MSF Komotini detention centre, 2014 The context: administrative detention of Detention is applied indiscriminately, without any migrants and asylum seekers in Greece guarantee that cases will be assessed individually, even for those with no prospect of being returned The systematic detention of migrants and asylum in the short-run. Vulnerable people –including the seekers is increasingly being used, worldwide, as sick and unaccompanied minors – are not identified a core migration management tool – including by as such and are routinely placed in detention. The European Union member states – to restrict the influx estimated number of migrants and asylum seekers of migrants and to pressurise detained migrants into detained in immigration detention facilities according joining voluntary return programmes. At the same to the official capacity exceeds 6,0008. Additionally time, the detrimental impact of detention on migrants’ an unknown number of people – possibly several health and wellbeing is largely disregarded by the thousand – are being held in substandard and authorities and ignored by host societies. degrading conditions in regular police stations across the country. In Greece, undocumented migrants are routinely detained when apprehended on the territory without valid documents5. Since the summer of 2012 and the launch of widespread police checks – known as ‘Operation Xenios Zeus’6 – administrative detention has been used on a massive scale, applied, in many cases, for the maximum, limit of 18 months. Migrants whose forced or voluntary return does not take place within the initial detention period run the risk of repeated detentions – as recorded by MSF teams on the ground. Meanwhile, people who apply for asylum can be detained for lengthy periods of up to 15 months7 while their asylum application is examined. 5 Law 3907/2011, transposing the EU Return Directive, Immigration Law 3386/2005. 6 Between August 2012 and February 2013, the police forcibly took almost 85,000 foreigners to police stations for immigration status verification based on little more than their appearance. No more than 6% were found to be in Greece unlawfully. Human Rights Watch, Unwelcome Guests: Greek Police Abuses of Migrants in Greece, June 2013. 7 Presidential Decree 114/10. 8 Pre-removal centers of: Korinthos (capacity 1,000), Amygdaleza (capacity 2,000), Komotini (capacity 540), Xanthi (capacity 480), Paranesti Dramas (capacity 600), Fylakio (370). Other immigration detention facilities: Samos (capacity 280), Lesvos (90), Chios (100), Petrou Rali (350), Elliniko (120) and several smaller ones in Attiki, and Thessaloniki. 7|