Statistics on pre-removal detention of asylum seekers and other migrants are not available. There are no statistics available on the number of persons applying from detention across the country either.
While most international protection applicants are not systematically detained, categories of international protection applicants most commonly detained include:
- Persons who make an international protection application in border premises;
- Persons who apply for international protection after being intercepted for irregular presence and being placed in a Removal Centre, including persons readmitted to Türkiye from another country;
- Persons who have made an application for international protection and are apprehended without documentation or outside their assigned province (“satellite city”) without authorisation;
- Persons issued a security restriction code, for example on suspicion of being foreign terrorist fighters (Yabancı Terörist Savaşçı, YTS).
While Removal Centres (Geri Gönderme Merkezi, GGM) are essentially defined as facilities dedicated for administrative detention for the purpose of removal, in practice they are also used to detain international protection applicants (see Place of Detention). According to PMM, as of June 2022, there were 30 active Removal Centres in Türkiye (including two temporary removal centres).[1] The EU provides support for migration management under its pre-accession assistance to Türkiye. This includes the construction of fourteen removal centres (of which eight are completed), and the refurbishment and maintenance of eleven additional centres. This support amounts to a total of EUR 84 million provided under the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance.[2]
The LFIP provides that international protection applications of detained applicants other than requiring that applications of detained applicants shall be finalised “as quickly as possible”,[3] and that they fall within the scope of the Accelerated Procedure.[4]
There is little information available on detention during COVID-19. This being said, persons were released from removal centres in early 2020 because flights were cancelled as a result of travel restrictions and to ensure that there was social distancing measures/ that detention centres were not too crowded. Released persons were subsequently subject to reporting duties, which is an alternative to detention that has been increasingly used throughout the year as described in Alternatives to detention.
[1] See PMM, Removal Centres, available at: https://bit.ly/2PThCl9.
[2] Answer to European Parliamentary Question reference P-002884/2019 on behalf of the European Commission, available at: http://bit.ly/2TWAO0o.
[3] Article 68(5) LFIP.
[4] Article 79(1)(ç) LFIP.