Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2017, 36, 85–106 doi: 10.1093/rsq/hdw022 Advance Access Publication Date: 10 January 2017 Article The Indefinite Detention of Undesirable and Unreturnable Third-Country Nationals in Greece Eleni Koutsouraki* ABSTRACT This article critically examines the use of immigration detention as a national response to the problem of “undesirable” – for public order and/or national security reasons – but unreturnable undocumented third-country nationals in Greece. The Greek legislative framework surrounding immigration detention is analysed, as is the practice of the authorities on the ground. It is argued that Greek law and practice in their area is not in line with Greece’s international obligations, both under European Union law and human rights law. Alternate solutions which could be adopted to address the problem of “undesirable and unreturnable” undocumented third-country nationals are explored, as are improvements to the existing framework of immigration detention. K E Y W O R D S : undesirable, unreturnable, detention, Greece 1. INTRODUCTION Since 2012, the Greek authorities have markedly increased the use of immigration detention to address the issue of undocumented third-country nationals (TCNs) in the country.1 This has prompted criticism from international * PhD in Refugee Law; Researcher, European Centre of Research and Training on Human Rights and Humanitarian Action, Panteion University; Attorney at law, Greek Council for Refugees. The views expressed herein are the author’s personal opinion and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Greek Council for Refugees. The author wishes to thank the Refugee Law Initiative and the Center for International Criminal Justice for the invitation to participate in the International Conference “Undesirable and Unreturnable? Policy Challenges around Excluded Asylum-Seekers and Other Migrants Suspected of Serious Criminality but Who Cannot Be Removed”, and especially Dr David James Cantor and Dr Sarah Singer for their comments and support. 1 Greek Government, Ministry of Public Order and Citizen Protection, Greek Action Plan on Asylum and Migration Management, Dec. 2012, 53, available at: https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?Ref¼DHDD(2013)711&Language¼lanFrench&Ver¼rev&Site¼CM&BackColorInternet¼DBDCF2&BackColorI ntranet¼FDC864&BackColorLogged¼FDC864 (last visited 3 Dec. 2016): “[. . .] The Ministry established, within 2012, (5) pre-removal centres, thus increasing the capacity from (200) places to (4000) by the end of 2012. [. . .] Until recently, immigrants arrested at the borders were detained for a short period of time and then, due to the limited [. . .] capacity of the existing detention facilities, were released [. . .]”. There are not any available statistics concerning the total number of detainees per year; see European Migration Network, The Use of Detention and Alternatives to Detention in the Context of Immigration Policies (Greece), EMN Focussed Study, 2014, 7, available at: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/ C Author(s) [2017]. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com V  Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/rsq/article-abstract/36/1/85/2888417 by Lancaster University user on 19 December 2017 85