The maze of immigration detention in Greece: a case study of the Athens airport detention facility Andriani Fili is a sociologist working for Medical Intervention in Athens and a Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. Introduction Greece is currently enduring the worst financial crisis in its modern history. The economic cuts have severely affected the political, economic and social agenda, as well as the everyday lives of people residing in the country. Though the financial crisis springs from other sources, people across the ideological spectrum regularly and explicitly link irregular migration to it, blaming foreigners for rising crime, the degradation of the city centre of Athens and high unemployment rates. Xenophobia, nationalism and racist attacks have, in short, become commonplace1. During the pre-election campaigns in May and June 2012, the nationalist, far-right wing party ‘Golden Dawn’ ran a campaign based almost entirely on their desire to remove immigrants from the country. With virulent posters promising to ‘get rid of the dirt off the city streets’ and organizations like ‘citizen’s groups’, which act like neighbourhood watch units, the party prides itself in taking action against the alleged social ill of irregular migration. It is not just the far right, however, who express such views. From the top of government to those who work on the ground, such views can readily be found. Thus, the current Minister of Public Protection, Nikos Dendias, recently asserted that the country is in a constant war with anomie, organized crime and irregular migration.2 As one detention officer put it, there seems to be a widely held view that ‘it’s logical and consequential to have some feelings of racism when Greece is full of immigrants’. While the country teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, racial intolerance surges, leaving irregular migrants to struggle in an inhospitable and increasingly hostile environment. The issue of irregular migration in Greece and its many aspects cannot be covered in one article. Here, though, I hope to do justice to a small part of it as it 1. manifests in the Athens airport detention centre. In so doing I draw on 6 months of work at the facility as part of an NGO programme funded by the European Refugee Fund and the Greek Ministry of Health and Social Protection. The NGO, Medical Intervention, offers psycho-social and medical support to economic migrants and refugees detained in 6 migrant detention centres in Athens. I have been working with Medical Intervention as a sociologist, offering advice and basic counseling to detained immigrants and asylum seekers, while also conducting research on detention conditions. During my time at the airport centre I have conducted more than 700 interviews with detainees and held informal conversations with 20 detention officers. The aim of this article is to map the Greek immigration system, focusing mainly on the outflow of migration from Greece and the ways that immigrants and asylum seekers become trapped in a country where they are unwelcome. An entry point for irregular migration The Greek-Turkish border has long been portrayed as the main targeted entry point for irregular migrants and asylum seekers who want to get to Europe. A 2011 report by Frontex3 estimated that nearly 90 per cent of irregular migrants to Europe entered through Greece in 20104. While the evidence is that arrivals on Greek islands have decreased due to increased border control operations, land route crossings have seen a dramatic upsurge of 372 per cent since 20095. Greek officials working at the border give evidence of more than 300 people per day crossing into Greece. Asylum seekers and irregular migrants, including children, are routinely detained at the points of entry and within a few hours are issued with an administrative deportation order. The deportation order is usually accompanied by an order for the continuation of detention. Yet very few 4. 5. For a report on hate crimes and violent attacks against immigrants in Greece, see Human Rights Watch (2012) Hate on the streets: Xenophobic Violence in Greece, USA. Interview at Police Review (2012), July-August, Issue 274. Frontex is a European Union Agency which aims to facilitate EU countries in external border management (land, sea, air) through cooperation with national border authorities, training, intelligence analyses and rapid responses to extreme cases with specialist and human resources. Frontex (2011) Annual Risk Analysis, Warsaw, Poland. Frontex (2010) Annual Risk Analysis, Warsaw, Poland. 34 Prison Service Journal 2. 3. Issue 205