Migration Detention
Detention has become a central instrument of migration governance in Belgium and across the European Union. This panel discussion will shed light on the way migration policies at both the EU and national levels are translated into detention practices and explore their legal and human consequences for migrants as well as for host societies.
What's New
The panel brings together researchers, policy experts, and civil society practitioners to share findings and provide a nuanced, holistic account for a broader audience.
The speakers will highlight the lived experiences of people in administrative detention against the backdrop of current Belgian policies and the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum.
The session aims to inform participants about the legal framework, conditions, and personal experiences of asylum detention at the margins of Belgian society, while suggesting alternative approaches to avoid the criminalization of vulnerable groups and to promote a more humane future.
The schedule
14:00 | Welcome by Erik De Bom, acting director of UCSIA
14:05 | Welcome by Milena Belloni, Research Professor in Migration and Global Mobility (MIGLOBA)
14:15 | Lars Breuls (VUB) – Detained and Governed: Ethnographic Insights into EU Return Policy and Immigration Detention
Lars Breuls is Assistant Professor at the Department of Criminology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. His research focuses on migration control, administrative decision-making, and the implementation of prison sentences. He obtained his PhD with an ethnographic study on immigration detention in Belgium and the Netherlands.
14:35 | Emmanuelle Vinois (Caritas International) – From Policy to Practice: Immigration Detention Through the Lens of Legal Field Work
Emmanuelle Vinois is a Legal Advisor at Caritas International Belgium, where she provides legal advice on immigration law to social workers, designs and delivers training in immigration law, and drafts legal documents in support of people in vulnerable situations. She is the former Coordinator of the Move Coalition (2021–2024), the national NGO coalition conducting visits in migration detention centres in Belgium, and has worked as a lawyer (avocat) for four years, during which she visited the closed detention centres in Vottem (Liège) on a near-weekly basis to seek the release of detained individuals.
14:55 | Ruben Bruynooghe (JRS Belgium) – Beyond the Law: Human Support, detention grounded field work and Alternatives to Detention
Ruben Bruynooghe is a legal expert and Coordinator of the Detention Visitor Group at JRS (Jesuit Refugee Service) Belgium.
Every Tuesday, he visits people held at the Caricole detention centre near Brussels Airport, providing them with information about their situation, their rights, and the role their lawyer can play. Beyond legal support, his work is rooted in human accompaniment — offering detained people a moment of recognition and dignity.
He also coordinates JRS’s broader detention visiting programme which inspired the development of alternatives to detention, brought to live in the project “Plan Together”.
15:15 | Q&A
16:00 | End
ELP - European Leadership Programme
This event is part of the European Leadership Programme (ELP) organized by the Jesuit European Social Centre (JESC). Adam Rachid, an ELP fellow at UCSIA and USOS, is organizing and hosting the panel discussion.
The ELP is an intensive five-month programme in Brussels that trains young professionals to become responsible and socially engaged leaders, with a focus on work experience in EU institutions, training in ethical leadership, and community life. UCSIA has been supporting the programme since 2020.
