The prison gate opens. A different authority is waiting.

Two provisions connect them.

TCK 59 requires that a foreign national sentenced to imprisonment be reported immediately to the Ministry of the Interior, for assessment in connection with deportation proceedings — once a decision has been taken on execution of the sentence under probation or on conditional release, and in any event once execution of the sentence has been completed.

Article 54 of Law no. 6458 then lists those about whom a deportation decision is taken. The first category is those assessed as requiring deportation within the scope of TCK 59. Most of the rest of the list has nothing to do with a conviction: using untrue information or false documents in entry, visa or residence procedures; exceeding a visa or visa exemption by more than ten days; having a residence permit cancelled; working without a work permit; breaching the rules on lawful entry or exit; being found in Türkiye despite an existing entry ban.

Article 57/1 starts the first clock. Where a person within Article 54 is apprehended by law enforcement, the matter is reported immediately to the governorate so that a decision can be taken, and the assessment and decision period cannot exceed forty-eight hours.

An acquittal does not close this off. Article 54 does not require a conviction; it requires a category. A file that ended in your favour in the criminal court can still have produced the material on which a governorate concludes that you are a threat to public order.

A deportation decision does not by itself produce detention. Under Article 57/2, as amended in December 2019, an administrative detention decision is taken by the governorate only in respect of a person already subject to a deportation decision who falls into one of these groups:

• those who present a risk of absconding or disappearing;
• those who breach the rules on entry to or exit from Türkiye;
• those who use false or unfounded documents;
• those who, without an acceptable excuse, do not leave within the period granted to them to leave Türkiye;
• those who constitute a threat to public order, public security or public health.

For those groups the governorate does one of two things: it orders detention, or it imposes alternative obligations under Article 57/A. Where detention is ordered, the law enforcement unit that carried out the apprehension takes the person to a removal centre within forty-eight hours.

Article 58 says where they are held. Those under administrative detention are kept in removal centres — geri gönderme merkezi — operated by the Ministry of the Interior. The Ministry may also have them operated under protocol by public institutions, the Turkish Red Crescent, or public-benefit associations with expertise in the field of migration.

The practical consequence of that sentence is that a removal centre is not part of the prison estate. The staff, the rules on visits, the location and the internal regime are not the ones your family learned during the criminal case. Where the person was held last week does not tell you where they are today.

Article 57/3 is short. Detention in removal centres cannot exceed six months. That period may be extended by a maximum of six further months in one situation: where the removal proceedings could not be completed because the foreign national did not cooperate, or did not provide correct information or documents concerning their country.

Article 57/4 requires the governorate to assess every month, regularly, whether there is a necessity for detention to continue. Where it is considered necessary, the thirty-day interval is not awaited. Where continued detention is not considered necessary, it is terminated immediately, and alternative obligations under Article 57/A are imposed instead.

What this page cannot tell you is how long any individual file actually runs. The largest single factor is usually not Turkish at all: it is how quickly the person's own embassy or consulate issues a travel document. Until that document exists, removal cannot be carried out and the file sits inside the periods above. That timing is outside the governorate's control and outside your lawyer's.

Article 57/5 sets out what must be served. The detention decision, any extension of it, and the results of the reviews carried out every month are notified with their reasons to the foreign national, their legal representative or their lawyer. Where the person is not represented by a lawyer, they or their legal representative are informed of the outcome of the decision and of the procedures and time limits for objection.

Article 57/6 is the challenge itself:

• The detained person, their legal representative or their lawyer may apply to the magistrate's judge — sulh ceza hâkimi — against the detention decision.
• The application does not suspend detention.
• Where the petition is handed to the administration, it is transmitted to the competent judge immediately.
• The judge concludes the examination within five days.
• The judge's decision is final.
• A fresh application may be made on the ground that the conditions for detention have ceased to exist or have changed.

The last line is the working part of the article. There is no appeal against the judge's decision, but there is no bar on renewed applications where something has changed — a medical report that did not exist before, a verifiable address, a passport finally issued by the consulate, a monthly review that repeats the previous month word for word. A detention file is contested by repetition, not by one filing.

Article 57/7: those who take the judicial route against a detention measure and are unable to meet lawyer's fees are provided with legal assistance under the Advocacy Act no. 1136 — on request. Nobody makes that request on your behalf.

Article 57/A, added in December 2019, lists the obligations that can be imposed instead of detention on the same people described in Article 57/2, and on those whose detention has been terminated:

• residence at a specified address;
• reporting to the authorities;
• family-based return;
• return counselling;
• voluntary work in services of public benefit;
• a security deposit — teminat;
• electronic monitoring.

Where one or more of these is imposed, the period cannot exceed twenty-four months (57/A-2). And where a person falls within Article 57/2 but is not taken into detention, imposing one or more of these obligations is compulsory (57/A-3). The choice open to the governorate is detention or obligations — not detention or nothing.

That is the sentence a defence is built on. The argument is usually not that the person cannot be removed. It is that the ground actually relied on for detention — most often risk of absconding — is answered by something concrete: an address that can be verified, a person in Türkiye who will attest to it, a passport already surrendered, administrative fines paid, a medical file, a deposit. Detention grounds are findings, not facts. Findings are what a lawyer engages with.

Two things to know before choosing a deposit. Under 57/A-7, where a security deposit is imposed and the person does not leave Türkiye within the period — force majeure and unfinished court proceedings excepted — the deposit is recorded as revenue to the Treasury. And under 57/A-6, failure to comply with any alternative obligation can place the person back in detention.

Electronic monitoring has a challenge of its own. The person, their legal representative or their lawyer may apply to the sulh ceza judge against that decision; the application does not suspend the obligation; the judge decides within five days; that decision is final (57/A-5).

Article 59 lists what is to be provided in removal centres.

• Emergency and basic health services are provided free of charge where the person cannot meet the cost.
• Access to, and meetings with, relatives, a notary, a legal representative and a lawyer, and access to telephone services.
• The opportunity to meet visitors, the consular officer of the state of which the person is a national, and an officer of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
• The best interests of children are observed, and families are accommodated separately.
• Measures for the schooling of children are taken by the Ministry of National Education.

Representatives of civil society organisations with expertise in the field of migration may visit removal centres with the permission of the Directorate General.

Consular contact means something different here

In the criminal file, the consulate is a channel to your family and a check on how you are being treated. In a removal centre it is also the office that issues the travel document without which you cannot be removed and, in practice, cannot be released to travel. Contact with it can shorten the stay or lengthen it, depending on what is said and when. That is a decision to take with advice, not in a queue for the telephone.

Interpretation and what you are asked to sign

Article 57/5 and Article 57/A-4 both require notification with reasons and, where the person is unrepresented, information about the objection procedure and its time limits. What the law does not do is guarantee that any of it reaches you in your own language before you sign it. Documents put in front of you in a removal centre may include a voluntary-return declaration. Signing one is a decision about the rest of your file, and it is frequently taken by people who believed they were confirming receipt of a form.

The bill

Under Article 60/3, travel expenses of removal are met by the person themselves. Where their money covers the whole cost it is taken from it and the balance left to them; where they have no money the Directorate General meets the cost; where their money is not enough, the Directorate General pays and the part of their money above an amount set annually for basic needs is recorded as revenue to the Treasury. And so long as the expenses are not repaid, entry to Türkiye may not be permitted — a second barrier that sits alongside the entry ban and is not cancelled with it. Under Article 60/5, passports and other documents may be held until removal, and tickets may be converted into money for use in the removal proceedings.