GOVERNING IRREGULAR MIGRATION AT THE MARGINS OF EUROPE Since detention is meant to act as a deterrent for future arrivals and guarantee the potential return to Turkey of those deemed eligible, immobility is associated with onward movement to the mainland. The latter is achieved first through the detention in the facilities and then through the far removed geographical location of the islands. The individual remains immobile, whether in the hotspot or on the island. In other words, the State has found a way to impose immobility without having to restrict physical movement in confined spaces. The islands eventually transform into a space where immobility continues to be imposed. By September 2016 it was clear that the hotspots were overcrowded and that sanitation and hygiene were inadequate and food was substandard. Lesvos was hosting double its capacity, as were most islands with hotspots. Five hotspots on the islands of Lesvos, Samos, Chios, Leros and Kos had an initial capacity of 6,450 places20. They had consistently exceeded their capacity, with the estimate population in October 2016 reported to be at 15,000. Amnesty International recently issued a warning that conditions on the islands were dangerous and had also proven fatal, with a woman and a child recently dying as a result of a gas explosion21. The hotspots are both temporary and temporal borders- with border here designating a dividing line. They are temporary borders in the sense that they are a result of policies that may very well change in the future. Their creation is the result of specific events and takes place in a specific timing. They are also temporal borders. Tazzioli (2016) argues that «temporal borders do not only generate forms of spatial containment and increase exclusionary partitions, they also shape migrant subjectivities by multiplying differences». The hotspots of Greece precisely do this by dividing migrants in the facilities also according to the different periods of their arrival. There are those who experienced the hotspots as transit centres having arrived before the Statement, those who experienced and continue to experience them as detention facilities (after 20 March) and of course those who arrived early before the hotspot approach was implemented. Simultaneously, in the hotspots there are those who are about to reach the twenty-five day limit and due to be released, but also those who are at the start of their detention period. The same nationalities, with potentially the same claims, the same method of entry and to an extent the same travel accounts are now separated by how their arrive, stay in and transit from Greece. The period after 20 March is characterized by strandedness and immobility. For those arriving prior to 20 March, a significant number continued their journey northwards. The hotspots divide the past and the present in terms of the shift in migration policy, and potentially also differentiate the present from the future. This was clear in x 20 Data provided by Hellenic Ministry of Migration, available online at http://mindigital.gr/index.php/ %CF%80%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%83%CF%86%CF%85%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C%CE%B6%CE%AE%CF%84%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%B1-refugee-crisis/1108-summary-statement-of-refugee-flows-to-eastern-aegean-islands-30-03-2017. 21 Amnesty International Press release (2016) EU: Asylum-seekers must be moved from appalling conditions on islands, available online at; https://amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/eu-asylum-seekers-must-be-moved-from-appalling-conditions-on-islands. – 85 –