refugees only (Deportation Monitoring Aegean, 2018; Rozakou, 2019). From 2017 until 2020, when the fire that broke in Moria destroyed the camp and forced the authorities to evacuate the pre-removal detention centre too (Hamilakis, 2022; Papailias, 2022), nearly 3,000 people had been detained inside the centre, which had an official capacity of 420.8 These would have been either failed asylum seekers, people who were registered in the camp but decided to leave the island and thus were arrested somewhere else in Greece for having violated the geographical restriction imposed to all new arrivals,9 or those who are detained automatically when identified as a national of a country with a low refugee recognition rate.10 With a 2016 police circular, offensive behaviour or law-breaking conduct in the reception centre of Moria could further be used as grounds for detention (Deportation Monitoring Aegean, 2018).11 While all eyes have been fixed on the emergency at Greece’s numerous border locations and refugee camps, those who were inside pre-removal detention centres and those who were touched by the violence and suffering in these facilities in the past were overlooked. The focus on ‘real refugees’, their abhorrent living conditions inside tent camps, and dramatic scenes on the beaches of the frontline Greek islands served to further obliterate the experiences of ‘unwanted migrants’ beneath the significance and urgency of refugee plights. In doing so, I tease out neglected textual nuances and foreground the widely overlooked experiences of those living and working inside these institutions. Crossing borders for whatever reason is a human right. Responding to this right through detention This number does not take into account the number of people who have been detained in the island’s police stations because the police do not publish such statistics. 9 Asylum seekers subject to the EU-Turkey statement are issued a geographical restriction, ordering them not to leave the respective island until the end of the asylum procedure. See more Asylum Information Database (2021). 10 Following the EU-Turkey statement in 2016, a pilot project, which was later rebranded as a ‘low-profile scheme’ provided that newly arrived persons belonging to nationalities with low refugee recognition rates, like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, would be detained upon arrival and channelled through rapid identification procedures for the purpose of deportation. The list of countries was expanded to 28 in March 2017. See more about this nationality-based detention in Kriona Saranti (2019). More recently, in June 2021, with a Joint Ministerial Decision, which is the continuation of the EU-Turkey deal, the Greek authorities designated Turkey as a “safe third country” for applicants belonging to five nationalities, including applicants from Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, which form more than half of the asylum applicants currently in Greece (65.8%, 26.715 applicants out of 40.559 applications submitted in 2020) (MD 42799– Gov. Gazeete 2425/Β/7-6-2021). The Application of the decision, is expected to increase systematic and prolonged detention, as well as readmissions to Turkey, as thousands of applications may be rejected on the basis of the safe third country concept. See more about this in Asylum Information Database (2021). 11 This population exchange between the reception and detention centre of an island has been documented elsewhere too. During a visit at the reception centre on the island of Kos, together with the Greek NPM, the Director of the centre told us that due to overcrowding, some people had been ‘hosted’ by the adjacent detention centre. See more in Fili (2019). 8 16