these legal parameters.
For example, Bulgaria’s asylum regime has been criticized for systematically detaining people on the move, including those who are vulnerable such as minors and families. Detention centers are often overcrowded, with substandard living conditions marked by insufficient access to healthcare and legal services. Reports indicate that detention is used as a first response rather than a last resort, with individuals held for extended periods without clear legal grounds or recourse to challenge their detention. In pushback operations, individuals are often detained in unofficial holding facilities or police stations where they face abuse before being forcibly expelled.
Inside Busmantsi detention centre in Bulgaria, 03/07/2023, InfoMigrants
In Croatia, detention is closely linked to pushback practices. People who are intercepted near the border are often held in temporary detention centres or police stations, where they are denied access to legal aid or proper asylum procedures. The conditions in these facilities are frequently harsh, with limited food, poor sanitation, and exposure to physical violence. Detainees are often subjected to degrading treatment before being expelled back across the border. Despite legal provisions requiring individualized assessments and humane conditions, detention in Croatia is applied in a manner designed to intimidate and deter those attempting to seek asylum.
The use of detention in these contexts almost always fails to meet international legal standards, leading to widespread rights violations and the systemic use of detention. Detention is routinely applied without legal justification, individualized assessments, or time limits, resulting in prolonged and unlawful deprivation of liberty. Detention facilities are overcrowded, unsanitary, and lack adequate access to healthcare, food, and legal assistance. Many people are also denied access to legal representation or the ability to appeal their detention, leaving them trapped in a cycle of arbitrary detention and pushbacks without recourse to justice.
According to him the room was filled with 20 individuals, including him and the other 3 individuals he was traveling with. He reports that inside this room, there were no toilets. In addition, he recalls asking multiple times for food and water to the officers, but they repeatedly said “No”. He recalls turning to the other men in the room saying, “if they are not going to give us water, they won’t give us asylum”. According to him they were kept for about 5 hours in this room with no food, water, or access to a toilet.
-Respondent in Bihać, 21/12/2023
Detention in these contexts functions less as a legal safeguard and more as a method of control and punishment. It is a cornerstone of broader strategies aimed at discouraging migration by inflicting hardship and denying basic rights – a cornerstone of fortress Europe’s ‘deterrence regime’.
