Introduction: Harmonising, Institutionalising, Normalising: How the “Crisis” Became an Opportunity for Expanding Immigration Detention Regimes

Abstract

In early 2015, on the eve of Europe’s “refugee crisis,” a clear trend was emerging across much of the European Union (EU) showing reductions in the use of immigration detention measures. The “crisis” dramatically altered this trend. Seemingly overnight, numerous EU countries began reporting substantial increases in their detention statistics. In many countries, detention numbers remained higher than pre-crisis levels long after the “crisis” had subsided. These increases were enabled by important developments in EU legislation and policy, some of which predate the “crisis,” while others have been spurred and shaped by it. Although EU countries experienced the migration challenges during this time in many different ways, there has nevertheless been a clear convergence across EU domestic systems when it comes to immigration detention. This process appears to have led to a trivialisation and normalisation of the use of detention, which has become a convenient off-the-shelf measure that states employ without careful consideration of its ramifications or usefulness

“Crisis is supposed to imply a turning point,

but its now become perennial and self-sustaining.”

—Ruben Andersson (From: European Council on Refugees and Exiles, “Interview: We Need to Snap Out of the Crisis Mode and Take a Step Back,” 31 May 2019, https://www.ecre.org/interview-we-need-to-snap-out-of-the-crisis-mode-and-take-a-step-back/)