World Refugee Day: Alternatives to detention that actually work

The EU Migration Pact and the new returns policy

Across Europe, governments are making decisions that could lead to more people being imprisoned because of their migration status. The EU Migration Pact is an EU agreement on migration whose national implementation is due to be completed this month. At the same time, negotiations have now closed on the EU’s new returns policy, which sets the rules around deportations. Together, these developments risk making immigration detention more common, longer and harder to challenge.

Under the new policies, people could face detention for up to 30 months. That means someone could spend two and a half years deprived of their liberty because of their migration status. This includes children. Although international human rights standards are clear that immigration detention is never in a child’s best interests, EU rules will see many more migrant children detained. These policies have very real and devastating impacts for people affected.

People held in immigration detention often experience serious mental health problems, including depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. For children, it can lead to trauma, developmental delay and regression. Families can be separated. Women, girls and gender diverse people can face sexual and gender-based violence and poor access to reproductive healthcare.

Across many countries, migration policy is increasingly being shaped by politics rather than evidence. Migrants and refugees are being blamed for wider social problems, from pressure on housing and public services to economic insecurity. This makes it easier for governments to present detention, surveillance and forced return as signs of control. 

A dangerous path

When a group of people are presented as a threat, it becomes easier to justify violating their human rights. But let’s be clear: these choices are based on political theater and populism, not on what actually works. 

Across Europe and beyond, there is evidence that governments can manage migration without putting people in detention. Community-based alternatives to detention allow people to live freely in the community while their immigration case is being decided. This approach respects people’s human rights and dignity. It also works. 

A new FES analysis on Alternatives to Immigration Detention, written by Carolina Gottardo, Executive Director of International Detention Coalition (IDC), highlights promising practices on how community-based alternatives can achieve compliance and case resolution without resorting to detention. Research from International Detention Coalition into more than 250 examples across 60 countries found that community-based alternatives to detention are more humane, more affordable and more effective. Some governments describe measures like asylum hotels, GPS ankle tags and biometric monitoring as alternatives to detention when they are really just detention under another name. 

Genuine alternatives

Genuine community-centred alternatives to detention allow people to maintain their freedom and agency, supporting them to understand and take part in their immigration case. They protect family life, health, dignity and rights, and help resolve cases more quickly instead of leaving people in limbo. Pilot projects run through the European Alternatives to Detention Network in Bulgaria, Cyprus and Poland found that 97 percent of people supported through community-based case management engaged with immigration procedures and did not abscond. 

The vast majority – 99 percent and 96 percent respectively – were also better able to participate in decisions about their case and engage with immigration procedures over time. These results show that compliance is driven less by coercion than by trust, stability and access to information.

Europe is at a turning point. Governments can continue relying on detention, surveillance, criminalisation and fear, or they can invest in approaches that already exist and actually work. It’s time to move away from populism and the scapegoating of migrants. There is no need to choose between practicality and compassion, between evidence and humanity – because the evidence shows, time and again, that the kindest and most humane approaches are also the most effective. 

Carolina Gottardo is the Executive Director of International Detention Coalition (IDC). She is a migrant lawyer and economist who has worked on human rights issues for more than 20 years in different countries and contexts. Her areas of specialisation are migration, asylum and gender. IDC is the world’s leading movement to end immigration detention, and they are focused on practical alternatives to fairer, cheaper and more effective solutions to approach migration governance. Through policy change, IDC has helped prevent human rights abuses and secured a brighter future for refugees, migrants and their families all over the world. Find out more about IDC’s mission to make immigration detention history.