Invisible and suffering : prolonged and systematic detention of asylum seekers living in substandard conditions in Greece

Detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers is becoming an increasingly common practice in many countries. Irregular migrants include those arriving in the country with a legal visa either to visit or to work and overstaying their visa without any residence status. In contrast, asylum seekers are people fleeing dangerous war-torn regions with human right abuses and seeking international protection in another country but whose claim for refugee status has not yet been determined. The so-called "undocumented" or "illegal" arrivals are asylum seekers arriving either by boat, land, or plane without a valid visa. Both irregular migrants and undocumented arrivals are subject to immigration detention. The use of the terms "irregular migrants" and "undocumented arrivals" has attracted criticism and has been labelled as insulting. We recognise that asylum-seeking is neither a criminal act nor should it be criminalised. However, we use these terms in this chapter for ease of narration, and do not place any value judgement on them. We use the term "third-country national" to refer to individuals in transit and applying for a visa to stay in a country other than their country of origin or to go to a destination country that is not their country of origin. In the European Union (EU) context, "third-country nationals" refer to individuals who are neither from the EU member state in which they apply for a visa nor from any other EU member states.