The Lived Experiences of Migrants in Detention

Abstract The detention and deportation of (undocumented) non‐citizens has become one of the political priorities in the realisation of states' internal migration control. The increase in detention and deportation of migrants raises questions about these practices' implicit functions and their impact on the migrants subjected to detention. This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the contemporary expansion of immigration detention by focusing on detained migrants' lived experiences and perspectives on detention practices. On the basis of interviews with 31 detainees in Belgian detention centres, we explore how migrants' self‐perceptions relate to current legal and societal discourses. By referring to their connections with the host country through material, familial or emotional ties, the interviewees strongly oppose their detention and upcoming deportation. Thereby, they bring the (contested) experience of belonging firmly to the centre of this paper, referring to the connection between ‘body’ and ‘place’. They also point to the large and growing gap between their lived experiences on the one hand and the realities and political discourses of (legal) belonging on the other. In addition, detainees' lived experiences shed light onto the burden and consequences of lacking citizenship, and, simultaneously, demonstrate how individuals try to assert alternative, identity‐based claims, and/or deny – or at least avoid – the idea of deportation. We hereby hypothesise that this denial, as also the growing gap between detainees' own perspectives and policy and public discourses might have a major impact on migrants' wellbeing and their reintegration processes back ‘home’. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.