Refugees in containment: patterns of (im)mobility and the right of asylum at the Southern Border

ABSTRACT

Spaces for containing migrants arriving in Spain have proliferated, whether closed - Foreigner Internment Centres (CIE, in its Spanish acronym) and Centres for Temporary Assistance to Foreigners (CATE) - or semi-open - Temporary Stay Centres for Immigrants (CETI). Asylum application procedures and government practice in each of these settings mean that significant geographical and national differences exist in terms of numbers of requests for international protection. Based on a quantitative, normative and documentary analysis of the requests made in recent years, above all at the Spanish southern border, it is argued that via the containment/confinement mechanisms in place the current border control system conditions asylum applications in order to accelerate them when the government seeks immediate deportation, to discourage their formalisation or transfer to another European state. © 2021. All Rights Reserved.