Cabinet decided to adopt an action plan for the revitalization of the city centre15. Warning of a "public health time bomb," officials sought to reduce the concentration of irregular migrants in the city centre through daily patrols and police ‘sweep operations’. Foreigners are not hard to find. All around the city but especially in the centre you can see immigrants pushing trolleys filled with any metal objects they have found in garbage bins. Poverty has visibly increased on the streets of the capital where immigrants can be seen rummaging through garbage cans for food or scraps of metal or glass to sell to garages for some Euros per kilo. The streets there are downhill and due to the weight of the trolleys they sometimes get drifted along on the road risking being run over by cars and buses. Lucky ones have very small cars to transfer everything they find. (Fieldnotes, January, 2012). Those considered to be irregular are forced to register and may be arrested. Such practices lead directly to the enlargement of the detention population; a connection acknowledged by the government who, in addition to enhanced checks, promised in 2012 to build more detention facilities, manage asylum cases more quickly and expand voluntary return programmes.16 By 2014, then Minister of Public Protection, Mr Chrisochoidis, announced, the state would build 30 new detention centres in 10 Greek prefectures. Officially named ‘closed hospitality centres’, the facilities will be based on unused military sites, typically apart from urban centres and concomitant sources of assistance. They are expected to have a capacity for 30,000 people, with upwards of 15,000 places available by June 2013, a total that not only dwarfs previous 15 http://government.gov.gr/wpcontent/uploads/2011/05/%CE%A3%CF%87%CE%AD%CE%B4%CE%B9%CE%BF%CE%94%CF%81%CE%AC%CF%83%CE%B7%CF%82-%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%BF-%CE%9A%CE%AD%CE%BD%CF%84%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82-%CE%91%CE%B8%CE%AE%CE%BD%CE%B1%CF%82.pdf 16 http://www.minocp.gov.gr/index.php?option=ozo_content&lang=&perform=view&id=3790&Itemid =513. For an account of the role of ‘voluntary return’ programmes elsewhere in Europe, see Johansen, 2013. 7