Since late 2023, Turkish authorities have quietly begun operating a new layer of migration infrastructure: GÖKSEM centers designated as “pre-acceptance and referral” facilities for irregular migrants apprehended at borders or in interior enforcement operations. These centers are the first point at which migrants and potential refugees encounter the Turkish state where they are registered, screened and channeled toward removal, protection procedures or release. Yet GÖKSEM facilities appear nowhere by name in Turkey’s primary migration law, their number and locations are not officially disclosed and independent monitors have almost no access to them. Officially described as reception facilities rather than detention centers, in practice they confine people who cannot leave, often without interpreters, lawyers or any effective means of challenging their confinement.
This InfoNote provides an integrated legal and operational assessment of the GÖKSEM network. Drawing on Turkish legislation, civil society documentation and international monitoring reports, it examines the centers’ contested legal basis, their compliance with Turkey’s obligations under the ECHR, the Refugee Convention, and other international instruments, and the structural failures such as inadequate interpretation, degrading conditions and the absence of legal safeguards, that turn rapid processing into a serious non-refoulement risk. As the gateway to one of the world’s largest immigration detention systems, GÖKSEM centers demand transparency, independent oversight and genuine procedural guarantees. This report sets out why and what must change.
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