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Migrant Detention Response Network (이주구금대응네트워크)
Network for the Action against Immigration Detention (NAID)
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We thank your news organization for its efforts for the human rights of migrants.
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The Migrant Detention Response Network (hereafter the Network) was launched on October 18, 2024. To respond to the abuse that took place at the Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center in 2021 (the so-called “shrimp-bending” case), it formed the “Joint Response Committee on the Torture Case at the Immigration Detention Center” and has gradually expanded the scope of its movement to the issue of migrant detention as a whole.
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February 11, 2007 is the day the fire disaster occurred at the Yeosu Immigration Detention Center (the detention room of the Yeosu Immigration Office). The victims, “confined” in the name of “protection”, could not even evacuate in a highly dangerous situation because they were locked behind closed iron bars “to prevent escape”. Ten neighbors who had come to this land to realize their dreams and lived together with us had their dignified lives taken from them by the Korean government. On the occasion of the 19th anniversary, a memorial gathering was held on Saturday, February 8, in front of the memorial monument in front of the Yeosu Immigration Office, to honor the souls of the deceased and to remember the suffering of the bereaved families and survivors.
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A tragedy like the Yeosu Immigration Detention Center fire must never be repeated. For this reason, the Migrant Detention Response Network is issuing this statement commemorating the 19th anniversary. We ask for your news organization’s attention and coverage.
● Attached: Full text of the statement / Cases of serious injury and death caused by crackdowns
Migrant Detention Response Network (이 주 구 금 대 응 네 트 워 크)
((사)한국알트루사 난민과함께살기, DLG공익인권센터, 공익법단체 두루, 공익법센터 어필, 공익인권법재단 공감, 난민인권센터, 대한불교조계종 사회노동위원회, 소수자난민인권네트워크, 아시아평화를향한이주MAP, 외국인·이주노동운동협의회, 울산이주민센터, 이주노동자인권·노동권 실현을 위한 대구경북지역연대회의, 이주노동자평등연대, 이주민지원공익센터 감사와 동행, 이주여성인권포럼, 천주교인권위원회, 트랜스보더링랩, 화성외국인보호소방문시민모임 마중)
[Statement Commemorating the 19th Anniversary of the Yeosu Immigration Detention Center Fire]
Guarantee Human Rights in Detention Centers! Oppose Building a Resident Detention Center! Let Us Build a World Without Migrant Detention!
In a fire that broke out 19 years ago, on February 11, 2007, in the detention room of the Yeosu Immigration Office, 10 detained undocumented migrants died. We pray for the repose of the deceased and extend our condolences to the bereaved families and the survivors of the fire.
The Yeosu Immigration Detention Center fire exposed the true face of a barbaric immigration policy that, under the pretext of protection, confines migrants at will, forces them into poor conditions and forcibly deports them. The Ministry of Justice’s immigration authorities seized migrants for having no visa, confined them, and did not release them for more than one or two years. Among the victims were a person who could not leave the country because of unpaid wages, and a person who had been waiting for more than six months because the immigration authorities’ mistake delayed identity verification. These are precious lives that would not have been lost had it not been for detention. The government locked them in the detention center but could not protect their lives. Even when the fire broke out, it prioritized preventing escape and did not open the iron-barred door in time, which increased the toll.
Nineteen years later, have conditions in immigration detention centers improved? They have not. In 2021 the so-called “shrimp-bending” torture case occurred, and every year hundreds of children are detained. According to information the Ministry of Justice provided in response to a request by the citizens’ group Majung, a total of 26 migrants died in immigration detention centers and detention rooms nationwide from 2006 through the end of July 2025. The number is far higher if we include those who died after being released when their illness worsened during the process of detention and deportation. Last year, at the Cheongju detention center, a staff member assaulted a detained refugee.
Guarantee human rights inside detention facilities!
It is no exaggeration to say that there are no human rights in detention centers that are like prisons. Meals, exercise, medical care, counseling, communication with the outside world, handling of grievances, and everything else are poor and rights-violating, from the first item to the last. The Ministry of Justice’s policy of actively granting temporary release to those with unpaid wages hardly works. Even the regular visits by labor inspectors to counsel on unpaid wages are not carried out by checking everyone in advance; detained migrants must first apply for it to the grievance counselor in the detention center. Yet the very fact that one can receive counseling from a labor inspector in this way is not well communicated. In addition, it is said that for migrants confirmed to have unpaid wages, the immigration office with jurisdiction decides on temporary release ex officio to help resolve the unpaid wage problem quickly, but it is highly doubtful how often this is actually done. The proper measure would be not to investigate unpaid wages after detention, but to check at the stage of the detention decision whether wages are unpaid and to make sure that this does not lead to detention.
Meanwhile, from February 2, a measure was recently ordered banning the use of mobile phone cameras by migrants inside the detention centers. Even during the hours when phone use is permitted, they are made to put stickers on the phone cameras. Phone cameras are urgently needed for translating various documents, making video calls and photographing evidence, yet it is understood that those who refuse to put a sticker on the camera have their phone use restricted for a week and are confined in solitary for three days. It is said to be a measure for the security of the detention center, but it is unacceptable and an act that directly violates even the minimum of human rights. The Ministry of Justice must immediately withdraw this anti-human-rights measure.
We oppose building a new Sangju immigration detention center!
The Ministry of Justice says it will build an additional immigration detention center in Sangju this year and has secured the budget. Unless the aim is to detain more people, building more detention centers must stop immediately. The so-called “five-year plan to reduce illegal stay” created under the Yoon Suk Yeol government must be scrapped, the criminalization of undocumented migrants must stop, and alternatives to detention must be actively sought.
Let us move toward a world without detention!
It is an international recommendation that detention should be used only as a last resort. On December 10 last year, the “alternatives to detention bill” (a partial amendment bill to the Immigration Act) was introduced, proposing to institutionalize alternatives to detention. A system of alternatives to detention, which allows migrants subject to departure to settle their affairs and leave voluntarily without being detained, has been recommended to the Korean government several times by international organizations including the United Nations, and has been actively introduced in many other countries. It is a far better system than a detention-centered one.
The Lee Jae-myung government’s emphasis on the human rights of migrants must not stay at words alone. Undocumented migrants must not be treated only as targets of anti-human-rights, violent crackdowns and deportation. The policy of forced crackdowns and deportation must be changed into a policy of stabilizing the stay of undocumented migrants and granting them status of stay, and detention must be minimized. Only then can we prevent further barbaric human rights violations, abuse and death. Let us move toward a world without migrant detention!
February 11, 2026
Migrant Detention Response Network (이주구금대응네트워크)
(사)한국알트루사 난민과함께살기, DLG공익인권센터, 공익법단체 두루, 공익법센터 어필, 공익인권법재단 공감, 난민인권센터, 대한불교조계종 사회노동위원회, 소수자난민인권네트워크, 아시아평화를향한이주MAP, 외국인·이주노동운동협의회, 울산이주민센터, 이주노동자인권·노동권 실현을 위한 대구경북지역연대회의, 이주노동자평등연대, 이주민지원공익센터 감사와 동행, 이주여성인권포럼, 천주교인권위원회, 트랜스보더링랩, 화성외국인보호소방문시민모임 마중)