GOVERNING IRREGULAR MIGRATION AT THE MARGINS OF EUROPE change. However, the riots have been effective in pressuring the State to seek alternative solutions, including their potential transfer to the mainland. They have been less effective in curtailing the application of detention. In Greece, a discussion has recently begun regarding the setting up of detention spaces on the islands with no freedom of movement to «host» those that either destroy public property, engage in criminal acts or participate in riots and pose a threat to safety and security. If riots are a physical form of resistance, asylum has emerged as a way of delaying/preventing change: here I refer to the potential return to Turkey. The Common European Asylum System and specifically the Dublin Regulation prescribe that an asylum application must be lodged and processed in the first country of arrival. Thus, while the right to asylum remains the right to choose the country is curtailed. The Dublin rule, initially set up to avoid «asylum shopping», had an unintended consequence. Frontline States like Greece received an uneven burden and responsibility. With little preparation (or willingness), Greece has for years consistently possessed a deeply flawed asylum system27. From 2007 to 2013 when the new asylum service came into force, the overwhelming number of arrivals sought to avoid/escape the Greek asylum system on the fear that they would remain stranded in Greece. Opting out of asylum has been a consistent way of bypassing the border regime of Europe. Aware that fingerprints are recorded for the asylum application, many migrants have avoided registration in the EURODAC database, which thus enabled them to undertake secondary movement to another Member State. On the other hand, lodging an asylum application has also been used as a way to extend one’s stay in the country, particularly for those who enter undocumented. Precisely because an asylum decision could take as long as six to ten years (Cabot, 2014), it was a way to remain legally and often collect the capital necessary for onward movement. Greece has had a recent experience of broad and indiscriminate application of detention. In the period between 2012 and 2014 the then conservative government of New Democracy implemented a system of «show me your paper» policy, named Xenios Zeus, coupled with the set-up of pre-removal facilities as they were called to hold irregular migrants until their forceful or voluntary return. At the time, asylum applications in Greece were low and the new asylum service had yet to be set up. However, those in detention, particularly Afghans who made up the main asylum-seeking population at the time, sought to delay their return and find ways out of detention either by applying for asylum and in some cases going on hunger strikes and inflicting bodily self-harm (Dimitriadi, 2015; Angeli et al., 2014). The use of the body to make one noticeable but to also voice one’s protest is common in detention facilities – including hunger strikes, body mutilations and suicide attempts (see Pugglioni, 2014). It is a way of engaging politically, particularly for those who are considered to be outside the realm of the political, namely the undocumented, irregular migrants. x 27 On the legal framework and the transformations in the Greek asylum system, see the AIDA report of 2013, online at http://www.asylumineurope.org/reports/country/greece. – 89 –