COVID-19 & immigration detention: Mapping the crisis and its management

Border Criminologies is currently looking to work with local NGOs, activists, lawyers, students, academics, and people who have experienced detention, to gather detailed, grassroots information about measures that have been taken at the national and local level to protect the rights of people in immigration detention since the Covid-19 outbreak. We will make the information available on our interactive map, Landscapes of Border Control.

Anyone can enter information about a detention centre, border control site, prison, reception centre or hotspot (anywhere in the world) on the map itself, or you can email us information, photos, testimonies at Border Criminologies: bordercrim@law.ox.ac.uk

In order to create and plot a new site on the map we will need the full name and address of the institution.  

We also have come up with a series of questions, which we invite people to answer. You can find these questions in Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish & Greek here. Please contact us if you can translate them into other languages. We can post information gathered in multiple languages as well.

Please answer them by referring to specific detention centres so we can upload information to the map:

1. How many people are currently detained in the center and what is the centre’s maximum capacity?

2. Are people still entering this detention centre? If so, what are the measures taken to prevent contagion and safeguard their right to health?

3. Have detainees been released from this centre due to COVID-19? If yes, which groups?

4. What information has been provided to detainees in this centre, in which language(s) and through what means?

5. What healthcare measures have been taken in response to the virus? Has the number of health workers working inside the center increased?

6. What hygiene measures have been taken in response to the virus?

7. What measures have been taken to comply with necessary social distancing requirements?

8. What measures have been taken to ensure that detainees continue to maintain contact with their family and friends in such a difficult time?

9. Are NGOs, monitors and/or volunteers continuing to enter in detention and meet detainees? If yes, what measures have been put in place to ensure their health protection? If no, what measures have been put in place to ensure that detainees continue to receive the kind of support they used to receive from these groups?

10. What measures have been taken to protect vulnerable groups (e.g., victims of gender violence and torture; people facing mental health challenges)?

11. What measures have been taken to protect staff working with detainees? Has there been an increase or decrease in the number of staff since the COVID-19 crisis started?

12. What kind of legal measures are individuals and/or organisations pursuing in response to COVID?