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This paper examines human rights issues surrounding the forcible return of Eritrean asylum seekers to Eritrea. It begins by raising questions about the failure of governments which deport Eritreans to uphold their obligations under international law. Second I look at the role of the UNHCR in ensuring the protection of Eritrean asylum seekers. Finally I examine the risks which confront Eritreans on return as seen through a human rights framework.

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The detention of 'illegal' immigrants and 'failed' asylum seekers has become routine within the UK immigration and asylum system. Thousands of people are detained each year in dedicated Immigration Removal Centres (IRC) across the UK, run by private contractors or the prison service. Enclosed, isolated and invisible; these contentious centres form part of a growing international archipelago of spaces of confinement. The rationalised, disciplinary context of the IRC is a central part of the experiences of those people who find themselves in the UK with uncertain immigration status. Yet little is known about how the detention centre works, and few studies 'go inside'. Notwithstanding the insights gained by viewing detention centres in light of the exception (Agamben 1995), analyses that 'stop at the centre gates' reveal little of the fraught, seething environment in which detainees and staff work and live. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork among staff at an UK detention centre (whose decisions within a distinct working culture modulate the experiences of detainees), this paper considers how fine-grained anthropological analysis of the working practices of the secure establishment might shed light on the meaning of being detained. If the controversial immigration centre is an abject space (Isin and Rygiel 2007), then it is vital to pay attention to the mundane and contradictory social practices through which the detainee comes to be recognised (or not) within this key site, and the way this recognition is intertwined with fear, indifference and empathy.

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The UK detains indefinitely asylum seekers and other foreigners who cannot be deported. Many are stateless and may never be able to return to their countries of origin. As a result many are detained for years, at dramatic cost to their mental health.

Immigration detainees with criminal convictions are perceived as "bad" immigrants whose rights can be disregarded. As a result, the UK can arbitrarily deprive them of their liberty for periods of years, with little wider debate. Yet many are stateless and simply unable to return to their countries of origin. Others are from countries that are too dangerous for deportations to take place. In many cases their convictions arose from their marginalisation, as for example with asylum seekers convicted of working illegally.

This paper explores the phenomenon of indefinite detention without time-limit from the perspective of detainees. In-depth interviews were held with 24 people detained for more than a year, to explore the human impact of this practice. The interviews focused in particular on detainees' interaction with the bureaucratic machinery of detention policy, e.g. decision-makers and bail hearings. Quantitative analysis was conducted on 188 case files of London Detainee Support Group clients detained for more than a year, in order to investigate the extent to which indefinite detention effectively serves its stated goal of facilitating deportation.

The research found that only 18% of these detainees had been deported. More than half remained in detention, despite the remote likelihood of deportation taking place. They had been detained for a total of 318 years. Interviewees reported dramatic deteriorations in their mental health, including hearing voices, suicide attempts and self-harm.

Wider debate is necessary over the normalisation of the indefinite detention of foreign ex-offenders. Are basic rights dependent on either citizenship on the one hand, or good behaviour on the other? Where does this leave refused asylum seekers who are excluded from work and mainstream forms of social participation?