Conclusion and Recommendations Rights-based, community-centred alternatives to deten­tion are humane, effective and affordable. They protect the dignity and agency of people affected by migration processes. They achieve compliance, better health and wellbeing outcomes, and fair and timely case resolution. And they do so at a fraction of the cost of detention. Across Europe, community-based pilots have demon­strated these results in practice, in admission and return contexts alike. The evidence is clear: rights-based, com­munity-centred alternatives to detention work, therefore governments should be investing in them, not expand­ing immigration detention. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and the proposed Return Regulation create serious risks of entrenching detention as the default tool of migration governance. Instead of using and normalis­ing this cost-inefficient, rights-infringing and often harmful tool, implementation should consider existing promising practices of affordable, rights-based and com­munity-based solutions that reduce detention, increase compliance and benefit both states and individuals. Recommendations Embed screening, assessment, placement and case management at the centre of national migration sys­tems . The recast Reception Conditions Directive requires Member States to consider ATD before resorting to de­tention. In order to achieve migration management out­comes at scale, Member States’ investment in screening, assessment, placement and case management is key. IDC’s Community Assessment and Placement model can be used as a blueprint for this approach. Therefore, Member States should invest in individualised screening and needs assessment, together with an established con­tinuum of community-based placement options and pro­fessional case management services across asylum and return procedures. This will lead to high levels of cooper­ation, improved wellbeing, and fair and timely case reso­lution. The Reception Directive provides the legal basis to build such comprehensive community-based frame­works. Distinguish between alternatives to detention and al­ternate forms of detention . Measures that restrict free­dom of movement, impose intrusive surveillance or deny reasonable access to family, work and social life should be recognised as alternate forms of detention, extending deprivation of liberty under a different name. GPS-ena­bled ankle monitors, tracking applications and biometric reporting systems function as an“invisible leash” that extends detention into digital form. Member States should therefore stop labelling coercive restrictions as ATD. Evidence from community-based programmes shows that measures relying on surveillance, confine­ment or coercion produce compliance outcomes no bet­ter, and often worse than, genuine ATD. Governments should use technology only where it demonstrably re­duces detention, supports rights and strengthens agen­cy, and reject digital tools that monitor, stigmatise or ex­tend detention-like control in the community. Coercive measures increase anxiety and mistrust, which are the primary drivers of absconding; by contrast, case manage­ment-based approaches allow people to live in the com­munity and build the trust needed for individuals to en­gage with their immigration procedures and cooperate towards case resolution. Invest in scaling workable community-based pilots and embed them in the system . The pilot projects across Europe have demonstrated distinct strengths that together illustrate the key ingredients of effective ATD: Bulgaria’s programme showed that legal counsel­ling and individualised case management can achieve high levels of cooperation even in contexts with limited ATD infrastructure; Cyprus demonstrated successful community-based placement as an alternative to its overcrowded detention facilities; Poland’s pilot proved that professional case management leads to high en­gagement with immigration procedures and voluntary compliance with return decisions; and the United King­dom’s community engagement programme showed that holistic support, combining casework, legal advice and access to services, results in higher case resolution rates than detention. With only around 20 percent of return decisions currently enforced across the EU, expanding detention will not close this gap. However, scaling com­munity-based alternatives to detention approaches can work towards closing this gap, while being rights-based and safeguarding the wellbeing and health of the indi­viduals concerned. The European Commission and the EU Asylum Agency should therefore encourage Member States to replace detention-led approaches with com­munity-based case management systems embedded in law, policy and practice. End child immigration detention . International human rights law is unambiguous that child immigration deten­tion is never in the best interest of the child. Where EU instruments fall short of an outright prohibition, Member States must go further and legislate national bans as several European countries have already done. Research consistently demonstrates that immigration detention causes severe harm to children’s mental and physical health, including elevated rates of anxiety, depression, developmental regression and post-traumatic stress dis­order, with symptoms persisting long after release 63 . The detention of parents also has devastating effects on fam­ily cohesion and unity and the wellbeing of the wider community. Non-custodial, community-based care is the 63  Lorek, A., Ehntholt, K., Nesbitt, A., Wey, E., Githinji, C., Rossor, E.,& Wickramasinghe, R.(2009). The mental and physical health difficulties of children held within a British immigration detention center: A pilot study. Child Abuse& Neglect, 33(9), 573–585. Community-Based Alternatives to Immigration Detention 9