GOVERNING IRREGULAR MIGRATION AT THE MARGINS OF EUROPE Under the new policy, asylum processing has changed considerably. For those arriving after 20 March, a different asylum procedure is in place, with the inadmissibility of claims first examined based on the «safe third country» and «first country of asylum» rules. Those whose claims are found inadmissible, or whose asylum has been rejected on merit, are in theory returnable to Turkey. In Greece, the law no. 4375/2016 was passed, establishing the criteria under which the hotspots operate. The SYRIZA-led coalition incorporated in the Law the EU recast Asylum Procedures Directive (APD)13 to ensure that the inadmissibility process is applied, and returns take place based on the Greece-Turkey bilateral readmission agreement (signed in 2001). Implementation of returns hinges on ensuring that migrants remain on the islands. Thus, from the moment of arrival until return is achieved, migrants must remain in the hotspots and the islands. Departure to the mainland is only feasible for those who have received international protection in Greece. Those whose claim to protection is accepted are not eligible for the relocation scheme to other EU Member States. Relocation is only limited to Syrians and Eritreans in the mainland prior to 20 March. In summary, the Statement is sternly structured around the Dublin principle: the frontline state is responsible for everything, from processing to returns. 3. 3. Islands as hotspots, hotspots in the islands Islands are not unique places in the European migration management. The Canary Islands for Spain and Lampedusa for Italy have been sites of detention, screening and «buffer zones» since the early 1990s14. Alison Mountz (2011) has argued that island detention is one of the ways through which nation-states attempt to manage entry. Their geographical location makes them function as sites of exclusion. In a context in which irregular migration is increasingly «securitised» (Bigo, 2000; Huysmans, 2000, 2006), what matters most is not prohibiting entry, but selecting who enters, when and for how long. Selection takes place at the border and increasingly beyond it, assisted by the proliferation of new technologies and agencies, such as FRONTEX and the new European Border Guard, or satellite systems offering pre-frontier intelligence picture like EUROSUR. Those who succeed in reaching Europe must first cross a border. The islands of northern Aegean are in fact both a border and part of the external border of the EU. Borders are zones where «politics becomes fully entangled in matters of life and death» (Walters, 2013, p. 206). As such, they carry a dual identity: as frontiers, they are both institutions and processes, tools of state policy and markers of identity (Anderson, 1996). The islands of Northern Aegean are currently functioning as tools of state policy as regards the governance of mobility, but also as tools of the EU policy. The islands were asked to accept and carry the burden of hosting the hotspot facilities in their limited territory, x 13 European Union: Council of the European Union, Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection (recast), 29 June 2013, OJL.180/60-180/95;29.6.2013,2013/ 32/EU(«APD»), available online at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/51d29b224.html. 14 See the Special Issue in the Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies (2014), 12:2. – 81 –