Immigration detention in return & deportation procedures: 2025 14601 Deportation Return 7919 49 3958 With detention Without detention Source: Ministry of Citizen Protection, Reply to parliamentary question, 16 Mar 2026 Detention with no prospect of removal The main nationalities of people subject to immigration detention in 2025 were Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria and Sudan: Main nationalities in immigration detention orders: 2025 16000 14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0 Return Deportation Asylum Screening Sources: Ministry of Citizen Protection, Reply to parliamentary question, 16 Mar 2026; Ministry of Migration and Asylum, Reply to parliamentary question, 27 Feb 2026 Pre-removal detention is conditioned upon the existence of a reasonable prospect of removal from Greece, among other requirements. Yet, pre-removal detention was imposed on people from countries such as Afghanistan or Sudan, without any prospect of removal either to their countries of origin or to Türkiye. The Asylum Service maintains extremely high, near-100% recognition rates for these countries. Judicial review of detention 3,878 objections against detention were lodged in 2025, corresponding to 15.2% of the total number of detention orders issued by the Hellenic Police – excluding RIS “freedom RSA POLICY NOTE │ IMMIGRATION DETENTION | MAR 2026 6