by CEAR

The following entry is adapted from “Centros de Internamiento de Extranjeros (CIE): Migraciones.” Diccionario de Asilo. CEAR. https://diccionario.cear-euskadi.org/centros-de-internamiento-de-extranjeros-cie/.

Immigrant Internment Centers (in Spain) are non-penitentiary public facilities in which foreigners in irregular situations are detained in order to facilitate their deportation, depriving them of their freedom for up to 60 days.

Given that lack of documentation is a civil offense, Immigrant Internment Centers are not formally considered “detention centers” but rather “internment centers.”

They are run by the Interior Ministry through the General Police Directorate. Therefore, they should be understood as “extensions of police detention” under Spanish law.

Currently, there exist seven immigrant internment centers in the Spanish State: Madrid (Aluche), Barcelona (Zona Franca), Murcia (Sangonera), Valencia (Zapadores), Algeciras (La Piñera), Tenerife (Hoya Fría) and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Barranco Seco). In addition, other facilities, such as Las Palomas in Tarifa, achieve the same purpose but are not included on the official list. The immigrant internment centers in Málaga and Fuerteventura closed in 2012.

The Interior Ministry has not made information about these immigrant internment centers public, but it is estimated that around 1,000 people are interned each month. Slightly over half of these initial 1,000 are ultimately deported. The effectiveness of sanction alone, however, renders interment an unnecessary, unjust, and discriminatory measure according to international human rights law.

Immigrant internment centers were created by the Spanish Immigration Law of 1985. Regulation of these institutions began 14 years later after a Ministerial order. The New Immigration Law of 2009 establishes a period of six months for the approval of a new regulation of the functioning of immigrant internment centers. The Real Decreto 162/2014, issued on March 14th of 2014, approved the operating policies and interior management of the immigrant internment centers. This policy does not mention an obligation to inform detainees of the possibility to apply for asylum, legalizes the forcible stripping of detainees, allows police to use firearms inside of the center, facilitates monitoring of detainees’ activity, and intensifies the centers’ penal nature.

The number of internment centers in Europe alone has increased from 324 in 2000 to 473 in 2012, according to the fifth edition of Migreurop’s “Mapa de los Campos.” These centers span 44 countries with a known total internment capacity of almost 37,000. In 2012, 570,660 immigrants were detained in European Union territory; 252,785 were deported.

Many social organizations, institutions and international entities have denounced the lack of transparency and the living conditions of interned people, who suffer mistreatment, isolation and violations of their fundamental rights. Women subject to human trafficking and other forms of violence, in many cases, have been deported without having been informed of their right to seek asylum. Light has still not been shed on the deaths of Samba Martine in the center in Aluche or the deaths of Idrissa Diallo and Aramis Manukyan in the center in Zona Franca.

According to a complaint filed by Migreurop’s border observatory, “closed” centers serve, in general, to identify people and examine whether they should be admitted to or deported from the territory in question. But other centers that are considered to be “open” — mostly provisional lodgings for asylum seekers in isolated areas — follow the same logic: the administrative and social control of immigrants under the pretext of “taking them in.”

Added to these official forms of detention are the “invisible” places of internment, informal spaces in which, under the pretense of an emergency, authorities detain people out of sight and at the margins of legality (in police stations, stadiums, parking lots, prisons, airports, hotel rooms, etc.). Ultimately, foreigners are condemned to wandering about and confined to the limits of potentially dangerous border zones and neighborhoods.

References

Campaña por el cierre de los CIE (2013): ¿Cuál es el delito? Informe de la Campaña por el cierre de los Centros de Internamiento: el caso de Zapadores. 

CEAR (2009): Situación de los Centros de Internamiento para Extranjeros en España. Informe Técnico en el marco del estudio europeo DEVAS. 

Ley Orgánica 4/2000, de 11 de enero, sobre derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en España y su integración social.

Ley Orgánica 7/1985, de 1 de julio, sobre derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en España.

Manzaneda, C. (2014): Luces y sombras del nuevo reglamento de los CIE. El País, 19 de marzo de 2014.

Migreurop (2013): Boletín nº 2, abril de 2013.

Orden Ministerial de 22 de febrero de 1999, sobre normas de funcionamiento y régimen interior de los CIE.

Pueblos Unidos (2013): Atrapados tras las rejas. Informe 2012 sobre los Centros de Internamiento de Extranjeros (CIE) en España. Marzo 2013.

Real Decreto 162/2014, de 14 de marzo, por el que se aprueba el reglamento de funcionamiento y régimen interior de los centros de internamiento de extranjeros.

VV.AA. (2013): ¿Qué hacemos para conectar la crítica a la movilidad en el capitalismo con la lucha contra las políticas migratorias y las fronteras? AKAL, Madrid.

Women’s Link Worldwide (2012): Mujeres en los centros de internamiento de extranjeros (CIE). Realidades entre rejas.

by CEAR