8 applications in the U.S. between 2020 and detained him at Otay Mesa Detention 2022. numbers Center in California, and later, at a facility undercount those seeking protection as in Texas. After spending over a year locked restrictive immigration policies in both the up, Israel won his case and is now reunited EU and U.S. prevented many more people with his family in California. 8 from Importantly, accessing altogether. the these asylum system There was no way to make it out of 9 Mexico alive, I knew my only option to Among these asylum seekers are five live was to go to the border. I didn’t individuals whom we interviewed for this know what asylum was, I never looked report—Sergio, Israel, Najib, Sajjad, and into it or how it worked . . . I was in Noor.10 They undertook dangerous journeys, shock, trembling. I was looking for the crossing land and sea, only to be detained U.S. flag and I ran to the officer and in the U.S. or the EU as they sought told them the police had kidnapped protection. While Sergio, Israel, and Najib and tortured me. – Israel were formally detained, Sajjad and Noor were held in informal facilities that Najib, an Egyptian national, travelled to resembled detention in practice. Some of Libya and crossed the Mediterranean Sea to the and seek protection in Italy.13 But when the ship established lives in a new country, while carrying him and other migrants capsized, others remain detained as of the date of this the Greek Coast Guard arrested him and report. took him to a Pre-Removal Detention Israel, who spent much of his life in the U.S., Centre in Corinth, Greece. As of the time he 11 five have secured release was living in Mexico when the police tortured him and threatened his life. 12 He fled to the border looking for protection, but the U.S. officials there arrested him and was interviewed for this report, Najib had been detained for four months, despite the Greek Ombudsman—an official authority that investigates complaints against the See Irene Gibson, “Annual Flow Report, Refugees and Asylees: 2022,” Office of Homeland Security Statistics, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, p. 9 (Nov. 2023) available at https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/202402/2023_0818_plcy_refugees_and_asylees_fy2022_v2_0.pdf. 9 See, e.g., Leonardo Castañeda & Katie Hoeppner, “Five Things to Know About the Title 42 Immigrant Expulsion Policy,” ACLU (Mar. 22, 2022), available at https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/five-things-toknow-about-the-title-42-immigrant-expulsion-policy; See, e.g., Lighthouse Reports, “Drift-Backs in the Aegean Sea,” available at https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/drift-backs-in-the-aegean-sea (last accessed June 24, 2024); Jennifer Rankin, “ECJ to fine Hungary €1m a day until it complies with EU refugee laws,” THE GUARDIAN, (June 13, 2024), available at https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/13/hungary-fined-over-treatment-of-asylum-seekersin-unprecedented-breach-of-eu-law. 10 Three of the interviewees requested we use their given names for this report. Two requested their names not be shared, so we changed them to Najib and Noor. 11 This is an increasingly common practice in the EU. For more, see Section 7, “What is de facto detention?”. 12 Phone interview with Israel, California, United States (Feb. 28, 2024). 13 Phone interview with Najib, Greece (Mar. 5, 2024). 8 Immigration Detention Across Borders Detention of Asylum Seekers in the United States and the European Union