Greece  Immigration  Detention  Profile     January  2018   •   •   •   •   Introduction   Laws,  Policies,  Practices   Detention  Infrastructure   PDF  Version  of  2014  Profile       Greece  is  an  important  entry  point  to  the  European  Union  (EU)  for  migrants  and  asylum   seekers.  Since  2008,  when  Spain  and  Italy  began  effectively  blocking  routes  into  their   countries,  the  numbers  of  arrivals  in  Greece  have  increased  substantially.1  With   support—and  pressure—from  its  EU  partners,  Greece  has  responded  to  this  situation  by   adopting  a  passel  of  controversial  immigration  control  measures,  including  ramping  up   its  detention  operations,  leading  to  a  growing  human  rights  crisis  in  Greece  and  Europe.2   When  the  numbers  of  arrivals  in  the  EU  rose  dramatically  in  2015—prompted  by  the  civil   war  in  Syria  as  well  as  long-­term  instability  in  other  countries—Greece  received  the   largest  proportion  of  arriving  asylum  seekers.  Indeed,  out  of  approximately  one  million   people  who  arrived  to  the  EU  in  2015,  over  850,000  entered  via  Greece.     Fearing  a  “refugee  crisis,”  the  EU  reached  an  agreement  with  Ankara  to  counter   immigration  pressures.  Under  the  March  2016  EU-­Turkey  deal,  it  was  agreed  that  all   migrants  and  asylum  seekers  who  arrived  on  Greek  islands  after  20  March  2016  would   be  liable  to  return  to  Turkey.  For  every  migrant  or  asylum  seeker  returned  to  Turkey,  the   EU  would  resettle  one  Syrian  from  Turkey.  Turkey  was  also  promised  6  billion  euros,  the   lifting  of  visa  requirements  for  its  nationals,  and  the  resumption  of  Turkey's  EU   accession  process.  Yet  while  the  EU  justified  the  return  of  migrants  and  asylum  seekers   to  Turkey  in  referring  to  the  “safe  third  country”  principle,  it  was  immediately  clear  that                                                                                                                           1  Parliamentary  Assembly  of  the  Council  of  Europe,  Committee  on  Migration,  Refugees  and  Displaced  Persons,   “Migration  and  asylum:  mounting  tensions  in  the  Eastern  Mediterranean,”  Doc.  13106,  2013,   assembly.coe.int/ASP/XRef/X2H-­DW-­XSL.asp.   2  Between  2007  and  2009,  most  migrants  reached  Greece  through  Aegean  islands.  However,  by  early  2010,  the  main   entry  point  had  shifted  to  the  Evros  River  on  the  border  between  Greece  and  Turkey.  Responding  to  the  migratory   pressures  in  Evros,  Greece  dramatically  increased  deployments  of  police  in  the  region,  put  in  place  a  range  of   surveillance  and  interdiction  methods,  and  completed  a  12.5  kilometer-­long  fence  along  the  border.  Meanwhile,   between  November  2010  and  February  2011,  Frontex  made  its  debut  deployment  of  Rapid  Border  Intervention  Teams   (RABIT).  As  a  result,  migrants  and  asylum  seekers  shifted  their  focus  back  to  the  Aegean  Islands.     Global Detention Project                                        Geneva, Switzerland www.globaldetentionproject.org   Phone: +41 (0) 22 548 14 01 Email: admin@globaldetentionproject.org