With its accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004, Malta became an external border of the free-movement area. Its geographical position between continental Europe and north Africa places the island-state at the front line of the EU's border control policies, and the Maltese authorities are now charged with preventing migrants rescued at sea from reaching the mainland. In order to fulfill their new responsibility, Maltese policy-makers have continuously claimed that given the seize of the island, mandatory detention is necessary. This paper examines these claims and their consequences, providing an ethnography of control used to produce a new border. Building on Foucault's analysis on the carceral continuum, it demonstrates how mandatory detention has turned the island itself into a prison. Based on fieldwork combining observation in detention centers with semi-formal interviews, this paper explores how the social construction of an island-prison epitomizes the return of borders.
