COVID-19 IMPACTS ON IMMIGRATION DETENTION: GLOBAL RESPONSES The authorities’ efforts to assist migrants during the crisis are without parallel and represent a significant step forward for migrants’ inclusion in Tunisian society more generally. However, these efforts were impacted by several factors: the need to collect personal data to avoid multiple donations to a single person; the irregular status and risk of detention and expulsion of many beneficiaries; the insufficient amount of private funds raised and the almost complete absence of public money; and the failure to apply this aid mechanism in regions outside the capital. Finally, the presence of multiple public actors working with migrants and the absence of a single, central body to manage the national migration strategy hindered the implementation of a faster, more effective response to the crisis. SPECIFIC ACTIONS TO ASSIST MIGRANTS IN DETENTION Migrants in detention were the target of specific action by several associations in Tunisia. This was part of a broader international appeal to provide assistance to migrants held in detention centres where their lives are endangered by poor sanitary conditions. In the country, people subject to expulsion are held in a detention centre (the ‘Ouardia Centre’) until they are able to find a way of funding their repatriation. During this period, field missions to the Ouardia Centre were organised to provide emergency aid and to ensure that migrants’ rights were being protected. This allowed Terre d’Asile Tunisia, for example, to help 50 detainees by distributing hygiene and protection kits, as well as food, and to record their testimonies in order to raise wider awareness and improve coordination between associations. Several associations working together as a coalition (Terre d’Asile Tunisia, Lawyers without Borders, World Organisation against Torture, and Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights) lobbied for improved measures to protect the health of the people held in Ouardia, demanding the immediate release of the detainees in view of the exceptional circumstances. However, the emergency situation also acted as a trigger for broader, more farreaching legal and political advocacy to highlight the irregularities of migrant detention, considered to be abusive, 3 by this coalition of associations, who called for an immediate end to the practice. CONCLUSION: WHAT NEXT? The response to the COVID-19 crisis in spring 2020 was beset by obstacles and difficulties. Nevertheless, it saw the emergence of new, promising dynamics for the future of migration in Tunisia. There was a clear sense of solidarity towards the migrant population, migrants were included in the decisions affecting them within associations, and unprecedented levels of collaboration emerged between civil society organisations and the authorities. The COVID-19 crisis also provided an opportunity for lobbying for an improved response to migration by the authorities and better conditions for work and stay for migrants, as well as challenging existing practices that restrict individual freedoms, such as detention. To varying extents, this lobbying appears to have made an impact on the Tunisian authorities, who have been open to more inclusive discussions with civil society organisations, including community associations. The efforts of civil society organisations to transform these intentions into action must continue in the future, in collaboration with town councils which are becoming more and more sensitive to their responsibility for local migration governance. These organisations must also continue to closely monitor changes in the discourse and perceptions towards migrants to ensure that the discrimination they suffer, which worsened in spring 2020, is brought to an end. ELISA CLAESSENS Advocacy and Partnerships Officer, Terre d’Asile Tunisie With the support of Yosra Allani, Coordinator of the Sfax Office, and Michela Castiello, Coordinator of the Development Department, Terre d’Asile Tunisie This article has been translated from the original in French In early June 2020, the coalition of organisations helped a group of 22 migrants detained in Ouardia to take their cases to the administrative court. On 16 July, the court issued a historic ruling, ordering their detention to be suspended on the grounds that it contravened Tunisian law and the country’s international commitments. The migrants were released several weeks later. Besides the specific outcome of this action, it is also relevant to note the collaboration between civil society organisations and public bodies, in this case the National Authority for the Prevention of Torture (INPT), which helped to make the lobbying campaign a success. 3 Indeed, there are no legal grounds for this practice in Tunisian law. Detainees do not receive written notification of their confinement and are also unable to challenge the deprivation of their liberty. Moreover, the Ouardia Centre is not legally registered as a detention centre. Officially speaking, it is a ‘reception and orientation centre’, which is currently under the oversight of the Ministry of the Interior. In practice, however, it is a place of incarceration. idcoalition.org | westernsydney.edu.au/hadri 55