MIGRASYL

News on migration and asylum from around the region - Nouvelles de la région sur les questions de migration et d'asile

Thursday, November 15, 2012

[The Netherlands] Dutch Ombudsman Report - Immigration Detention: penal regime or step towards deportation? About respecting human rights in immigration detention

From the introduction

08/2012. The stories of foreign nationals published in this report bear witness to despair and frustration. By implementing the current method of immigration detention the government has established a system that has a mind-numbing effect on many people. The accounts given by foreign nationals inevitably have an undertone of despair, because without the right to stay in the Netherlands they must leave the country. If they do not leave the country, whether forced by circumstances or of their own volition, the government acts to remove them mandatorily.

In and of itself it is a legitimate goal for a government to restrict people's freedom pending successful deportation. However, the way this restriction of freedom occurs under the current regime of immigration detention impairs that legitimacy. A person is locked up sixteen hours a day together with another detainee in a space of less than 10 m². Even when allowed out, they are under supervision. They are allowed visits for two hours per week. They are not allowed to work. They cannot decide for themselves when they want to go out. They are dependent on decisions taken by the supervisor and the director of the detention centre. They have no idea how long all of this will last. Ultimately a foreign national can be detained for as long as eighteen months and renewed periods of detention are by no means the exception. In a nutshell, this is the situation of the approximately 6,000 foreign nationals that the government keeps in immigration detention each year.