The obsolescence of detention: Versatility, expendability and plasticity in the field of immigration confinement

Abstract

Studies on immigration enforcement and bordered penality frequently depict immigration detention as a system of confinement enforced in closed, relatively opaque facilities geared towards the expeditious deportation of non-citizens. This notion is actually a synecdoche of the diverse forms of containment and the varying, more or less dispensable roles played by detention practices within immigration enforcement systems. This paper challenges this perspective by considering prominent changes taking place in the detention field across Europe, which can be seen as signals of a gradual detention crisis. In this respect, it explores the versatility of detention practices, which have made the detention system particularly resilient. Despite this resilience, though, the paper unveils and maps the obsolescence of detention centric models of immigration enforcement, which manifests itself in the jurisdictions in which detention systems either are largely irrelevant or have been shrinking in the recent past. Additionally, the paper examines the consolidation of the hotspot archipelago in Mediterranean Europe, which has expanded the containment capacity of the border control apparatus and made it increasingly plastic. Yet the hotspot system is in itself an additional manifestation of the obsolescence of detention-centric models of enforcement. After having scrutinised these different dimensions, the paper concludes by exploring the promises and pitfalls of a changing detention landscape and suggesting directions for future research.