This account presents more than just a description of the conditions of life behind bars. Instead, it shows how the xenophobic logics of a frontier EU state and the historical depths of ultra-right intrusion in Greek authorities established the legal and institutional basis for today’s immigration detention regime. However, this alone does not explain the resilience of the Greek detention system over more than three decades, i.e., its ability to expand, grow and thrive despite harsh criticism of the way foreigners have been treated in its facilities but also continuous challenges from the hundreds of thousands of people whom Greek governments have detained since 1990s. Although my fieldwork took place in Greece, and neither can, nor should be disconnected from that context, my argument finds obvious analogues in other countries. Detention without an end, a clear legal basis and a degrading treatment are not exclusive to Greece, nor is the claim that a country’s detention system reinforces its racialised history of inequality. Accounts from the UK, the US and Australia echo these observations (Bhui, 2016; Bosworth, 2014; Briskman, 2013; Fiske, 2016; Hiemstra, 2019; Valdez, 2016). Yet, as I will argue in the chapters that follow, the documented level of violence against detainees in Greece, the conspicuous silence over these practices, the complicity of a wide range of key actors, including independent institutions and the judicial system, and the number of tactical legitimation exercises used by the authorities to explain their policy choices, make Greece an fascinating case study in the European and global migration politics. But first, I address why I focus on immigration detention instead of refugee camps and other forms of confinement. Why immigration detention? On 5th December, 2021, Pope Francis visited the island of Lesvos, ‘a place that has been identified with the drama of refugees’, as Katerina Sakellaropoulou, the President of the Hellenic Republic stated in her welcoming speech (efsyn.gr, 2021). She added, by way of reassurance to the gathered dignitaries and international media, that the situation had in every respect significantly improved since the Pontifex’s prior visit to the Island in 2016. 5 The Pope was received warmly by the Christian Catholic refugee community. “Today’s visit by the Pope gladdens all us migrants,” said an 18-year-old from the Republic of Congo 5 See Rozakou (2019) for a description of the Pope’s first visit to the island. 14