What are detention centres for foreigners? – INSIGHTSIAS

[ad_1]

GS Paper 2

Topics covered: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

 

Context:

Assam’s detention centres for foreigners and those declared such by specific tribunals have been renamed as transit camps.

 

Please note:

The State currently has six detention centres and they have 181 inmates, 61 of whom are declared foreign nationals and 121 convicted foreign nationals awaiting deportation. Two of these centres house 22 children along with their “foreigner” mothers.

 

What are detention centres?

They are places designated to keep illegal migrants (people who have entered a country without necessary documents) once they are detected by the authorities till the time their nationality is confirmed and they are deported to the country of their origin.

  • Detention centres were set up in Assam after the Union government authorized the state to do so under the provisions of the Foreigners’ Act, 1946 and the Foreigners Order, 1948.

 

Foreigners Act, 1946:

It replaced the Foreigners Act, 1940 conferring wide powers to deal with all foreigners.

The act empowered the government to take such steps as are necessary to prevent illegal migrants including the use of force.

The concept of ‘burden of proof’ lies with the person, and not with the authorities.

  • The act originally empowered the government to establish tribunals which would have powers similar to those of a civil court.
  • Amendments (2019) to the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964 empowered even district magistrates in all States and Union Territories to set up tribunals to decide whether a person staying illegally in India is a foreigner or not.

 

Insta Curious:

Which other states have Detention Centres apart from Assam? Reference: read this.

 

InstaLinks:

Prelims Link:

  1. Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) (IMDT) Act vs Foreigners Tribunal (Order) 1964.
  2. Burden of proof under this order.
  3. Powers to approach the tribunal and kind of cases to be decided by the tribunal.
  4. Composition of the tribunal.
  5. Refugee vs illegal Migrants.
  6. Fundamental Rights available for Foreigners and other constitutional provisions wrt to Foreigners.
  7. Human Rights vs Fundamental Rights.

Mains Link:

Discuss briefly the laws that are in place to tackle illegal non-citizens in the country. Why was the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964 amended? Explain.

Sources: the Hindu.

[ad_2]

Leave a Comment